THE PRIMARY YEARS - IRC · The Primary Years vi: ^, . . i.e the Early Childhood and Primary stage. This stage which serves as the foundation for not only further stages of education

THE PRIMARY YEARSTowards a Curriculum Framework

Part II

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Ms Archana Shastri (Arts Education)Prof. Anil Vidyalankar (Teaching of Mother Tongue)Dr Minati'Parid^:êacHih:g...df-:Language)'i

Prof. S.K. Ram (Teaching ofEnglish)Ms Sushmita Malik (Teaching of Mathematics and

Teaching-learning with a Difference)

THE PRIMARY YEARSTowards a Curriculum Framework

Part II

Authored by

DALJIT GUPTA MANJU' JAIN

SAVITA VEKMA SUNIL KUMAR

USHA DUITA V.P. GUPTA

VENITA KAUL

Content Editing byVENITA KAUL

DALJIT GUPTA SUSHMITA MALIK

Of EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH AND TRAINING

October 1999Bhadra 1920

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© National Council of Educational Research and Training, 1999

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Foreword

HE National Curriculum Framework for Elementary and SecondaryEducation was brought out by the National Council of EducationalResearch and Training (NCERT) in 1988 following the National

Policy on Education (NPE) 1986 on the basis of an extensive participatoryexercise at both national and regional levels. This framework covered thestages from pre-primary to secondary and has been the reference pointessentially for all subsequent activities in the last decade in the area ofcurriculum development.The last decade has, however, also witnessed some significant developmentswhich have had a bearing on the school curriculum and have necessitateda review again of the curriculum framework. In 1992, the Committee set upby the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) to investigate thephenomenon of curriculum burden came out with its report learning withoutBurden which, in a modified form, was accepted for implementation at thestate level by the Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE). The reportraised the issues of relevance and load and strongly recommended review ofsyllabi and textbooks from these points of view. In 1990, the Minimum Levelsof Learning (MLLs) were brought out. by the Ministry of Human ResourceDevelopment for the primary stage of education. The emphasis in thisapproach has been on ensuring certain minimum academic standards andattainment levels across the country. Recent achievement surveys conductedby the NCERT and state agencies do not, however, present a very optimisticpicture in this regard indicating among other aspects, the need to relook atthe given MLL paradigm. At the primary stage while Operation Blackboardwas launched with a focus on improving the learning conditions in theprimary schools, multigrade teaching continues to be a reality which is likelyto persist for a long time to come. The existing curriculum framework doesnot address this aspect at all.On the global plane too. the situation in the last ten years has changeddramatically. With the rapid advancements in the area of communicationtechnology, the growing urbanization and various socio-politicaldevelopments, an imperative need is evident for the curriculum frameworkto be reviewed and updated to reflect the present-day concerns and prioritiesso as to gear itself to prepare the child for the demands of the coming decades.It is in this context that the NCERT has initiated the exercise of reviewingthe framework starting from the very lowest rung of the education ladder,

The Primary Yearsvi : ^ , . .

i.e the Early Childhood and Primary stage. This stage which serves as thefoundation for not only further stages of education but also as the foundationfor life, has its own character and flavour since it tends to derive its focusmore from the developmental status and personality of the child than fromthe dictates of the various subject domains. It is in this respect, it is verydistinct from the other stages of education which tend to be more dominatedby the various subject disciplines.Tlte Primary Years, which is being brought out in two parts is the outcome ofthis review exercise. It presents the consolidated views that have emergedon the directions in which the framework for the primary stage needs to berecast and which are based on the intensive deliberations and interactionwith many teachers, teacher educators, and representatives from Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and experts with long years ofexperience in primary education. It has been prepared essentially as adiscussion document with the hope that it. will stimulate the much-neededdebate and deliberation with respect to the primary curriculum not only interms of content and pedagogy but also with respect to the essential conditionsrequired to make this child-centred curriculum a reality on ground. Thiscould then form a part of the final "revised curriculum framework. It is,therefore, slated to be shared in a National Conference to facilitate andexpedite the process of dialogue and discussion.

I am grateful to all the members of the core committee whose invaluable advicehelped in giving shape to this entire exercise. I also appreciate the wealth ofideas that came our way through our interactions with the large number ofteachers from some of the states prior to the development of the document.The preparation of both the parts of the document The Primary Yearswithin a short span of ten months was possible only because of thecommendable diligence and enthusiasm displayed by all my colleagues inthe Department of Pre-School and Elementary Education (DPSEE) for whichI am very obliged to them. I am also grateful to my colleagues from theDepartment of Education in Social Sciences and Humanities, the Departmentof Measurement and Evaluation and the four Regional Institutes of Education(RIEs) for extending support when required.

I now look forward to receiving valuable feedback on The Primary Years notonly from curriculum framers but from all sections of society who have a stakein primary education and are keenly interested in ensuring that our childrenget the kind of quality education they so well deserve.

A.K. SHARMA • .

DirectorNational Council of Educational New DelhiResearch and Training 20 June 1999

Preface

HE National Curriculum Framework was revised in. 1988 keepingin view the resolutions of the National Policy on Education (NPE)1986. Along with other issues the NPE had also addressed the

issue of disparities in the standards of attainment of children andrecommended identification of the Minimum Levels of Learning (MLLs) foreach stage of school education. In 1991 the Ministry of Human ResourceDevelopment (MHRD) brought out a document Minimum Levels of learningat Primary Stage, which has since become the guiding force for all subsequentcurriculum-related activities at the primary level. The feedback received onthe implementation of the MLL programme brought to light some criticalconcerns related to both the concept and its pedagogical implications. Theseconcerns called for immediate review of the situation.

A seminar was organized by the National Council of Educational Researchand Training (NCERT) in December 1996 on 'Reviewing Priorities in PrimaryLevel Curriculum' at the Indian Institute of Education, Pune in whichrepresentatives of both Government and non-Government organizationsparticipated along with some international agencies. After intensivedeliberations the consensus arrived at was that there is a need for the NCERTto immediately take a relook at the curriculum framework for the primarystage in the light of the emerging concerns, The NCERT was advised tobring out a document proposing a revised curriculum framework whichshould also place the MLLs in the right perspective.

As a prelude to the preparation of this document, the NCERT constituted aCore Committee of professional experts in the area to guide the exercise ofrevision. The NCERT also conducted a series of interactions with primaryschool teachers from some of the states to elicit their views and understandthe needs of the situation in the field.The process that followed in developing this document has been a verystimulating and enriching experience for each one of the faculty membersof the Department of Pre-School and Elementary Education (DPSEE). Itinvolved six months of discussions and debates among the faculty membersand has. therefore, seen several stages of drafting and redrafting of themanuscript. In a nutshell, we have actually lived through the documentduring the past six months.

viit The Primary Years '\

I would like to take this opportunity to convey my gratitude to Professor JA.K. Sharma. Director and Professor A.N. Maheshwari, Joint Director, JsNCERT for their consistent guidance and support at every step in this effort.My thanks are also due to members of the Core Committee for their academicsupport in this venture. ,

' • • ; «

I would like to place on record my sincere appreciation of the valuable 1contribution made by all our colleagues from within the department, as :well as froin other departments of the Council and from the four RegionalInstitutes of Education in giving final shape to this document.1 would be falling in my duty if I do not acknowledge with gratitude theinvaluable support provided by Dr Daljit Gupta who efficiently coordinatedthe entire exercise at all stages of the development of this document rightfrom the inception to bringing it out in the present form.My grateful thanks are due to Ms Hema Tiku and Ms Krushna Panda forproviding assistance in production and Shri Shakambar Dutt, Smt PushpaVenkatesh, Smt Suresh Azad, Shri Vinod Kumar, Smt Meenakshi and ShriAshokKumarforbringingo.utthecomputeroutputofthisdocument. Butfor their vinstinted support it would not have been possible to make thisdocument a reality. •

VENITAKAUL .

