Case Study

Introduction

Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan was established in 1993 in Manchester to provide opportunities for Indian and other local communities to learn Indian languages such as Gujarati, Hindi, Telugu, Malayalam and Sanskrit as well as dance, music, drama and yoga.

They welcome learners from all nationalities. About 170 children and young people and 30 adults attend the supplementary school classes. The school fills a gap in the provision of community language teaching in the area, as many Indian parents feel that maintained schools are unwilling or unable to teach Indian languages to their children. There are, however, mainstream schools who do teach these languages but they are not in the right catchments area for parents in this particular part of Manchester.

The supplementary school always tries to meet the demands made by parents in the community. They were recently contacted by a Malayalam (South Indian) community near Stockport and within 2 weeks they were able to establish Malayalam language classes attended by 13 pupils. They have also had requests from the Bengali community to teach Bengali but due to insufficient numbers to start classes this initiative has been put on hold.

Teachers are selected for their commitment and expertise in each language. None of the teachers have British Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) but they are all CRB (Criminal records Bureau) checked and they attend CPD (Continued Professional Development) sessions relating to educational issues in the U.K.

Background to the role play

According to Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, the basic principle of good primary practice is to take skills the child brings into the classroom and develop them further.

The teaching strategy in this case study targeted 4 children, aged between 10 and 12 years old, who were proficient in English but had had little or no opportunity to learn their mother tongue, Gujarati.

Often, the child will arrive in the language class with some basic understanding of Gujarati words which they have heard at home, but they completely lack the confidence to speak in class.

The role play activity

As the children hardly speak, read or write Gujarati, the teacher used role-play activities as a method to support the development of the children’s oral skills as follows:

The teacher starts off by explaining the topic of the role play to the children in English: You are talking to your grandmother about your new school.

The teacher goes through each utterance in the 4-line role-play to ensure that the children have the key vocabulary needed in Gujarati. The following words and phrases are written phonetically, as the children have not yet learnt the Gujarati alphabet, on the whiteboard for reference.

1. tamaari navi shaala kya che? – Where is your new school?
2. ketla vaage sharu thaay?- What time does it open?
3. tamaro ganvesh shu che?- What uniform do you wear?
4. tamaro mangamto vishay shu che? – What is your favourite subject?

New words for the child taking part in the role play
1. School – shaala
2. Near the shops – dukaan ni baajuma
3. Near the the library – pustakalay ni baajuma
4. 8.50 a.m – savaare aanth ane pachaas vaage
5. trousers – paatlun
6. shirt, tie – khamis, tie
7. Favourite subject – mangamto Vishay
8. Mathematics/ English/history – ganeet/ angreji/itehaas

Working in pairs, one child takes the part of the grandmother and asks the questions and the other child is the new student who answers her questions. Each pair prepares the role-play in an agreed amount of time, 20 minutes in this case, and then presents the role-play to the teacher and rest of the group.

The teacher explains that the role-play will be in Gujarati and will run as follows:
1. Grandmother asks where the new school is
2. New student - say what your new school is near to

1. Grandmother asks what time school starts
2. New Student - say what time it starts

1. Grandmother asks what the uniform looks like
2. New Student - say what you wear

1. Grandmother asks what his favourite subject
2. New student – say what your favourite subject is

Successes and challenges

The teacher was able to observe the pairs’ language interaction. During the 20 minutes that the children planned their role-play without teacher intervention, the children were on task, speaking and listening to each other and using language for reasoning. There was genuine communication between the children in all their languages while there was a clear focus on the learning of Gujarati speaking skills. The children did have problems with the pronunciation.

Future plans

• Benefits and drawbacks of role plays will be discussed with other language teachers in the organisation.
• An assessment will be made as to the benefits of using children’s stronger language skills to support the development of early speaking skills in the target language.

Additional comments

Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan hopes that this approach may create what will hopefully be a healthy debate among mainstream school colleagues about the teacher’s use of English as a way of supporting/teaching speaking skills in the target language.

Generally speaking, among teachers of Modern Foreign Languages, the mantra for learning languages is to only use the target language, which they know works well when teaching languages like French and German. The Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan language teacher believes this is the case partly because French and German uses the same script as English and both languages enjoy a high status in the eyes of the learner and society as a whole.

Some of the community languages teachers have questioned this mantra and adapted it slightly for their gain. They have been in discussions with mainstream school colleagues to try to make them aware that their method of teaching languages has proved very successful.

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