Mother Tongue-based Literacy Programmes: Case Studies of Good ...

strategies have to be made contextually relevant and practicable. In this section, we briefly discuss theapproaches adopted by the projects.The project in Bangladesh focused on teaching through the Sadri language (mother tongue) in selectedprimary schools on the premise that offering education to children in Sadri would help them learn quicker.It also theorized that the children would then be better prepared to easily adopt Bangla following theircompletion of primary education in Sadri. Thus, it was clearly envisaged that children would learn bothSadri and Bangla in the early years of schooling, though Sadri would be the medium of instruction atthe primary stage. Considering the eventuality of “bridging” the two languages, the project chose theBengali script for developing literacy skills in Sadri.A different approach was adopted in Cambodia to develop the Bunong orthography for use in bilingualliteracy classes for youth and adults. Based on linguistic research done on Bunong dialect variantsand studies made on the phonology of the language, a conscious decision was made to adopt theKhmer script for developing the Bunong orthography. As mentioned in the case study, the choice ofthe script was made based on Smalley’s Maximums 1 (Parkhurst, 1993). The approach was to developlearning material on a low- cost basis so that the programme would be sustainable. The literacy classeswere organized at night in order to accommodate the work routine of the learners. Care was taken indesigning the curriculum to meet the expectations of the learners by incorporating components of lifeskills, improved practices of agriculture, basic knowledge of health and hygiene, and preservation oftraditions. Curriculum transaction was done through participatory methods involving reflections anddiscussions. Also, separate classes were organized for adults and young students to meet their varyingexpectations and styles of learning.In China,the Kam language is written using Roman letters, which is based on a system of using theRoman alphabet to write Chinese called hanyu pinyin. This existence of an accepted orthography for theKam language that had already been in use for nearly two decades facilitated faster implementationof the project. A Kam writers’ workshop for the project was organized to generate necessary texts andsupplementary readers for implementing the mother tongue literacy project. As the project focused onyoung children, it started by adding a two-year preschool programme to the already existing Zaidangprimary school programme. In addition, every day the five- and six-year-old Kam children attended twoKam language classes in the morning and two in the afternoon.The Rabha language programme was designed as an adult literacy project within the framework ofthe national programme of literacy implemented by the Government of India. The programme wasspecifically designed to impart mother tongue literacy to the ethnic minority group in Assam whospeak Rabha. The project adopted Assamese script (which is the state language in Assam) for readingand writing skills among the adult participants. The local District Literacy Committee implementing1 Smalley’s Maximums: (1) Maximum motivation among the speakers: The orthography must be accepted andapproved by the community, which is enthusiastic to learn it, to involve them in the process. (2)Maximum representationof speech: Accurately reflect the sounds of the language and peoples’ understanding of their languageto ensure no ambiguity in the written form. (3) Maximum ease of learning: Represent sounds of the language inthe simplest way to make it easy to read and write the language. (4)Maximum transfer to other languages: Scriptand spelling rules should be based on those of neighboring languages (most importantly the national language)in order to help learners transit from the mother tongue to neighboring languages. (5) Maximum ease of reproduction:Use minimum new or unusual symbols to avoid print problems. Ideally the language should be able tobe written with existing computer fonts.[ 15 ]