Professor and HeadDepartment of Pre-School and • New DelhiElementary Education 29 October 1998

Part n at a Glance

ETXJS recall the opening words in Part I of the document, "If I cannotlearn the way you teach me can you not teach me the way I canlearn?". But how do we make the child's plea a reality?

In Part I we talked about the need for a child-friendly environment in theclassroom where the content, materials, teaching-learning strategies,assessment techniques are all designed with the 'child' as the focus andnot the 'teacher' or the 'subject' (discipline) as the main consideration.Part II talks about how to actually bring this approach into the primaryclassroom so that all the children can learn. It comprises six chapters.Chapter 1 provides glimpses of Part I of the document and abrief outline ofthe considerations/recommendations for framing the curriculum at the statelevel.

Chapter 2 provides the rationale for conceiving the area of EnvironmentalEducation which integrates for the first time EVSI and II, Health and PhysicalEducation, Simple Yoga Education, Work Experience, Value Education andTechnology, It defines the Expected Learning Outcomes, attainment of whichcan be facilitated through the identified key learning areas. In view of thearea being new, an attempt has been made to list out suggested indicatorswhich though not exhaustive would be helpful to teachers, authors ofinstructional materials and curriculum developers.Chapter 3 addresses the language curriculum in a comprehensive way. Itincludes not only teaching of mother tongue but also addresses the situationswhere children have to learn a school language which is different, from theirhome language. Responding to the current demands across the country italso includes issues related to teaching of English at the primary stage.

Chapter 4 provides the aims and objectives for mathematics teaching-learning at the. primary stage. This is followed by the concerns regardingthe teaching-learning of the subject as it exists today. Keeping these concernsin mind a new vision is reflected through the proposed learning areas,expected learning outcomes, suggested teaching-learning methods andmaterials and assessment techniques. Finally, how the subject can beintegrated with other curricular areas is also suggested.

The Primary Years

Chapter 5 provides the objectives of Arts Education, the concerns related tothe subject, some sample activities for the guidance of those planning artactivities for children and for the first time looking at integration within thearts as well as arts with other curricular areas. Children's interests andcapabilities have been kept in mind.Chapter 6 provides an insight into the multi-level approach to teaching-learning. This approach suggests use of a variety of materials, teaching-learning strategies, assessment of the child be it monograde ormultigradesituations. An integrated approach to teaching has also been brieflydiscussed to help the teacher and children to reduce the curriculum loadand make teaching and learning more meaningful.Epilogue marks the conclusion to the document The Primary Years that noexercise in curriculum development can be final or complete in itself, theprocess must go on.

This Document Contains

FOREWORD V

PREFACE vii

PART II AT A GLANCE , ix

Moving Towards the Curriculum J

Environmental Education 15

Teaching of Language 62

I. Teaching Mother Tongue 66

II. Language Other than Mother Tongue 93

III. English 100

Teaching of Mathematics 107

Arts Education 135

Teaching-learning with a Difference— 159A Multi-level Approach

EPILOGUE 180

APPENDIX I 181

.APPENDIX II 182

GANDHIJI'S TALISMAN

"I will give you a talisman.Wheneveryou are in doubt or when the selfbecomes too much with you, applythe following test:Recall the face of the poorest andthe weakest man whom you mayhave seen and ask yourself if thestep you contemplate is going to beof any use to him. Will he gainanything by it ? Will it restore himto a control over his own life anddestiny ? In other words,will it leadto Swaraj for the hungry andspiritually starving millions ?

Then you will find your doubts andyour self melting away."

*

1

.>.v

Moving Towardsthe Curriculum

N PRIMARY YEARS Part II an at-tempt has been made totranslate the major thrusts

of the proposed curriculum frame-work, as given in Part I, into morespecific guidelines for detailed cur-riculum development.

In this chapter we will recall, for thesake of easy reference, some of themain features of the proposed frame-work as given in Part 1. We willparticularly focus on those featureswhich have guided the detailing ofthe different curricular areas. In thiscontext therefore, we will discuss thefollowing:• The Conceptual Framework• The Major Changes Proposed• Shift from MLL to ELO• The Four Curricular Areas• From Framework to Curriculum

The Conceptual Framework

The conceptual basis of this frame-work can be best described in termsof the main considerations that haveguided the revision of this curricu-

lar framework. These are mainly=> the vision that we have for the

'child' by the time she/he com-pletes primary education, interms of knowledge, skills, atti-tudes and values. This vision, asdiscussed in detail in Chapter 3

. of Part I, is based on* the thinking of our great Indian

philosophers and educationists whosaw the role of education as aim-ing towards development of thetotal personality of the child, bothas a productive and humaneindividual It also takes into accountthe current thinking reflected in arecent Unesco report which is intune with the Indian thought andwhich identifies the objectives ofeducation as the four pillars oflearning — learning to know, learn-ing to do, learning to live togetherand learning to be.

* the demands on the child from thepresent and the challenges in thefuture, keeping in mind the rapidtechnological, social and culturalchanges that are taking place, bothglobally and nationally.

I'limarij Years

=> The existing curricular concernsdetailed in Chapter I of Part I ofthe document, particularly theneed to

* ensure readiness to learn in chil-dren by viewing primary stage asa continuation of ECCE

* place MLL's in correct perspectivekeeping in mind multi-level class-room situations

* tackle the issue of information load* provide holistic and developmen-

tally appropriate learning* make learning relevant and inter-

esting for children* facilitate learning in the prescribed

medium of instruction keeping inmind the varied language contextsin the country

* refocus on value education* address field realities like multi-

grade schools and large classes* relate school to the community* address the needs of the girl child* address needs of children who are

differently abled=* Understanding of how children

learn which is largely based onthe globally accepted socialconstructivist viewpoint. Thispoints to the need to adopt achild-centred approach to teach-ing-learning, keeping in mind theIndian situation as described inChapter 2 of Part I of this docu-ment. Some of the major assump-

tions guiding this thinking are:children do not naturally absorbbut rather construct their ownknowledge through experiencesthat interest them.children come to school with analready collected fund of knowl-edge, skills and attitudes on whichall new learning should be builtand it should be related to theirimmediate context.

children's capacity to learn can beenhanced, if they are given oppor-tunities to interact with the teacheror more able peers in the classroomthrough discussion and sharing ofexperiences.every child can learn providedshe/he is allowed to progress ather/his own pace and follow her/his own style of learning, as eachchild is differently intelligent,ahled, and interested.the social context in which the childis placed determines to a largeextent how and in what way thechild will learn.children in this age are at a devel-opmental stage when they canunderstand and learn betterthrough concrete experiences andexamples involving active learningand thinking.children's learning is more spiralthan linear and therefore, childrenneed to handle concepts againand again at varying levels of

Moving Towards the Curriculum

complexity before understandingthem fully.

* children need to be helped to learnto handle their emotions and toadjust and adapt to different situ-ations in a positive muruier.

The Major Changes Proposed

While some aspects of the previousNational Curricular Framework(1988) continue to be very "importantand have been retained, somechanges have been suggested in viewof what has been discussed above.These major changes include:1. Reorganization of the Curricular

Areas for primary stage by merg-ing the existing six areas into fourareas with the aim of

* providing more holistic learning tothe child

* bringing the important areas ofwork experience, physical educa-tion, health and value educationlohich are otherwise neglected,more into the centre stage of thecurriculum by including them in thearea of Environmental Education

* emphasizing the importance of ArtsEdiu Uionfor the all round devel-opment of the child

* reducing curriculum informationload for the child and the teacherby minimizing repetition and over-lap.

The proposed areas are ;* Environmental Education to in-

clude EVS 1 and II, Work Experi-ence, Health arid Physical Educa-tion, Yoga Education, Value Edu-cation and Technology. WhilePhysical Education has been in-cluded in this area because of itssignificance for the child's wellbeing, its importance and theneed to give adequate time for itin the daily class schedule hasbeen particularly stressed.

