Designing Multilingual Classrooms: The Case of Tharparkar

Abstract

"Children's mother tongue is the optimal language for literacy and learning throughout primary school."
(UNESCO, 2008, 2018)
The mother tongue (MT) is the language in which children initially learn to think, communicate,
and understand. Scholars argue that it is vital to tap into the richness of a child's own language
before attempting to teach them another (Butzkamm, 2003; Cummins, 1993, 2000; Klaus, 2003;
Obondo, 2007; Williams, 1996). In developed and developing nations alike, educational systems
have begun incorporating mother tongue education into primary schools. However, adopting
mother tongue education in classrooms can present challenges. Research suggests that learning a
minority mother tongue can lead to reduced life chances for certain communities in the form of
systemic oppression and exclusion from society (Mohanty, 2008). Scholars argue that inequalities are
structured through language hierarchies; learning in one's indigenous language can further oppress
already vulnerable groups (Heugh, 2015; Mohanty 2012). MT education also proves to be difficult in
linguistically pluralistic environments where multiple mother tongues may exist within a single
classroom (Woldemariam, 2007). This disconnect between the academic impact and societal impact
of MT education complicates our understanding of mother-tongue education in multilingual and
rural societies.
This paper aims to design a language education model for multilingual primary school classrooms in
rural Tharparkar, Pakistan. We argue that the best language model is one which acknowledges both
the academic benefit and the potential social repercussions of MT education. Furthermore, research
suggests that language models and policies should not be prescriptive, rather they should be created
in partnership with the community being impacted (Lazdowski, 2015; Tembe and Norton, 2008;
Peláez and Usma, 2017). Thus, we adopt a bottom-up approach as our methodology, creating a
language model based on the language usage, language perceptions, and language aspirations of the
Thari people. This language model is created with the people, for the people.