With me, as one of the teachers known to the community, was chosen to co-ordinate language classes when the Toowoomba Malayali Association(TMA) https://toowoombamalayali.org/gallery/Madhuram%20Malayalam,
a non-profit organisation formed to share the cultural values and join celebrations of community members hailed from South Indian state of Kerala, decided to start their new initiative “Madhuram Malayalam classes”. It’s main aim was to introduce Malayalam words, cultural heritage and traditional language concepts to the kids in the community who are residing in Toowoomba and have no connections with Malayalam, being their parent’s first language or mother-tongue.
I am enjoying each and every part of it, even though I am not an expert in Malayalam. You will find me not knowing any Malayalam words when I started my schooling and receiving report cards without any language proficiency at the beginning, just because I was exposed to Hindi than Malayalam as my childhood language. But now, if you ask me something in Hindi, you will be surprised, Hindi is not my favourite at all!! After years, when I got chances to spend my days in North India again, I’ve tried my best to communicate with my fellows in Hindi which wasn’t successful at all and had to change my medium of communication to English to effectively carry out my teaching practices, and just to avoid talking in Hindi language. I had always problems with languages, I should say. I still think its my confidence level, may not be the knowledge level, just like everyone else.
Where problem begins….
When we started language classes, there were different age levels in one group, even though the classes were grouped under their primary knowledge of Malayalam alphabets and concepts. At the start of the classes, most of the kids in the community attended classes, but there were issues due to a variety of reasons. Lack of regular attendance was the main reason-Parents found it difficult to drop their kids due to the nature of their shifts. Some kids just turned up whenever possible, but there were no regularity in their attendance which made the teachers to battle in keeping up with their lessons, resulting in low positive student learning outcomes. Just like every other languages, the alphabets needed to be learnt before they practice reading and writing. Due to the number of alphabets (56 and more) in the Malayalam and the writing of the letters was not easy as in English, kids, especially young students struggled to find a better way to practice. Parents needed to follow up with their regular practices including homework. Some parents did not care about assisting with their homework, thinking that it is not important as their school work. Additionally, there were other reasons such as underestimating the importance of learning Malayalam which was not a recommended in a foreign country. Some parents also thought, by learning Malayalam, their kids may fall behind in studies, and may achieve low educational outcome as expected of their school work. I found that the problem of cultural identity, racial prejudice and parental expectations are common in migrated population, but I was amazed by the number of parent supporters later who joined us in our attempts to get connected through language teaching and learning.
What worked and what not…
The support from the changing TMA committees, dedicated teachers and parents made a huge difference. When most parents decided to send their children on a regular basis, the classes were highly interactive and engaging. TMA committee also was very strict in not cancelling any classes due to lack of student attendance. Surprisingly, for the last few years, lot of students attended the classes regularly. Through adoption of different teaching methods including story time, and other interactive and blended pedagogical practices, students benefited from learning alphabets and associated words, they also started to engage in differentiated activities and participated in community driven events including a Drama. ‘Madhuram Malayalam’ students are now a strong community by making their presence in the major community events and proudly leading the programs in most of TMA triggered events. I think they start to feel that they belong to the community and would like to stay as strong advocates of Malayalam by interacting with others and communicating with community members confidently. Due to the challenges of Covid -19, the classes were on halt for few months, but resumed again in April 2022 with a greater number of enrolments where the students in the Senior group started to read and write in Malayalam, the speaking activities were introduced as well. The new students are now enrolled into junior group where they start to understand the basics through story based learning. The teachers are taking all their efforts to clarify dilemmas around different letters and sounds, and hopefully they will be able to make a huge difference in the lives of next generation while we take the efforts of grooming them by mediating through malayalam, accepting community feedback, frequent reflections and taking proper measures to face the challenges as we move forward .
The benefits of learning first language- my foot on Research
As a teacher and librarian, I tried to walk into the shoes of a researcher (not officially yet) and I have decided to make a step forward…to take up the challenge of digging deeper into locating resources and researching the implications of first language in the migrant community and their kids (we, being the first migrant generation and our kids on their transition generation). I found some interesting research results which is exciting and promising. This is what I want to share with you as I dig deeper into the possible answers of my questions related to the impact of first language in teaching and learning practices.
From the literature: The interactions with multiple languages enlighten the cognitive skills of an individual. Many studies have been done on the cognitive advantages of using different languages from birth(Huang, Ting ; Loerts, Hanneke ; Steinkrauss, Rasmus, 2022). Language users are influenced by a variety of factors, including phonemic coding ability, associative memory, grammatical sensitivity, and the capacity for inductive language learning (Baddeley 1992, 2003). Language comprehension, learning, and reasoning are all crucial components of the acquisition of multilingualism.
Another attempt ended up in finding the connections between the first language and its significance on cultural heritage. By involving in reading, writing, listening and speaking our mother tongue, we are able to explore our belonging, identity and the hidden potential of our culture and language through another lens. This is very crucial in finding the meaning and concept of our own home and its links to our fore fathers and traditions.
When we touch other elements such as reading books from diverse authors in our first language, we get a chance to glance through and feel the world in the eyes of someone from your culture or skin colour that will help us to understand, accept and embrace our culture influenced by a common heritage. When we make a visit to our country or talk to our relatives, the experiences that we go through en root our connection with our language and related people in the community. Exposure to first language, will seed such connections to enrich our experiences and expand our dreams to another horizon. I feel that our first language is the primary and basic root where we all are get to be nurtured, connected and flourished. Let us all extend our branches and embrace our culture through Malayalam or primary language which is the cornerstone of our cultural heritage and identity. We can share the love and care to next generations by being connected, and embracing culture. Let us promote language learning concepts by building up our cultural values and take every step to communicate in Malayalam confidently and thereby fill the gaps, so that we are the role models of our future generations.
To me, being bilingual,
*I will have the opportunity to make connection with different people speaking different languages
I can seek ways to contribute or help out by connecting my knowledge and thoughts
I will learn new things that spark/ motivate my thoughts when talking to friends, colleagues and my fellow members.
It will assist me to identify the gaps and adapt new knowledge and new culture
Helps me to accept the differences and inclusiveness
I can share the transferable skills from one culture to another
I will be able to support people to recognise skills and identify language barriers
I can gain confidence in juggling with different languages
I found that cultural knowledge helps establishing realistic pre-departure expectations and awareness of available alternative sources of encouragement ( Leiba-O’Sullivan, Sharon, 1999)
I will be adding more research findings here as I explore further on this topic.
Rendered On Pedagogist 