* Language* Mathematics '* Arts Education, for which the time

allocation has been increased.Emphasis has also been placed oninterlinking and integration of ar-eas, as far as possible, in the courseof curriculum transaction.The teaching-learning time distribu-tion for each area is proposed as fol-lows :

Art Education15%

EnvironmentalEducation

35%

Language30%

Mathematics20%

The Primary Years

2. Level-wise planning and imple-mentation of the curriculum

With a view to provide for individualpace and style of learning, the cur-riculum framing is proposed at threelevels across the five grades and notfor each grade separately. The threeproposed levels are:Level I : Corresponds to / includesGrades I and II of the primary stageand is seen as a continuation of pre-school. This period is expected tofocus on initiating children intobasic habits, concepts and skills.Level II : Corresponds to Grades IIIand IV of the primary stage. Thislevel is seen as a period for rein-forcement/further strengthening andextension of learning.Level III : Corresponds to Grade V ofthe primary stage. This year is seenas a year that provides for consoli-dation of previous learning and readi-ness for the upper primary stage.

3. Linking of ECCE with primaryEmphasis has been placed on theneed to see primary education incontinuity with ECCE in terms of thecurriculum. In this context, theimportance of ensuring physical,cognitive and social readiness inchildren for formal learning of the3 R's has been highlighted. For chil-dren who come directly to grade Iwithout a good ECCE base, a schoolreadiness programme at the begin-ning of grade I is proposed.

4. Addressing the problem ofteaching of language which isthe medium of instruction insituations where the child'shome language is different fromthe school language

This aspect has been specially ad-dressed in this framework. While themother tongue or regional languagehas been emphasized as the me-dium of instruction for the primarystage, the need has been acknow-ledged to look at the above situationdifferently. The suggested approachfor mother tongue teaching rests onthe assumption that children alreadycome to school with some languagecompetence and skills. This assump-tion does not hold good in the abovesituation since the child has her/hisfirst exposure to the language ofinstruction only after coming toschool. An alternative approach tolanguage teaching which will helpthe child make the transitionsmoothly from home language toschool language has therefore beensuggested. In response to the emerg-ing trend of introducing English atthe primary stage, this aspect hasalso been addressed.

5. Reinterpreting MLLs as Ex-pected Learning Outcomes(ELOs)

In this framework as indicated inPart I also, the Minimum Levels ofLearning (MLLs) have been considered


merely as indicators for monitoring. progress in children's learning whichis also an indicator of school effec-tiveness.However, in view of the concernsexpressed in Chapter 1 of Part I ofThe Primary Years, we have termedthese not as MLL but as ExpectedLearning Outcomes and interpretedthem differently for the purpose ofimplementation for the followingspecific reasons :• Due to wide disparities in learning

conditions in (he country it is verydifficult to identify the 'minimum'which can be mastered by all.Also, if we reduce the level of thecurriculum for this purpose it maydilute the quality of educationalstandards further and only serveto widen the existing social inequi-ties. The disparities in academicstandards across the countrymainly arise from variations in thequality of learning conditions thatare available to children. The efforttherefore should be not to lower theacademic standards to suit, theselearning conditions but to improvethe learning conditions themselves.

• The concept of MLL, as previouslyinterpreted, is derived from abehaviouristic framework. It doesnot conform to the proposed Childcentred approach which is fo-cussed on differences in indi-vidual pace and style of learningand aims towards the develop-ment of all round development of

the personality of the child. Thelearning outcomes thus expectedfrom the child-centred approachcannot, therefore, be necessarilymeasured in quantitative terms.

• The MLLs as given, were limitedto measurable outcomes. Sincethe aims of education as derivedfrom the four pillars of learningin the proposed framework in-clude cognitive, psychomotor andaffective domains, the scope oflearning outcomes also needs tobe broadened.

• While the emphasis in the previ-ous interpretation of MLLs for im-proving the quality of learning isjustified, it is neither desirablenor reasonable to fix quantitativetargets for mastery level since :

• all outcomes, particularly theones relating to the affectivedomain do not lend themselves tothe concept of 'mastery'

• fixing quantitative targets is likelyto make the curriculum more 'as-sessment centred' and thus nar-row in scope

Q it will limit the expected outcomesto only the measurable ones.

The Proposed CurricularAreas

Environmental Education

In the proposed framework, Environ-mental Education has been concep-tualised in a broader, child-centred

The Primary Years

perspective to ensure more holisticand meaningful learning to thechild and reduce information load.The four areas identified in the ex-isting framework as Health andPhysical Education (including Yoga),Work Experience, EnvironmentalStudies I and II along with the areasof Value Education and Technology-have been integrated into one cur-ricula! area, keeping the child asthe central focus. The content ofthese curricular areas has beenprioritised and integrated using thecriteria of relevance of the contentto a child's life, particularly in thecontext of the aims of primary edu-cation.

Language

Language has been considered as ba-sic to the entire curriculum since itis an integral part of all curricularareas. The mother tongue or re-gional language has been recom-mended as the medium of instruc-tion at the primary stage.However, in view of the wide diver-sities seen in our country, it is anaccepted fact that a very large num-ber of children do not get an oppor-tunity to study in their mothertongue at all since their home lan-guage is often quite different from theschool language. Also, with the ris-ing demand for English to be intro-duced at the primary stage from thecommunity, many State governments

are considering introducing it at theearly primary stage.The proposed framework for LanguageCurriculum therefore takes all thesesituations into account. It has beendeveloped in three parts. The Teach-ing of mother tongue forms themain core of the chapter since itcontains the details of the objectives,content outline, guidelines for teach-ing-learning processes and assess-ment in teaching a language. Inaddition to this the other two partsrelate to :Teaching of language when homelanguage is different from theschool language: For this situationan alternative approach is suggested,particularly at the initial stage,which will help children not onlystrengthen their own home languagebut also make a smoother transition,in terms of medium of instruction,from the home language to theschool language.Teaching of English which isrecommended to be introduced ifnecessaiy, not before Level II as anew language but not as the mediumof instruction at the primary stage.It is emphasized that it should be in-troduced only if necessary facilitiesare available in the school for teach-ing it.In terms of objectives of languagelearning, the proposed frameworkemphasizes the development of allthe four skills of listening, speaking,


reading and writing. It also laysemphasis on helping children developthinking skills through the languagecurriculum. It also stresses the needfor any language teaching to focus onthe three C's — comprehension, cre-ative use of language and confi-dence in using language in differentsituations in daily life.

Mathematics

In mathematics, there is a renewedemphasis on development of under-standing of concepts and problemsolving abilities in children and notmerely on development of algorithmicskills. The proposed framework, inthis context, stresses the need toenable children to not only enjoymathematics but also relate math-ematics learning to daily life situa-tions.

Arts Education

Arts Education has been given anadditional 5 per cent of time alloca-tion in the proposed framework thusmaking it 15 per cent of the total in-teraction time. The need to integrateit where possible with other areashas also been emphasized with theobjective of getting it a more centralplace in the curriculum. Stress hasbeen laid also on providing the childopportunity for art experiencesthrough integration of different artforms rather than through each artform in isolation. As in the previousframework, this framework also

stresses the need to provide the childwith an environment which is con-ducive for encouragement of expres-sion and creativity. While also devel-oping in him/her a sense of aestheticappreciation. Arts is also seen as pro-viding the child an avenue for emo-tional release.

Teaching-learning ProcessKeeping in view the vision for thechild at the end of primary stage, amulti-level and child-centred ap-proach to teaching-learning has beensuggested in tune with the socialconstructivist theoretical framework.Emphasis has been placed on plan-ning activities and tasks to matchthe developmental status and char-acteristics of children's learningwhile also bringing in flexibility tocater to individual pace and style oflearning. Although the frameworkrecommends activity based teaching-learning it also points to the need tomaintain a blend of old and newmethods since different methods fitbetter for different, purposes. Criteriafor selection of teaching-learningstrategy suggested include :

• objectives to be achieved

• nature of curricular content

• learner's capabilities

• availability of time and resources

• organizational climate

• teacher preparation

10 The Primary Years

Suggested teaching-learning strate-gies include projects, surveys, dem-onstrations, educational games, roleplay, problem-solving activities,brain teasers, creative writing, quiz,songs and story telling, group/paireddiscussions, experimentation, induc-tive-deductive teaching, meta learn-ing activities with concrete material,etc.

