Bilingualism

Publisher:Navakarnataka Publications, Embassy Centre, Crescent Road, Bangalore-560001 E-mail: nkp@bgl.vsnl.net.in(First edition) Second edition under print

HOW TO TEACH YOUR CHILD ENGLISH AND KANNADA

(Bilingual: English and Kannada)

Price:Rs. 40-00

fdfdsU.S. $. 4-00

Publisher:Krithi Publications II Floor Pallikere Complex Managalore - 575001

1. THE BILINGUAL MASTER: The Bilingual Master sets down a series of lessons with the help of which one can gain mastery over the use of English both in speaking and writing. This book can be used by one who has had some 8 to 10 years of schooling in English as the medium of instruction or just as one of the subjects of study. The bilingual format used in preparing the lessons in this book enables the learner to master both English and the mother tongue simultaneously. The book shows how competency in using the mother tongue is complemental to mastering English. The other language used in this book is Kannada, the language of 550 million people in Karnataka, one of states of India. This book comprises all the topics concerning the use of language in speech and writing. It exhaustively deals with grammar and its application in both English and Kannada. As part of the study of language, it also provides an introduction to the prose and verse of both the languages. The method used in this book for mastering both English and the mother tongue, with equal importance to both, can be used anywhere in the world. The grammar and linguistic characteristics of one language are different from those of another language. So a scholar who is willing to prepare the book for publication with the version of his language in the place of the Kannada part in this book, has to prepare the lessons in the pattern of the original Bilingual Master. In such a version, the English part will remain as it is, and, his work will take the place of Kannada. Of course, certain parts in Kannada can be translated into any other language with the guidance of the original author. But other parts should be scholar's own writing based on the pattern of the Bilingual Master. For example, in the Hindi version, instead of the Kannada part, there will be the Hindi part, but the scholar has to change the lessons according to the nature of the Hindi language

2. PARENTS AS EDUCATORS: It is not at school that where the child is educated. He is educated at home. A teacher who has more than 50-60 children in his charge does seldom see 'the child'. He teaches ‘the class’. He may casually talk to a child only occasionally. That is not enough to be considered 'individual attention'. Individual attention to children does not merely mean questioning them on the learning items traversed. It is almost impossible for any teacher to pay individual attention if the number of children in the class exceeds 30. What the best the teacher can do is to try to teach them well, and, school experience for the children can at best be only 'learning of the subjects in the syllabus'. There is no education in that process. Even if there is, it is only of minor importance, because for the young or the old, education is an individualized process, not a collective process. Those parents who are conscious of their duty, try to give their child what is popularly called 'the best education' by getting them admitted in 'the best school'. But how do they know what is meant by 'the best education' and ‘the best school’ unless they are well informed about what education really means in the making of an individual’s life? Many parents think that the best way to ensure this is by getting their child admitted in the most prestigious school. Some spend even a couple of lakhs of rupees for admission and several thousands every year thereafter. Parents fail to take into account the fact that the teacher has to deal with a class of fifty or sixty pupils. The number may be even greater in some of the so-called ‘best schools’. Is it possible even for the most efficient teacher to ‘educate’ a group of 50-60 children in a period of forty minutes in a day for five days a week? Parents, probably feel, that by sending their wards to the so-called best of schools, they have freed themselves from the burden of educating them. The teacher-pupil contact is almost absent in the present day educational system. Teaching and learning in schools has become too impersonal and mechanical to be called ‘education’. Today the student’s brain is considered as a container into which the stuff of the book is uploaded in the classroom and downloaded in tests and examinations. The only purpose of this extravagant exercise is to give him the best certificate to secure the most remunerative job! Can we call this ‘education’? This and many other issues are discussed in this book. Parents must realize that they have their ward in their care for about eight hours each day, excluding the time spent by him for sleep and to ferry to his school.

PARENTS AS EDUCATORS is an outstanding work in the field of parent education. It shows how parents can provide their children with excellent educational opportunity whether the school is elite or not. Some of the issues discussed in this book are: *Does the child get ‘the best education’ in the most prestigious school’? *Can’t parents become better teachers than schoolteachers? *What does discipline mean to a school-going child? *How much does the child need a teacher? *How can the parents try to expand the learning experience of their child? *How to create a real learning mind? *How to make home a school, too?

3. HOW TO TEACH YOUR CHILD ENGLISH AND KANNADA Besides laying down in detail methods of mastering both the languages simultaneously in the bilingual way, this book can help you learn to read a new language without any effort. Specifically, it shows a method of learning a new script of a language in no time if you speak and understand that language but cannot read it. Today we find a large number of families living far away from their motherland. They continue to speak the mother tongue at home. Though they can efficiently use it in oral communication, they are unable read books and magazines in it. This book presents the method of mastering the script just in a few hours of time. With a little guidance of the elders who have learnt writing the script, the members of the younger generation can also learn to write it. It also shows the method of teaching a child to read and write fast from the very beginning without learning the alphabet letter by letter.