Multilanguage: A Tool for Grabing Opportunities

Multilanguage: A Tool for Grabing Opportunities

Bon Ami Laishram

Ethinic dialect or language is always  the first language for all and almost every section of the society proudly speaks their ethinic languages in the public gathering representing their cultures and heritages. This is good for some representatives of people but for the common people to communicate in the multilingual diverse country like India; a common language has to be used to communicate in effective manner among people from different ethinicities.

Communication barriers create misunderstandings between the parties while dealing with a matter and hence resulted in conflict which may not have an end. There is lost-lost situation at the both side if such scenerio arises. Therefore, the educational bodies like the Central Board of Secondary Education and other state education governing bodies have been setting up the curriculum by making English subject and Hindi subject compulsory till 12th Standard in every English medium schools in the country. The schools under the International Council of Secondary Education and some other state boards have kept French as one of the optional subject which the students in secondary and higher secondary sections can opt for.Most of the state boards have limited Hindi Paper till 8th Standard only.

English is fine for almost everyone belonging either to the remote side or urban side whohave been exposed to educational ecosystem ,however, Hindi subject is curse for some section of students in the regions except the mainland and the Northern region of the country. Students find difficulties in coping up with the subject and they get hesitated as the result. They are taught how to get away with the paper in the exam. They are not trained in either writing or speaking, they are trained to identify what the questions mean and cramp the answers to the questions and pass the exams. These are the usual practice in the North Eastern India and some parts of the Southern India as well. Consequently, ignorance leads to a huge gap in the future.

In the world of cramping Hindi answer and identifying the meaning of the questions asked, there are still few sections of students who actually make efforts to learn, read and write the ingored language through classroom activities, movies, TV series and so on. And they succeeded so far. They don't face any linguistic problem while staying in the national capital or other parts of the country. Some are aslo putting efforts towards learning other European languages like French, German, Spanish and Asiatic languages like Japanese, Chinese to make themsleve the multilingual individuals.

Its very important to be multilingual these days. Limiting to only native language and English won't serve the purpose of being the global citizen in the future. Language can sort out and work out everything in peaceful manner. For instance, an social activist who has been cycling from Kashmir to Kanyakumari with the message of saving water in the planet was accused by a localite in Gujarat for winking at his daughter while he was passing the traffic signal. Actually, he was listening music on his earphone and was reacting to the beat of the music. Coincidently, the father misunderstood and came on the side of his daughter's prestige. The father gathered locals around and complained about the ugly incident of eve teasing which was not in the reality. However, the activist who lacks fluency in Hindi language failed to clear the misunderstanding and hence became eve teaser in the eye of the public gathered around. And later ended up with questioning the hospitality of the Gujarati community and slaming the whole comminity for a simple misunderstanding which he failed to clear due to lack in fluency in Hindi language. Above all these , he was on the Pan India activity with a national flag but end up triggering hatred among the communities just because he was listeninng music , enjoying the beats, acting on the beats and weak in communication skill. He did not even keep the prestige of the natinal flag which means unity at the large extent. This is what happened if people are not multilingual in this high time.

Now, the steps to be taken up by the educational borads and the schools under them is to shape the strategy to induce Hindi langauge along with English language on their students. The students are needed to be introduced and trained in other foreign languages apart from English like French, Spanish, Japanese, German, Italian, Chinese etc to make the students the multilingual individuals and the global citizens. The schools are charging higher fees these days and they should be providing the services and quality education as per the fees they charged. The schools should introduced department of foreign language and extra cocurriculum activities should be conducted periodically to enhance the interpersonal skills of their studemts. Soft skill classes and personality gromming classes should be the part of the school curriculum.

Its high time. Scoring only good marks in HSE is not good enough. The young generation is the future of the nation and the globe as the whole. Hence, they are required to be more effective in this high time to represent the country and contribute in building the world a happy place to live in the future.