Namaste-Vanakkam: Tackling North-South Divide in Class

“Ma’am, they are speaking in Hindi only. Can you please tell them to speak in English.”

“Ma’am, in my group all are from Tamil/ Telugu Nadu so they crack jokes in their tongues. I feel left out”

The above are some of the dialogues that I hear constantly from my students, every academic year. Though the title of the article reflects the northern and the southern parts of our country, this write-up also encompasses the sentiments from other states. The feeling is mutual even when they are harboured against each other. I wonder whether only I have encountered this matter being a language teacher. Did other subject teachers experience this? No idea, may be yes, may be no. Atleast, being a language teacher and that also English one, makes me ponder on it a lot.

What do you mean by North-South Divide? When students belonging to a particular class tend to form a group based solely on their mother-tongue or home state and do not mingle with other state students, a divide in them is observed. As this divide is mostly seen amongst the north and south state students, I have termed this as a North –South Divide. One must note that this notion is also observed in students coming from other states too.

I have observed in classes that students from one mother-tongue and or a particular state, form a group in class and outside. First of all, students in all likelihood will sit in groups. The early signs of divide comes from here. They feel homely when they sit as per their home state. Whenever any teacher gives them a group work, their groups will be formed on those lines. Similar linguistic background will be the criteria scholars will consider on those occasions. Most of the times, teachers do not interfere in this group formation.

Scholars have to “communicate” or interact with each other for the completion of their work as mingling is unavoidable. It is also a noticeable trend amongst students to speak in their language rather than in the official language, English. All the students are not comfortable in expressing their thoughts in English. If some are good in doing the physical work or back end jobs or writing/gathering information then some are only good at speaking. This is how one can argue that learners will learn ‘teamwork’. But in this, a teacher can easily identify the disturbing trend of some pupils falling apart that is not able to gel together. They are also in the loss of learning the skill of teamwork.

Most of the students don’t socialize with other language groups. They are averse to these ‘other’ students. If students are observed carefully outside the classroom then you can see startling facts. Pupils will hardly hang out outside their circle. If they meet up in a café or a park, one can observe that class dynamics are observed here too. Social Platforms are no different either.

What are the effects of the language divide? Students who are not well in English become comfortable in their own mother tongue. By the end of their degree program they realize that they have not improved their skills, English being one of them. They do not utilize the sources or time when they were studying. Rejections in interview will be a tight slap or a wake-up call for most of the students. They will then sit down and start thinking one by one as to what wrong they did, what did the college not do for them, where all they could have worked  harder, etc. The last question will be the last thought that will come in their mind for most of them.

As teachers, what can we do to narrow down this North-South Divide? The first thing any teacher must pay attention is to how are students sitting in class? Do they always sit in the same group every class? If that is so then teachers must discourage it. There must be some system wherein students sit with each other with a different pupil like the ones followed in school where every day row wise students change their seating pattern. Moreover, teachers must mix the members of a cluster. No groups must be repeated for any activity both for a subject and others too. This is really a headache but if teachers patiently pay attention then mixing amongst students will happen in a healthy way.

Teachers must converse only in English even when they are tempted to speak in their mother tongue. This should be followed not only in class but also outside otherwise students will feel that their teacher shows partiality. They must encourage pupils to speak only in English and also simultaneously correct their ward’s spoken English. Students must be made aware of showing respect to other state people. This will happen only if they are guided appropriately in class. Group work are the starting point for learning all the skills together.

It is a waste of time if teachers complain by the end of their semester teaching that students can’t speak in English, write in English and can’t do a presentation properly. All these things can’t be rectified by a teacher alone. All the teachers must participate in student development right from the beginning of the academic year. It is tedious but not impossible. Teachers are humans. They cannot change herd mentality but can alter a bit of student’s thinking and behaviour. Hopefully, teachers manage to tackle the North-South divide in their respective classes.

Penned by – Livea Thekkekara Paul works as an English Lecturer at International School of Management Excellence, a leading private B-school in Bengaluru, India.

 

 

 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *