Aug 2026· Contemporary Voice of Dalit· 0 citations· 7 references
Abstract
Often, the medium of instruction in schools is considered to be caste- and class-neutral, especially when it comes to vernacular language. However, the caste and class orientation of language has not always been critically evaluated. This article traces how education shifted from community-driven pre-colonial schools to colonial administrative policies and look at how Sanskritized Hindi became the medium of schooling in India. The study details how organizations such as the Nagari Pracharini Sabha and the Arya Samaj and influential figures such as Acharya Ramchandra Shukla and Mahavir Prasad Dwivedi systematically purged the shared Hindi–Urdu continuum to create an elite linguistic standard. This constructed register was later institutionalized as a state ideology through Article 351 during the Constituent Assembly debates, displacing actual spoken mother tongues (
matrbhasa
) from the school curriculum. The article argues that this contemporary Sanskritized textbook language reflects the everyday life-world language of the upper caste and upper class. Consequently, students coming from the upper strata benefit more and understand the content better, while this language acts as a severe pedagogical obstacle for Dalit and working-class students. Ultimately, the study demonstrates that academic merit is an accumulation of different forms of capital like language, proving that merit is a naturalized myth.
Few subjects in Indian education carry as much historical baggage and present-day urgency as the teaching of English. It arrived as an instrument of colonial administration, was retained after 1947 as a language of law, higher education, and the civil services, and now doubles as a marker of social mobility for some and of exclusion for others. This paper traces how these competing pressures have produced, over roughly a century and a half, a layered rather than linear history of pedagogy: colonial grammar-translation gave way to mid-century structuralism, which was in turn challenged by the communicative movement of the 1970s–90s, and all three now sit uneasily alongside the multilingual, learner-centred orientation of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020. Rather than treating these as a tidy sequence of methods each superseding the last, the paper argues that they persist simultaneously, layered on top of one another in actual classrooms, because none of the underlying constraints that produced them — linguistic plurality, uneven teacher preparation, examination-driven assessment, and rural-urban resourcing gaps — has gone away. The review examines nine major models (Grammar-Translation, the Direct Method, the Structural-Situational Approach, the Bilingual Method, Communicative Language Teaching, Task-Based and Content-Based Instruction, the Eclectic Approach, multilingual/mother-tongue-based pedagogy, and technology-mediated instruction) against the specific realities of Indian classrooms, and closes by arguing that the country's diversity makes a single official method neither available nor desirable. What is available, and what the evidence supports, is a form of principled eclecticism: deliberate, trained combination of techniques rather than either nostalgic grammar-translation or an unreflective import of communicative orthodoxy.
Chandra Mukesh Swami (Assistant Professor)· International journal of re...· 0 citations
The role of language in education remains a contested terrain in postcolonial Africa, where the legacies of colonialism continue to shape national policies and classroom realities. In Nigeria, English functions as both the official language and the medium of instruction, particularly in primary schools, despite the country’s vast multilingual heritage. This paper interrogates the costs of privileging English in Nigerian primary education, examining its implications for learning outcomes, identity formation, and cultural continuity. Drawing on postcolonial language debates (Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Chinua Achebe, Ayo Bamgbose), sociolinguistic theory, and the Nigerian National Policy on Education, the study critically reviews policy documents, existing literature, and empirical reports from international organisations such as UNESCO and UNICEF. The analysis reveals a persistent gap in policy, which recommends mother-tongue instruction in the early years, and practice, where English dominates due to parental pressure, prestige, and lack of resources for indigenous languages. The paper argues that the dominance of English imposes significant costs: it undermines comprehension and learning, alienates learners from their linguistic and cultural identities, and reproduces structural inequities between social classes and regions. At the same time, it acknowledges the pragmatic role of English as a global lingua franca and a tool of socioeconomic mobility. By foregrounding the “cost” framework, this study contributes to the growing body of scholarship on language and education in Africa, presenting fresh insights into the intersection of policy, pedagogy, and identity in Nigeria. It concludes with recommendations for strengthening mother-tongue education toward inclusive and culturally rooted learning.
O. Idowu, Ibukun Rapheal Ogundeko· Journal of Language and Lite...· 0 citations
In Pakistani classrooms, the textbook usually is the lesson. It is often the only resource students and teachers have, which means whatever a textbook chooses to say about language, culture, or belonging tends to arrive largely unchallenged. This matters for English in particular, since English carries official status in Pakistan and is widely treated as a mark of modern, educated life. Yet how national identity gets built into English-medium textbooks specifically has drawn surprisingly little sustained attention. This study looks at two secondary-level textbooks used under the Punjab curriculum, English-9 and English-10, and asks two things: what elements of national identity dominate their content, and how are those elements represented. Working from social constructionism and identity theory, the analysis codes nineteen locally authored units against five categories: history, language, culture, sovereignty, and religion. Religion turns out to carry the most weight, and not as an isolated theme; it runs through the historical, linguistic, and political content as well, anchoring most of what the textbooks present as distinctly Pakistani. The resulting picture of national identity is coherent and pedagogically effective, but narrow, with limited room for the country's religious, ethnic, and linguistic diversity. The paper closes by considering what this means for curriculum designers, teachers, and students trying to read these materials critically.
