English Language vs Mother Tongue

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ENGLISH LANGUAGE VERSUS MOTHER TONGUE- THE BETTER MEDIUM OF INSTRUCTION 5/3/2013 SUBMITTED TO: Ms Ayesha Munawar SUBMITTED BY: Amina Serajul Hai Saba Maqsood Sana Saleem COURSE: English II MAJOR: Economics Semester 2 Language is an integral feature of educational practice in the classroom. The language used in the classroom dramatically affects children‘s opportunity and ability to learn. When curriculum content is presented in an unfamiliar language, an enormous amount of time must be spent first teaching children to understand, speak, read, and write a foreign language, something that is extremely difficult and wastes valuable years in the early grades that could be spent learning to read and learning academic concepts in the mother tongue. Moreover, children who cannot understand the language used in the classroom, are unable to demonstrate what they know, ask questions, and participate. In contrast, providing children with an opportunity to learn in a language they understand i.e. their mother tongue—starting on the first day of school—confers significant advantages for the education system, teachers, parents, and students. A recent review of research reports on language and literacy concludes that becoming literate and fluent in one‘s first language is important for overall language and cognitive development, as well as academic achievement. Evidence from Cameroon, India, Mali, the Philippines, South Africa, Vietnam, and elsewhere attests to the benefits of learning in a familiar language. First, children learn to read faster if they speak the language of instruction, because they already have a repository of vocabulary, knowledge of the linguistic construction of the language, and the ability to pronounce the sounds of the language. This prior knowledge

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