This article focuses on the ever-increasing stress on multilingual education (MLE) in policy documents, especially its pairing with mother tongues in education (MTE). This focus brings into relief the relationship between MTE, the preservation of linguistic diversity and social democracy. We argue that the outcome of this relationship crucially…

In a highly multilingual country like India, challenges and opportunities arise in education and language policy. Although multilingualism is often associated with developmental advantages, Indian primary school children generally show low learning outcomes, specifically on literacy. Here we examine the influence of mother tongue education and…

The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 marks a significant shift in India's educational framework, particularly with its emphasis on multilingual education (MLE) and mother tongue-based instruction (MTI). Recognizing India's vast linguistic diversity, the policy advocates for teaching in the mother tongue or local language until at least Grade…

This paper analyses the issues and challenges of linguistically diverse English Language Teaching (ELT) classrooms in India. In India, the English language is not the first language; the majority of them speak Hindi or their state languages. Due to this concern, numerous questions are arising for teachers, such as (a) How many languages and which…

Thomas Babington Macaulay's 1835 minute on Indian education is widely held to be representative of the views which underpinned the English East India Company's replacement of Persian with English as the official language of administration in India in 1837, and the promotion of English and Indian vernacular languages as part of colonial educational…

Scholars have long critiqued points of view in which monolingual perspectives are seen as normative in research on multilingualism. In relation to this "monolingual orientation," however, in which monolingualism is perceived to be the implicit norm, less work has been dedicated to methodological challenges. As disciplinary perspectives…

This paper proposes a framework for multilingual language-in-education policy implementation, offered as a critically constructive response to India's recent "National Education Policy 2020" (GOI, 2020). Rooted in India's existing educational language policy, our linguistically inclusive 'Languages for Learning' (LFL) framework is, we…

This paper examines how language-based artificial intelligence is envisaged to imagine new futures for indigenous languages. It draws on the visions, programmes, and plans of six language initiatives that are developing language technology for often-marginalised indigenous, tribal, and minority (ITM) languages, such as Gondi, Maithili, Rajasthani…

Linguistic landscaping (LL) is an emerging field of Sociolinguistics exploring the language in its textual form in public sphere. This paper investigates the visibility and prominence of languages in the public space of Patna, the capital city of Bihar, India. A total of 10 city neighborhoods are chosen for the study. The corpus of the study is…

The study aimed to explore the indigenous language of Gujjar and Bakerwal tribal communities of district Ganderbal of Jammu and Kashmir, India. The design of the study is qualitative in nature. The researcher employs purposive sampling in selecting the sample. The researcher surveyed 81 Gujjar and Bakerwal households and interviewed 22 (19 Male…

In a multilingual classroom, students come from diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds. They bring various cultural experiences, knowledge, and linguistic resources with them, however, most of the time, these resources remain unutilized as the medium for discourse in the classroom is often the dominant language. As a result, minority…

Translanguaging, the dynamic use of multiple languages, offers a transformative approach to English Language Teaching (ELT) in multilingual classrooms. This study explores the impact of translanguaging on language acquisition and social-emotional learning (SEL) among multilingual learners. Seventy-five participants from rural colleges in Salem…

The Mother Tongue Based Early Learning and Parents+ Programme ran from 2016 to 2021 (having been extended due the COVID-19 pandemic) in the state of Odisha, India -- a partnership of the state government's Department of Women and Child Development, Mission Shakti and the Bernard van Leer Foundation. As described in this report, the programme…

The present research study was undertaken to evaluate the Mother Tongue Based Early Learning and Parents+ (MTELP+) Programme which commenced in 2016 in the state of Odisha. The MTELP+ programme was implemented by Programme Management Unit (PMU), which was setup by Department of Women and Child Development and Mission Shakti, Government of Odisha…

The Asia-Pacific region hosts the largest number of refugees and displaced people in the world, and is the place of origin for nearly half of all international migrants. However, data related to the unique language-in-education needs of refugee and migrant children in and from this area is sparse. The report aims to create a stronger knowledge…