'Mind in Praxis': A Perspective Based Study of Multilingual Education
Submitted by:
Rohini Nag
Abstract:
Keywords: dialogic pedagogy, multilingual education, mediated mind
Apropos the title, Multilingual Education (MLE) is the site for this study that can be contemplated through the question of having one’s own Theory of Mind (ToM) across cultures that lead to the ‘roots of knowledge transmission through linguistic communication’ (Tomasello, 1999) erstwhile manifested in bridging the classroom and (indigenous) community knowledge systems in MLE pedagogy. Therefore an increasing importance for dialogical practices in education has been long-incumbent into a multi-language education system. Scientific literature now moves towards cultural and social origins of human cognition, defines human sociality and brings forth the importance of a communicative, interactionist and intersubjective approach in the fields of education (teaching-learning practices) in which ‘dialogism’ (Bakhtin, 1981) becomes an instrument for a democratic process of education. True to this proposition, language use in the form of mother-tongue based pedagogy in teaching-learning interactions, linguistic heterogeneity in the form of cultural and community interventions as recommended in the MLE paradigm ties both the ‘language use’ and ‘dialogue’ towards an information society (Rancionero and Padròs, 2010).
Theoretically this paper takes the Vygotskian (1934) approach to the mediated mind or the ‘mind in praxis’ that negotiates with the social intercourses of the human life; explores the Bakhtinian dialogic potential(s) in the multilingual education paradigm as the two broad themes unfolding its way through the multilingual education paradigm. It is then that the MLE schoolscape in India, in its naturally multilingual classrooms attempts an inclusive form of pedagogical practice in five Indian states bridging the community and formal education together. To support dialogical interventions and translanguaging abilities of children, this paper undertakes a mixed-methodological approach, in a way to elucidate on the current practices and how they can be formalized for a possible instructional design to column the theoretical viewpoint.
With that purpose, examples will include data from categorical picture cue cards of relative situations shown to children from ages 6-9 of multi-grades to identify action verbs and complex sentences for them to maintain taught syntactic structures portraying a psycholinguistic space in the event of translanguaging. Additionally, teacher-interviews were questionnaire sought and a content analysis of their adaptive pedagogical techniques will be presented. It is to see whether syntactic and semantic coherency increases in dialogic practices, fosters critical thinking, empathy and conviviality amongst peers to stretch it a little further.The arch of this paper is theoretical with a few empirical projections that are a part of ongoing research and is divided in four sub-themes.
References
Bakhtin, M.M. (1981). The Dialogical Imagination. M Holquist Ed. Austin: University of Texas Press
Rancionero, S. and Padròs, M. (2010). ‘The Dialogic Turn in Educational Psychology’ Revista de Psicodidáctica, vol. 15, num. 2, 2010, pp. 143-162
Tomasello, M. (1999). The cultural origins of human cognition. Cambridge, M.A Harvard
Vygotsky, L.S. (1934). Thought and Language. E. Hanfmann and G. Vakar (Eds.). Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press