A child-centred classroom is de-scribed in the framework as onewhich should :• be democratic in climate so that

children can share ideas and ex-periences freely with each otherand. with the teacher

• provide children active learningexperiences and not just an activ-ity for activity's sake

• reflect planning of programme andits monitoring jointly by teacher andchildren

• provide opportunities to children, fordiscussion and reflection in groupsand with the teacher with respectto different learning areas as partof the learning process

• be flexible to provide for a multi-level approach.

AssessmentThe emptiasis on making assessmentcontinuous and comprehensive andconsider it to be an integral part of theteaching-learning process has beenretained from the existing curricular

framework. Assessment is seen as ameans of improving the teaching-learn-ing process by identifying every child'sstrengths and weaknesses and. build-ing on the strengths to help with theweaknesses. In view of the fact, thatchildren can be differently intelligentassessment has been recommended togo beyond paper pencil tests to includeoral assessment, performance basedassessment, observation, anecdotalrecords etc. Self-assessment by child-ren has also been emphasized. Impor-tance of making assessment, diagnos-tic and providing teachers with diag-nostic test items to make their taskeasier has also been suggested.

Teaching-learning TimeThe proposed curricular frameworkis based on the assumption that, afterdeducting number of days requiredfor school functions, formal exami-nations if any, etc. in a year thereshould be at least 2OO days avail-able for effective teacher-taught in-teraction in the class. This has beensuggested despite the fact that it isa known phenomenon that a largenumber of classes in the country donot get to function for even 150 daysin a year, for various reasons iden-tified in Chapter 8 of Part I of thisdocument.As mentioned in the context ofthe MLLs, the expected learningoutcomes provide broad guidelinesor indicators for framing and

Moving Towards the Curriculum 11

transacting the curriculum. But theattainment of these outcomes islargely dependent upon the learningconditions available to children, ofwhich a very critical condition is thetime they get to spend with theteacher in any meaningful interac-tion. All possible efforts should there-fore be made to ensure that the stipu-lated number of working days areavailable to every school, throughbetter educational management.A primary school should normallyfunction for at least five hours a day,five days in a week. For facilitatingbetter planning and preparation onthe part of the teacher for an effec-tive child-centred, activity basedprogramme one day in the week,preferably Saturday, may be consid-ered as a working day for teachersonly. The teachers can be encouragedand facilitated to utilize this Lime forindividual/joint planning, sharing ex-periences and preparation of mate-rial.

The duration of a class period in thecase of schools with more than oneteacher per class, should be shorterfor Level I grades and longer forLevel II and III grades since youngerchildren have a shorter attentionspan. The teacher should have flex-ibility and autonomy to organize theclass time in a way he/she consid-ers most appropriate within Lhebroad structure of a well balancedprogramme.

A daily plan should therefore reflecta. balance of• activities for different curricular

areas in proportion to the ratio oftime prescribed, for each area

• outdoor and indoor activities• guided and open-ended activities• whole class, small group, paired

and individual activities• activities for new learning, revisit-

ing previously introduced conceptsand continuous assessment.

Teaching-learning MaterialSince a multi-level approaches be-ing recommended for classroom prac-tice, the framework suggests thatteaching-learning materials shouldalso be graded and in modular formto provide for individual pace inlearning. Each module should havea built-in component of assessmentat the key transitional points.Instead of uniform textbooks for eachgrade, workbooks are recommendedfor Levels I and II and textbook-cum-workbook for level III since by thenmore of self-learning becomes fea-sible on the part of children. Lan-guage Readers are however sug-gested for all grades to provide in-teresting text to children for learn-ing to read. A separate teacher'shandbook is suggested to meetteacher's requirement of subject con-tent and activities for guiding theirteaching. A kit of teacher-made


teaching-learning material is alsorecommended to facilitate conduct-ing of activities with children.

From Framework toCurriculumWhile this framework provides broadguidelines and expected learningoutcomes for each curricular area,the detailed curriculum will need tobe developed in a decentralised wayat the state or district levels. This isnecessaiy since our country ischaracterised by wide diversities interms of language, culture, customs,flora and fauna and any one curricu-lum, content or material cannot besuited to all children in the country.It is being increasingly realised nowthat learning, in order to be effective,must relate to children's context andtheir previous experiences. It, there-fore, becomes important to take theexercise of curriculum developmentto as decentralised a level as possibleto be able to make it relevant.

While developing the curriculum,however, there is need to keep inmind that ,• the curriculum must cater to all

round development of the child,as reflected in the four pillars oflearning and cater also to thenational core components dis-cussed in Chapter 4 of Part I ofthe document.

• the expected levels of learninghave been identified for guidance

of those planning and implement-ing the school curriculum. Thesehave been provided with theunderstanding that, while eachschool must aim to help chil-dren attain at least these learn-ing outcomes, there is no limitto what schools can offer de-pending on their own facilitiesand situations. However, it is im-portant to remember in this con-text thatschools should include only asmuch content as children can learnwell without feeling burdened, orelse, the learning is likely to be su-perficial and meaningless. It hasbeen observed that too much pres-sure can lead to a situation wheremany children may pick up therequired skills but in the processof learning these, they may lose themotivation to use the skills!

merely including more and more ofcontent in the curriculum does notthus indicate higher standardsas is often mistakenly believed. Theemphasis in leaching has to be onimproving quality of learning byevery child, not on completion ofsyllabus. Therefore efforts shouldhe made by each school to ensurethat the outcomes identified foreach level are attained by mostchildren so that learning gaps arenot created/ widened

everything need not' be taughtthrough the school curriculum only,since children learn a great deal


outside school from other sourcesalso

=> flexibility must be provided to al-low children to learn accordingto their own pace and style oflearning

s=> while classroom assessment musttake into account the holistic per-spective, as indicated above, anymacro level assessment at state,district or block level can be plannedon the basis of those outcomes thatlend themselves to some quantita-tive assessment techniques.

• The learning content identifiedmust be from the children':, im-mediate context and relevant totheir daily lives, as far as pos-sible for example, the child's ownvillage/town/city, its history,landmarks, local arts, music, ar-chitecture etc. Also, any activitiessuggested must be such as canbe feasibly conducted in typicalschool/classroom situations inthe area.

• Care must be taken to ensurethat the curriculum is gendersensitive. It should not in anyway promote some common gen-der stereotypes which are atpresent a part of our culture andwhich are biased against girls (forexample: girls should work athome while boys can go out andplay). The curriculum must en-sure creation of positive attitudesof equality and need to provide

equal opportunity to both sexes.Some common instances of biasare seen in textbooks wherein theillustrations show more boys inactive roles as compared to girls,or examples and exercises givenwith the lessons which are morefrom the point of view of boys thangirls. Similarly, the content of thecurriculum or the language toneshould not reflect, any kind of biastowards different religions,castes or communities.

• The curriculum must also suggestadaptations needed for childrenwith special needs, particularlyin integrated settings. These ad-aptations can be in terms of spe-cific readiness experiences re-lated to a child's disability, ma-terials, instructional strategiesand mode of assessment etc.Some guidelines for these areprovided in Chapter 5. It is desir-able to involve active participa-tion of primary teachers alongwith subject experts in the pro-cess of development of the cur-riculum and materials since theyare most knowledgeable about theinterests, abilities and learningstyles of children whom theyteach. Their involvement is likelyto make the curriculum more de-velopmentally appropriate andrelevant for children.

Any curriculum that is developedmust be triailed or tried out firston a sample of schools which are


representative of the possible diver-sities in the region for which the cur-riculum has been developed. It is de-sirable to do the Mailing over a pe-riod of one full academic year so thatthe curriculum gets tried out intotality and not in parts. The Mailingmust address all aspects of imple-mentation of the curriculum in-cluding training of teachers, possibleways of providing on-site support,monitoring systems and strategiesand ways of procuring and utilisingthe feedback.