Shagufta, Fakhar Alam· Journal of Language, Literat...· 0 citations
The teaching of African History in Brazil endured centuries of institutional silencing, which relegated the African continent to a secondary role in school narratives. For decades, teaching materials associated Africa almost exclusively with slavery, the slave trade, and colonization, reinforcing stereotypes of backwardness and dependency. Against this backdrop, this article investigates how History textbook collections for the final years of Elementary Education represent Africa and to what extent these approaches engage with decolonial education and the requirements of Law No. 10,639/2003. The main objective is to analyze how this subject is incorporated into these textbooks, identifying the persistence of Eurocentric perspectives, historical gaps, and possible paths toward a decolonial approach. This is a qualitative study of a bibliographic and documentary nature, based on content analysis of textbooks approved by the National Textbook Program (PNLD) and on the examination of regulatory frameworks such as Law No. 10,639/2003, Law No. 11,645/2008, the National Curriculum Guidelines for the Education of Ethnic-Racial Relations (DCNERER), and the National Common Curricular Base (BNCC). The results indicate that, although legislation has expanded the thematic presence of Africa, Eurocentric narratives persist, obscuring the continent’s historical, political, economic, and cultural diversity. This situation requires critical intervention by teachers in the classroom.
Carlos Eduardo da Silva Galante· Revista de Estudos Interdisc...· 0 citations
The rapid growth of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) has changed how English as a Foreign Language (EFL) is taught. However, there is still little research on how pre-service teachers use digital tools when facing serious material and geographic challenges. This study looks at the real experiences of pre-service English teachers at a rural private Islamic college in South Sumatra, Indonesia, as they used GenAI tools during their micro learning and teaching practicum. Using a hermeneutic phenomenological approach based on van Manen’s framework, data were gathered from structured, open-ended written reflections by all four students in the specialized track. The analysis found four main themes: (1) a shift in teaching beliefs from grammar-focused methods to Communicative Language Teaching (CLT); (2) the use of GenAI as a support tool alongside hands-on, non-digital adaptations, showing a digital divide within the group; (3) the Macro-Micro Paradox, where technical lesson planning with GenAI made classroom challenges more visible, especially due to teacher anxiety and student passivity; and (4) a change in professional identity from strict knowledge transmitters to flexible, empathetic facilitators. The study introduces the Macro-Micro Paradox, showing that while GenAI helps with lesson planning, it cannot solve the social and emotional challenges of real classroom engagements. These results indicate that teacher education programs should be re-examined to include digital empathic and technical skills, and that policy support is needed for underfunded faith-based institutions in the Global South.
Ayu Meiratnasari, E. W. Dewi· JOEY Journal of English Ibra...· 0 citations
Communicative language teaching has been adopted as the official orientation of English language curricula across much of sub-Saharan Africa, yet the conditions that the approach presupposes are frequently absent from the classrooms in which it is mandated. Tanzania presents a demanding test of the approach. English becomes the medium of instruction at the point of transition to secondary schooling, most learners arrive with limited command of it, Kiswahili functions as the national lingua franca alongside more than a hundred community languages, and classes are large while teaching materials are scarce. This review examines what can defensibly be claimed about the operation of communicative principles under these conditions, with particular attention to the material dimension of implementation, meaning textbooks, supplementary and authentic resources, and the ways in which such artefacts are used, adapted or circumvented in practice. Literature was identified through structured searching of multidisciplinary, education-specific and African scholarly sources, and evidence was appraised for design adequacy, transparency, contextual specificity and consistency with independent findings. Three findings emerge with reasonable confidence. First, the recurring account of failed implementation rests on a version of communicative language teaching that its principal theorists have long abandoned, so that documented departures from an activity template are weak evidence about communicative principles as such. Second, the material base functions less as a delivery vehicle for method than as a constraint that shapes which interactional possibilities exist at all, and locally developed language-supportive materials show promise that remains inadequately evaluated. Third, the Tanzanian evidence base is dominated by small qualitative and self-report studies concentrated in accessible regions, with almost no learning-outcome data and no replication. Priorities for research are identified accordingly, together with the design features that would allow the field to move beyond documenting non-implementation.
Stephen Syepwa Mwashihava· Asian Journal of Education a...· 0 citations