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

eading material in their own language about their own homes, neighborhoods and communities is feltto be “near”; reading materials about other people, in other places, doing and saying unfamiliar thingsis felt to be “distant.” Culturally distant literature is much more difficult for new readers than literaturethat is culturally near (cf. Malone, 2003). The workshop organizers reported the following (Geary, Geary,Long and Pan, 1999):“The goal of the workshop was to produce some written materials in Dong, especiallyfor children. Three kinds of material were produced. The first consisted of ‘Level 2 books,’slightly more advanced than ‘Level 1 books’ and actually easier to compose. Typically,these are stories about 10 A5-pages long 6 , with one or two sentences per page. Each pagehas a picture that accompanies and illustrates the text. The second genre was that of ‘bigbooks.’ These consist of stories about 20 A3-pages long, also with one or two sentencesper page. Each page of the text is illustrated by an A3-sized drawing on the facing page.The third genre was that of ‘listening stories,’ intended for reading aloud to the childrenand not (in the first instance) to be read by the children themselves. (p.2)”At a later workshop, in November 1999, a list of Kam cultural themes (one for each week of the schoolyear) aided the authors in writing the materials. These themes were based on a Kam cultural calendarthat had been developed earlier.Curriculum ContentThe Kam Multilingual Education Pilot Project began in September 2000 by adding a two-year preschoolto the already existing Zaidang Primary School programme. Five- and six-year old Kam children begintheir formal education with four 40-minute classes per day, two classes in the morning and two in theafternoon. Two of the four classes are Kam language classes, during which the children are introducedto the Kam alphabet and to reading and writing Kam. The instructional programme uses two tracks—astory track and a word-building track—with one 40-minute class for each track (adapted from Stringerand Faraclas, 2001).Programme organizers frequently find the task of developing instructional materials for a bilingualeducation programme among the most serious challenges to providing effective learning for the children.How can national language educators develop these materials in the minority language? The answer is,of course, they cannot. Then who can? The answer to that is simple: the minority people themselves.Drawing from the Kam community leaders’ and teachers’ expert knowledge of their language andculture, Kam programme organizers developed a wide range of curriculum and instructional materialsfor use in the preschool:• 160 stories based on Kam cultural themes written and illustrated for 1st -year preschool and 2nd-yearpreschool (320 stories all together).•100 stories based on Kam cultural themes written and illustrated for Grade 1, 100 for Grade 2, 90 forGrade 3, 70 for Grade 4, 40 for Grade 5 (projected) and 40 for Grade 6 (projected).6 A4 is a normal size sheet of paper. A5 is half as large as A4. A3 is twice as large as A4.[ 80 ]