Implementing the Curriculum:Keeping in view the diversities in thecountry in terms of learning condi-tions available to children, it wouldbe desirable to encourage everyschool to set its own attainmenttargets in both short and long-termperspective, within the broad frame-work of the identified ELOs andprepare and implement school deve-lopment plans to attain these. Forthis purpose it would be necessaryto provide some training and supportto the head teachers or heads ofschools along with some amount ofautonomy to facilitate them in find-ing their own ways and solutions.

Where Head teachers are not inposition, this exercise could be un-dertaken on a wider base by theBlock Education Officer, for thewhole block. This exercise could befacilitated by categorizing schools inthe block in terms of performancevis-a-vis facilities, and providing in-puts on a selective basis in propor-tion to the needs of the schools. Aholistic plan would be desirablewhich addresses all components ofthe teaching-learning process includ-ing teacher preparation, physicalinfrastructure, material resources,classroom practices and assessmentapproach, teacher empowerment andaccountability and parent and com-munity involvement, using a local-specific, whole school approach/whole block approach.

Instead of introducing large uniformschemes across the country for qual-ity improvement, the solution thus islikely to rest more in bringing in moreautonomy along with more account-ability at the sub-state levels includ-ing at the level of the community,which in turn is likely to prove moreeffective in improving the quality ofprimary education in the countiy.


What is the Environment?

V"W| s IT THE AIR, the mountains, theH I sea, the desert, the vast•fc* 1 plains around us? Is it thefields, the factories, the buildings andthe monuments? Is it the peoplearound us and the way they live,behave and think?

It is all these and much more. Allof us including children are a verysignificant part of the environment,which though holistic in nature, iscommonly seen in compartments associal, cultural, physical, naturaland man-made.


To enable a growing child to be aneffective part of the environment andensure a life of quality for herself/himself and others in the commu-nity, it is necessary for the child togrow up as a healthy, well adjusted,well informed, and skilled individual.She/he should have a lasting senseof curiosity and desire to learn andgrow. She/he should be an individualwho must become not only competentand knowledgeable but also a goodhuman being. In today's contextparticularly, with the continuousexplosion of knowledge and informa-tion invading the life of every child,though in different degrees, it hasalso become veiy essential for thechild to be able to develop skills oflearning to learn. The child shoulddevelop the ability to receive andprocess information, distinguish factfrom opinion, think logically, analysefacts and events, express opinionsand make decisions or choices.

To ensure the achievement of theidentified aims, it is necessary for thechild to be given opportunities, con-stant encouragement and motivationto closely observe and know about theenvironment as a whole in terms ofits features and characteristics andnot as the social, physical and natu-ral environment in isolation- Thisknowledge is necessary as the childis growing in that environment andhas also to live and work in that asan adult. It is also necessary for thechild to know that there is continu-

ous interaction between the differentaspects of the environment and un-derstand how this interaction leadsto changes in all aspects includinghuman life.The child must also become awarethat some of the natural resourcesare limited and should be shared andconserved, and, therefore, there is aneed to consider the needs and rightsof others in addition to being awareof her/his own rights and responsi-bilities.To function effectively within theenvironment the child must also befamiliar with the world of work anddevelop skills to be self-sufficient andefficient in day-to-day situations.And how does the child learn all thisand so much more about one's self,one's family, community and the worldaround? The child learns through• observing/understanding the en-

vironment• interacting with the environment• caring for the environment

And this is what EnvironmentalEducation is all about

Environmental Studies toEnvironmental Education —Why this Change?

To understand the difference be-tween the two, let us=> examine the major concerns of


the existing curriculum in generaland in the Environmental Stud-ies curriculum in particular

=> consider the learning priorities to-day in view of the fast changingworld.

Major Concerns of theExisting Curriculum• The existing curriculum consists

of six curricular areas prescribedfor the primary stage, viz. Lan-guage, Mathematics, Environmen-tal Studies (separated into SocialStudies and Science, i.e. EVS Iand II from Grade III onwards),Work Experience, Health andPhysical Education and Art Edu-cation. In actual practice, in mostschools the concentration is byand large on teaching only the

first three areas. The other threeareas are generally neglectedwith many schools not evenmaking a mention of these in thedaily time table. Why does thishappen? Does this mean thatschools do not consider theseareas important from the point ofview of children's education? Pos-sibly not, since none can debatetheir significance for all round de-velopment of the child. The morelikely explanation could be thatattainments in these areas are notassessed. In the examinationdriven system that we see aroundus today, since these areas donot involve award of any marks,they are likely to be neglected ornot taught at all.

In terms of content, EVS I, i.e.Social Studies comprises themesdrawn from different areas ofSocial Sciences with a major fo-cus on the physical environmentand that in EVS II, i.e. Science,is drawn from the different sub-jects (disciplines) of natural sci-ences. Since the focus in these ison the subject/discipline ratherthan on the child and her/hisenvironment, the instructionalmaterial that is prepared is alsoinformation loaded with littlescope for child's active participa-tion in the1 teaching learningprocess. Consequently, the teach-ing also focuses more on gettingchildren to memorize the given in-


formation with little emphasis onhelping children explore, experi-ence, think, reason and want tolearn more.

• If we consider the curriculum fromthe child's point of view we can seethat the three curricular areas ofLanguage, Mathematics and Art,actually help the child, as tools forlearning and communication. Thecontent of these areas is derivedfrom the environment itself. Sincethey need development of specificskills for which a systematic ap-proach and practice is required,they need to be given a separatestatus. The four other areas ofScience, Social Studies, Health andPhysical Education and Work Ex-perience all relate to different as-pects of the child's needs and her/his environment: and, therefore,need to be introduced to the childholistically and in an integratedway. This would not: only help thechild understand, the environmentbetter but also reduce both thechild's learning load and theteacher's teaching load by doingaway with inevitable overlap andrepetition. It will also result in lessconfusion for the child as, is evi-dent from the existing curriculum!

The Changing World andResulting Priorities

• Due to significant developmentsin recent years in the area of com-munication technology, increasing


access to media, and availabilityof faster modes of travel, the worldis gradually shrinking or comingcloser. The child's level of expo-sure to the world around is in-creasing everyday. There is avirtual explosion of knowledge,making today's knowledge almostoutdated tomorrow! This makesan information loaded curriculumirrelevant. It requires instead agreater focus on developing inchildren skills of learning tolearn, so that they can keepthemselves up-to-date throughself-learning and make effectiveuse of the available facilities.Advancements in Science andTechnology are leading to changesin the ways and quality of life ofpeople. In fact, technology haswalked into the home of the com-mon man both in rural and ur-ban areas. With these develop-ments, there appears to be acrises of values in society whichtends to be getting more and morematerialistic. In view of this,

there has been a great deal ofstress on including both moderntechnology and value education inthe primary curriculum. Boththese areas, again, relate to thechild's environment.The pattern of the smallest butthe most significant social unit,i.e. the family, is also changing.Large and joint families are be-ing replaced by small, nuclearfamilies. Opportunities for thechild, therefore, to develop habitsof sharing, cooperation, living andworking together are getting rareresulting in the concern today thatthe school curriculum should alsoaddress these aspects.

As a result of aggressive adver-tising ?snd marketing strategies,changed patterns of consumptionand consumerism are also show-ing changes particularly in urbanareas. The child's exposure to awide range of consumer goods andseveral inappropriate role modelsis increasing. This has caused achange in the child's perceptionof her/his day-to-day needs andwants. Suitable choices need tobe thought of and made by every-body, in a society that is gettingmore materialistic. The school oftoday must actively participate inthe formation of the child's valuesystem and attitudes, to countersome of the negative influences ofmodern living.

