Language debate
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WHILE the literacy rate in Pakistan hovers around 68 per cent, an alarming 77pc of school-going children cannot read fluently by the end of primary school. Given that children aged between five and 16 make up 44pc of our population, these figures have serious implications. How we educate our youngsters and what we teach them becomes all the more relevant as our ageing population leaves the workforce.
Amidst the recent curriculum reforms and a revamp of competencies, the language of instruction debate remains unresolved. Traditionally, we have run multilingual education systems where pockets of communities have catered to the challenges of various ethnicities. We haven’t been able to devise benchmarks according to global expectations, neither have we done justice to unique learning requirements. And so the struggle continues.
With each school trying to incorporate some elements of English-language instruction along with translations into the mother tongue, coupled with textbooks that are mostly in English, there has been a chaotic derailment from learning outcomes. Numerous school teachers resort to instructing in the local language and expecting students to write answers and take assessments in English. Textbook content gets filtered largely because of translations, but more so due to the inability of teachers to break down learning into accessible goals.
There are countries, such as Finland, that have achieved high academic performance while encouraging multilingual proficiency. However, the critical tool to their success has been language immersion in English along with the study of other languages.
Immersion is important to equip students in language skills.
Our students take local and international board examinations in English, use technology in English, live in a country where the dominant legal language continues to be English and take up jobs where English language is a requirement for professional communication. They would need immersion to be equipped for the future.
Immersion requires a balanced acquisition of the four core language skills — listening, speaking, reading and writing in that sequence. Students are taught language through usage — not grammar drills. Students are encouraged to comprehend and communicate, not learn language rules. Teachers do not resort to translation but, instead, teach through context clues, prompting, questioning and monitoring understanding.
Immersion can now be facilitated through videos that teach correct pronunciation and contextualise learning through visuals. Reading can be supported through digital programmes. However, with technology, the teachers’ role is not diminished. Teachers must still create opportunities for students for speaking practice in the classroom, with clear goals and impactful feedback for guidance.
Textbooks that meet the global criteria of language learning, coupled with the teacher’s expertise, are paramount. Consistency and reinforcement of the core skills, culturally sensitive content and assessments, age-appropriate levels of difficulty and a supportive learning environment help develop students’ ability to absorb learning.
Many teachers resort to giving instruction that is broken into multiple languages, perhaps in an attempt to elicit responses from students who have learned to stay quiet and listen. This would be a coping mechanism at best — a desperate attempt to complete the unit or chapter in the given lesson time. Immersion requires active student participation in the language of instruction — in the language of the textbooks.
If students learn to depend on the teacher to translate content, they are forever unable to engage with the content without a mediator. Tuition teachers and desperate parents then become the mediators in a world where students have not learnt to work independently, nor learnt the tools to explore the content on their own.
Now that we have technology to support language learning, it is all the more important to turn to immersion to equip students in English language skills. Digital literacy, along with language acquisition, can empower our students to pave the way for improved academic performance, especially as textbooks evolve to enable learning by combining print and technology.
Language learning has also evolved to facilitate students through large language models, but these are subject to digital and creative skills as prerequisites. Besides, many marginalised communities will continue to struggle with lack of access. These can, however, be used successfully to help teachers enhance their own language instruction skills so they are better able to teach and develop their students’ skills in the target language.
The writer is an author, teacher educator and Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, UK. The views expressed are her own and do not reflect those of her employer.
X: @nedamulji
Published in Dawn, June 11th, 2025
