REDESIGNING LANGUAGE CURRICULUM AND PEDAGOGY TO MEET THE CHALLENGES OF A MULTILINGUAL INDIA

In our country, formal education is unavailable to many minority language communities living in remote and inaccessible areas. The “right to education” becomes illusory and as a result they have access to only “non-indigenous” forms of education. The risk of misunderstanding or ignoring the tribal or indigenous cultures or portraying them in a negative manner is inherent in mainstream education. The result is a cultural mismatch between the indigenous languages and the dominant languages of instruction due to which the learners cannot relate to the curriculum materials and the classroom interaction and instruction styles. Teaching methods are also unrelated to cultural learning styles. In the light of this, the need of the hour is to redesign language curriculum and pedagogy to meet the challenges of a multilingual India.