Growing industrialization as well


as a growing population, have hadan adverse effect on the environ-ment. There is a growing lack ofconcern about care and protectionof the environment and the main-tenance of an ecological balance.This affects our day-to-day livesand behaviour patterns. The needto educate children and throughthem adults too, on appropriatebehaviours and attitudes havebecome a major priority whichneeds to be reflected in the cur-riculum.

=* Thus a change is called for — achange which will help schools pre-pare children for the world of thefuture. To implement this change,while coping with the growing num-bers in our classrooms, requiresfresh thinking on the context of thecurriculum and new effective meth-ods to be used by thinking, inno-vative teachers.

In view of the above concerns andissues, Environmental Educationhas been proposed as a curriculararea which is much wider in scopeas compared to the existing subjectof Environmental Studies (Part Iand II).

Environmental Education -^~Its Scope=* This curricular area views the

environment as an integratedwhole taking into its fold the

natural, the man-made, thesocial and cultural environment.It also takes into account thechild's holistic perception of theworld around her/him.In its planning, a conscious ef-fort has been made to integrateScience, Social Studies, Healthand Physical Education andWork Experience from the exist-ing curriculum, as also relevantareas of Technology, Yoga andValue Education to meet thedemands of the present style oflife of people. A specific concernfor values is a special feature ofthis new Environmental Educa-tion framework as a value is notan abstraction for the individualbut something that serves as adirecting force in her/his ac-tions and life. However, it can-not be learnt separated (di-vorced) from content.An effort has been made not tomerely club these areas to-gether but to integrate themcarefully so as to help the childunderstand the environment ina holistic, meaningful way. Inthis process, learning areasmore relevant and interestingfor a child have been prioritizedto avoid making the curriculumheavy. It is important thatboth the teacher and the learn-ers enjoy the interactionsamongst themselves and with


the environmental content.These should stimulate both,leading to deeper understandingand a stronger partnership inthe process of learning. Child-friendly, active learning meth-ods and multi-level teachinglearning processes in the class-rooms, within the prescribedteaching learning time availableto teachers and children areessential. It is necessary to findtime within school hours for theoften neglected areas of Healthand Physical Education andWork Experience. Links withother curricular areas like Lan-guage, Mathematics and Art alsowill have to be attempted asand when possible.

As indicated earlier, the curricu-lum plan suggests a three-foldapproach to EnvironmentalEducation so that the child will:

learn about the environmentlearn through the natural,man-made, social and culturalenvironment. This implies a

systematic and active explora-tion of the environment by thechild through a variety of ac-tivities aimed at developing rel-evant skills and attitudes,

» learn for the environment bydeveloping genuine concern andsensitivity towards the environ-ment and appreciating the needfor its protection and enrich-ment.

=> The approach to curriculum de-velopment suggested in thechapter follows the principlesof:

1 moving progressively from the.immediate (myself) to tne dte'tant (my country)

moving from simple conceptsand experiences to more com-plex onesmoving from concrete experi-ences to more abstract ones

^moving from the particular to"the general which will be made

possible by the sequencing ofthe competencies

=> An effort has been made to-wards making the experiencesculturally specific by basing thecurriculum plan on locally rel-evant situations. At the sametime stress has been laid on themore global values and on de-velopment of pride in one'scountry and its cultural heri-tage.


=> The framework suggests devel-opment of the curriculum intune with the developmentalneeds of the child at the vari-ous levels/stages. It stressesthe fact that the thinking capa-bilities of learners develop in asequential way over time andthere is a qualitative differencein learners' capabilities andlearning styles at different de-velopmental levels. It also recog-nizes the fact that even withina given developmental level,children show wide variations intheir pace and style of learning.

=> A deliberate shift has been sug-gested from content-basedlearning to more active process-based and outcome-based learn-ing.

In the pages that follow, a frameworkhas been worked out that lists the.Expected Learning Outcomes at theend of five years of primary educa-tion and l i n k them to the four Pil-lars of Learning viz.• Learning To Know• Learning To Do• Learning To Live Together• Learning To Be.To facilitate attainment of theseaims, three key learning areas havebeen identified. The content of thesethree areas is the medium throughwhich the learning outcomes are tobe realised. The Expected Learning

Outcomes and Key Learning Areashave to be linked and translated intosuitable classroom transactions.Detailed indicators have also beenworked out (see Appendix II) to helpcurriculum developers and authorsto produce suitable teaching-learn-ing materials. These indicators willalso help teachers to plan appropri-ate classroom activities/experiencesas also monitor the progress of chil-dren.

Expected Learning Outcomes

Learning To Know(Knowledge base/Learning Skills)By the time the child completesprimaiy education she/he should:• develop and demonstrate varied

skills for life-long learning suchas observation, accessing andselecting information, classifying,reporting, experimenting, predict-ing, estimating, inferring andcomparing etc.

• demonstrate the ability to think


independently e.g. differentiatebetween facts and opinion, ex-press one's own opinion logically.develop awareness and under-standing about her/his personalwell-being and ways to keephealthyunderstand the functions of thevarious parts of the body and re-cognize the need to keep the body,the belongings and the surround-ings neat and clean.

develop an understanding of thecomponents of immediate social,cultural, natural and man-madeenvironment and their interrela-tionships.

• identify and know about the natu-ral resources and understand theneed for their proper utilization,conservation and preservation.

• become aware of groups that existat several levels of organisationsin nature as well as in the socialenvironment, e.g. family, commu-nity, living and non-living things,etc.

• demonstrate an understanding ofthe interdependence of man andnature and of the need and waysof protecting the environment.

• demonstrate an understanding ofdistance in space and time andthe relationship between them.

Learning To Do(Work Skills and Attitudes)By the time the child completesprimary education she/he should:• demonstrate good health habits.• participate in and enjoy activities

for developing and strengtheningconcentration, stamina, speed,balance, coordination, endurance


and grace appropriate to her/hisage group.

• participate in games and sportsfor enjoyment, relaxation, devel-opment of leadership qualitiesand team spirit.

•'* use standard and non-standardunits of measurement.

• demonstrate the skills of estima-tion of physical quantities in dailylife situations.

• observe and collect data about thedifferent components of the im-mediate environment.

• plan and carry out simple, safeexperiments/activities on her/hisown.

• interpret and report observationsin an appropriate manner (orally,in writing, pictorially, table,simple graph, chart, drawing,etc.)

• develop skills of sketching, map-ping of local situations e.g. class-room, school, playground etc.

• develop skills of location using agrid, a map and globe.

• use simple, locally availablematerials, tools and equipment re-quired in day-to-day situationswith skill, efficiency and safety.

• demonstrate good work habitslike neatness, accuracy, propercare of materials and tools.

• work with her/his own handswith ease and efficiency and

develop skills to take care ofsimple situations/problems indaily life situations and for pos-sible use in later life.

• demonstrate skills related to tak-ing care of the immediate envi-ronment.

Learning To Live Together,(Social Skills)By the time a child completes pri-mary education she/he should:• develop qualities such as toler-

ance, kindness, team spirit,sportsmanship, cooperation anddemonstrate these through hab-its such as waiting for one's turn,sharing and helping others, tak-ing responsibilities, working to-gether with other children onprojects/assignments, playingwith them on the playground,participating in discussions/de-bates etc.


• develop initiative, self expressionand respect for the views of oth-ers.

• learn to live in harmony withpeople of different communities byparticipating actively in celebra-tions of festivals of different re-ligious, cultural groups etc. withenthusiasm and ease.

• learn to live in harmony with theenvironment and demonstratethis through actions such ascaring for those in need and otherliving things, keeping the sur-roundings clean and conservingmaterials and energy,

• be aware of different work situ-ations and available communityresources, both individual andinstitutions and ways of takinghelp from them as and when re-quired.

• be aware of the contribution madeby people in the present and inthe past and appreciate howthese have affected the ways ofher/his and the community'slife.

• respect the rules/laws made forthe benefit of the community andfollow them.

Learning f b Ke l f D* • • _,' -. .

By the time a child completes pri-mary education she/he should:• feel confident as a learner and as

a human being, and demonstratethis through asking questionswithout hesitation, exploring andin interaction with others.

• imbibe some basic values specificto her/his context, e.g. honesty,punctuality, cleanliness.

• appreciate beauty in the environ-ment and show a sense of aes-thetic appreciation through ex-pression in varied forms of art.y.

• appreciate dignity of labour. ':• be aware of and appreciate one's

own culture and traditions and beproud to be an Indian.

• show respect and concern forothers and for the environment.

• apply her/his own mind and takeindependent decisions in simplesituations in day-to-day life.

• develop scientific temper.

Key. Learning Areas forEnvironmental Education

As already indicated, the curriculararea of Environmental Education has


been conceived with focus on the 'child'as an individual and as part of thetotal environment. In other words, theattempt is to bring the needs of thechild to the forefront rather than thoseof any subject (discipline). The pur-pose is to facilitate the child'sgrowth into a healthy, well ad-justed person rather than loadingher/him with subject based infor-mation. No doubt the child needsinformation also but only as a 'tool'to grow not as a 'master' that mostof the time stunts the multi dimen-sional growth of the personality.Keeping the developmental needs ofthe child at the primary stage inmind, the nature of the information/knowledge to be imparted has to beholistic.The specific focus of the curriculumin Environmental Education thus,should be on helping the child:• be physically and emotionally

healthy• function effectively as a member

of the social groups (family, com-munity) she/he belongs to

• acquire skills and attitudes forimproving the quality of life of'self and that of the community

• appreciate the need to live inharmony with fellow human be-ings and the nature (emotional in-telligence).Keeping the above in view the

learning content for this curricular

area has been divided into three KeyLearning Areas indicating a progres-sion starting from the child herself/himself to others around her/himand then to the large and more dis-tant world.The three Key Learning Areas thusidentified are:

=> Me and My World=* Others in My World=> The World Around Me

Since the 'environment' is holistic innature, some overlapping is bound tobe present in the Key LearningAreas but the same will be useful forreinforcement in learning.With a view to keep the depth andscope of the area of study within thereach of the child vis-a-vis her/hisneeds as defined in terms of physi-cal, cognitive, socio-emotional needsin the chapter on 'Child in Primary'in Part I of the document, it is nec-essary to work out the scope of eachKey Learning Area.

Each Key Learning Area encom-passes the three levels. Level-wiseindicators for each Key Learning Areahave been included in Appendix IIwhich can be used as guidelines fordeveloping curriculum as well asinstructional material, and for moni-toring the progress of each child.Appendix I defines the scope of Com-mon Core Components that could beintegrated while outlining the contentof the Key Learning Areas.


Me and My WorldThere is enough research evidence toindicate that at the early primary stagethe child's frame of reference is her/his 'ownself. The world of the childis centred around his or her being.That is the focal point from which thechild relates to the immediate world,which enlarges in concentric circles asthe child develops and grows. Hencethe point at which we begin is 'Me',

By the time the child enters a primary

school she/he has already formed somehabits, is conscious of some of her/hisneeds and feelings, and is also awareof visibly identifiable parts of her/hisbody. She/he is also aware that peoplearound her/him have similar needs,feelings and similar body parts. EarlyChildhood Education/School ReadinessProgrammes where available help pro-vide/reinforce opportunities for habitformation related to care of the body,adjustment in groups etc.

Keeping the above in view, the KEYLEARNING AREA focusses on theneed to help the child:• understand the significance of and

functions of every part of the bodyand take its proper care.

• receive experiences of a variety ofsensations and identify them withincreasing level of clarity.

• identify feelings/emotions, the situ-ations that cause them and learnto channelise them positively.


• differentiate between needs andwants and appreciate the necessityof giving priority to basic needs.

• understand the need for and takesuitable food which would providenutrients for energy, growth andhelp regulate the body's functionsand identify local foods that sat-isfy these requirements.

• develop regular habits of keeping'self' and the surroundings clean.

• participate in activities to promotehealth awareness and safety andencourage peers to do likewise.

• know about and make use of pub-lic services provided for health andsafety.

• understand the significance ofparticipating in physical exercises,simple yoga exercises, rhythmicmovement, dance, games andsports regularly, in order to keepthe body and mind healthy.

• develop confidence in articulatingher/his views/opinion and reasonsthereof.

• take part in activities leading tocreative expression and emotionaloutlet.

Others in My WorldAs the^focus shifts from the child'sownself to include others, the childbecomes aware of a world that in-cludes the family which is the firstschool for her/him to develop desirablehabits and attitudes. She/he observes

members of the family performingdifferent roles, taking care of eachother. The child is also aware that somedays are special for her/him and thefamily. The scope of social interactionsgradually expands to include in its foldthe school, neighbourhood and be-yond, thus requiring the child to un-derstand the various facets of thesocial environment. There are individu-als and institutions whom the childmay not be knowing directly but whohelp in meeting her/his family's needs.There are people who may not be aliveany more but who have contributed ina very big way to the comfort andways of life, beliefs of the peoplearound. The child is to some extentaware of the use of some meansthrough which one can reach otherplaces Ipeople and even of somemeans through which one can reachfriends, relatives without any physicalmovement.

Besides the men and the women, thereare also animals and plants which are


an inseparable part of the child's lifeand that ofothefs around her/him butfor whom existence of human life is notpossible. :

The Key Learning Area thus aims athelping the child:

• understand that she/he belongs toseveral overlapping groups—family,neighbourhood, school, communityand identify roles and relationshipwithin them.

• recognise and appreciate the inter-dependence of people in thesegroups.

• receive and give support, in solv-ing problems, while mutually re-specting traditions and values.

• know about plants and animalsand other living/non-living thingsand recognise their importance inher/his life.

• know about the discoveries andinventions which have helped inshaping the modern ways of life,such as the fire, the wheel, met-als, etc.

• understand that people and eventsof the past have influenced ourpresent way of life.

• know about the means of transportand communication and their im-portance in her/his life.

• develop an understanding of spa-tial relations and the ability to lo-cate places.

• be aware of the rights and respon-sibilities of a consumer.

• respect the feelings of others andpractise sharing, cooperation, toler-ance and helping the needy etc.

The World Around MeThis Key Learning Area attempts totake the child from her/his ownselfand immediate social and familiarenvironment to a wider world. Thechild is aware of some natural phenom-ena that regulate day to day life suchas day and night, weather, rain etc.There is a continuous interaction be-tween human beings and the naturalenvironment and both are affected inthis interaction. The child must under-stand the nature of this interaction andhow it affects the life of people.

Thus the key learning area aims athelping the child

• acquire knowledge about the natu-ral features, phenomena and re-sources that influence the life of

v people in terms of food, shelter,clothing, occupations and culturalpatterns.

• understand how natural resourcesand their utilization influence thequality of life.

• recognise and give examples of theimpact of scientific, industrial andtechnological developments on hu-man life and natural phenomena.

• observe and recognise changes inself, others, the environment andthose changes that have occurredover a time-span.


• understand that every member ofa group has rights and responsi-bilities towards oneself and othersin the group and practises thesame.

• be aware of the need for and theexistence of a structured system ofgovernance at various levels.

• acquire skills of location, interpre-tation of data.

• perform simple experiments involv-ing scientific principles and drawinferences.

Content ; Major ThemesThe main content of the teaching-learning activities at three levels inthe three Key Learning Areas wouldbe based on the following majorthemes. These themes have beendrawn from the existing curricularareas of Environmental Studies,Health and Physical Education, WorkExperience, Value Education andTechnology etc. and allow for a lotof flexibility for inclusion of local spe-cific content.

Key Learning Area : Me andMy WorldMajor Theme : My BodySub-themes• External (visible) and internal

organs• Sensations and feelings• Needs —

Drawn from• Environmental Studies II• Health and Physical Education• Yoga Education• Value Education• Work Experience

Physical=* fitness=* food and nutrition=> personal hygiene, cleanli-

ness and orderliness


=> sleep=> physical exercises, sports

and games=> safety measures (avoiding

accidents)=* work skills

Emotional=> relaxation=>: securityz& belongingness, affection etc.=> values like sharing, toler-

ating, cooperating=> attitude towards manual

work

Key Learning Area : Others inMy World

Major Themes : Social Institutionsand Living things

Sub-themes• Family, peers, neighbours, com-

munity—their functions, interre-lationships and interdependence..

• Festivals both national and local—their significance and celebra-tions.

• Local institutions/agencies—theirrole in individual's and commu-nity life.

Drawn from• Environmental Studies I and II• Technology• Work Experience• Value Education

• Plants and Animals — their link-age and significance in human life

• People/personalities who havecontributed to what our livesare today — national and localgreatmen, scientists, discoverers,architects, artists etc.

• Means of communication andtransport —their impact on lifeof people.

• Skills related to=> collection of information

(data), its interpretationand reporting/representa-tion

=> local occupations and theirdevelopment(suitable to age-level)

=> location of places on theglobe and maps

Key Learning Area : The WorldAround MeMajor Themes : Significant featuresof natural and man-made environment,the non-living things and materials,time and space; significant featuresthat make one proud of the country,scientific temperSub-themes• The physical features and phe-

nomena — The earth, the sun, themoon, the sky, day and night,weather, climate, land forms/soil— their influence on human life

• The non-living things, materials,— their characteristics/properties


Drawn from• Environmental Studies I and II• Value Education• Technology

and role in human life, the needto protect them

• Space and Time — concept, theirrelationship

• Significant achievements in vari-ous fields —

=> local/national,=> past and present

Note: Suggestive content related tocommon core components has beenlisted in Appendix I. It has beentaken care of to a great extent in the

selection of themes and indicators inAppendix II.

Integrating EnvironmentalEducation with OtherCurricular Areas

Environmental Education in its verynature is integrated as it encom-passes in a meaningful way all thosecomponents which are currently partof EVS I and II, Health and PhysicalEducation and Work Experience.However, its teaching learning pro-cess can also very easily be linkedto skills in Language, Mathematicsand Arts Education. In fact all thesecurricular areas draw their contentfrom the environment.


Language, as such is being used asa tool for learning which can be truefor any curricular area. Identificationof content in teaching language canbe so planned that it covers environ-mental concepts systematically andsimultaneously taking care of thedifferent skills in language.Mathematics is everywhere in day today life which is the base of Envi-ronmental Education. Introduction ofconcepts like measurement, repre-sentation of data in different graphicforms, interpretation of data, shapesand designs etc. which are part ofboth the curricular areas can beplanned in such a way that theyacquire meaning and thus becomejoyful. This type of attempts can helpin reducing the curricular loadthrough avoiding repetition of thesame content, and experiences re-lated to daily life would definitelyreduce the load of non-comprehen-sion.

Different modes of arts are media ofexpression which can prove to bevery effective and interesting forEnvironmental Education. In fact thecontent of Environmental Educationis directly linked with arts in manyforms such as our cultural heritageand its richness, designs of build-ings/monuments, clothes worn bypeople, folk/classical music anddances, beauty in the environmentand much more. Integration of ArtsEducation and Environmental

Education can be easily exploitedwhich is reflected in the indicatorsincluded in Appendix II.

Teaching-learning Strategiesand Assessment

What does the focus of the Learn-ing Areas indicate? How can wehelp the child in this direction?For finding answers to these ques-tions let us recall the chapter on'Making Teaching Child-centred' inPart I of this document.

To create awareness in the childabout the environment and under-stand its relationship with ownselfand the people around, the childmust be exposed to its differentcomponents through direct observa-tion/practical experiences either inthe actual/real situations or creat-ing a similar situation in the class-room/school through using concretematerial or aids like pictures, charts,

The Primary Years

models, science apparatus, or creat-ing simulated situations throughdramatization, role play, puppet play,mono-acting etc. supported by stagesetting, if possible, at times.

The above mentioned activities canbe used in varied situations and withchildren at different levels within agrade. As we are all aware, childrenin a grade are differently abled, havedifferent levels of attainment, havedifferent interests and aptitudes andthe teacher is expected to address theneeds of all the children at the sametime. Environmental Education pro-vides a wide scope to the teacher toadopt a variety of teaching learningstrategies ranging from individualwork/assignments to whole classteaching through small group activi-ties, (refer chapter on 'TeachingLearning with a Difference' for de-tails).

As already discussed in Part I, as-sessment is not something of whichthe child and the parents have to beafraid. It must be remembered thatit is part of the teaching learningprocess. The teacher assesses thechild informally all the time with aview to provide help as and when/she/he needs it.

Formal assessment, when planned,should be integrated with the pro-cess of teaching and learning activi-ties on a continuous basis. It shouldbe largely observation and oral atlevel I. Written answers may be in-

troduced gradually from level II butshould be supplemented by othertools/techniques especially with ref-erence to the objectives of Environ-mental Education which emphasizethe processes involved in learningand development of values, attitudes,practical skills, healthy habits andproblem solving in actual life situa-tions. The tools could range fromsimple checklists for observation ofchildren in different teaching learn-ing situations to oral exercises, artactivities, role play, drama situa-tions, paper pencil tests etc.

Remember• Many times the experiences

planned for teaching can also beused for assessment

• Assessment must focus on each ofthe four pillars not only on learn-ing to know

• Assessment should take into ac-count the process rather than onlythe product (the answer)

Aren't life's problems alwaysopen ended? Should we notmake assessment also openended?

(The indicators listed against theExpected Learning Outcomes (ELOs)in Appendix II of this chapter wouldhelp the teacher maintain a recordof the progress of the child. These

Eiwironmentcd Education 37

would also provide hints for planningactivities for facilitating the learningon the part of each child).As discussed in chapter 'The Childin Primary1 in part 1 of this documentthe developmental level and needs ofthe children differ across two devel-opmental stages of children (3-7years & 7 to 11 yrs.) at primary stageof education. While at stage I corre-sponding to level I children are moreplayful and guided more by what theysee than by logical thinking, thechildren at stage II corresponding tolevels II and III become more logicalin their thinking and reasoning, canwork more productively in pairs andgroups and can take more initiativeand responsibility in planning andconsolidating their learning.

To meet these needs the experiencesto be provided would have to be dif-ferent in nature and complexity foreach stage. Level III is a stage ofconsolidation and readiness for up-per primary stage. The experiencesat this level should be more of ap-plication, exploration, self learning innature.

Stage I^Corresponding to Level I)Experiences planned should• provide opportunities to children

1.0 relate learning to personal ex-periences in daily life

• provide for varied interests ofchildren

• provide for children to handle/manipulate concrete material

• provide opportunities for childrento physically participate in play-ful activities leading to activelearning

• focus on habit formation of chil-dren

• provide opportunities for childrento express in forms other thanwriting (speaking, drawing,dramatising etc.)

• provide opportunities for childrento discover their surroundingsthrough personal observation andshared observation with otherchildren

• encourage/stimulate children toask relevant questions and findanswers through different sources.

Stage II

(Corresponding to Levels II and III)Experiences planned she• provide children opportunities for


more specific observations, for ask-ing questions related to the obser-vations, looking for/discoveringtheir answers through different

"means, and reporting the findingsthrough varied modes of expressioninvolve children's observation inreal life situations and identify pat-terns and handling of experimentswith concrete materials/objectshelp children analyze problemsand take individual or collectivedecisions based on facts to arriveat solutionsinvolve more of child to child in-teraction in planning and conduct-ing of activities leading to activelearninginvolve children in more of selflearning by identifying sources ofinformation, selecting informationprovide opportunities for childrento use more of written form in giv-ing answers/reporting along withother modes of expressioninvolve children in understandingcause and effect relationshipsthrough experiences in situationsdirectly and indirectly.involve personal experiencesthrough planned visits to places/institutions/people involved in var-ied situations of the life of the com-munityinvolve children in activities in reallife situations such as surveys,campaigns, shramdans etc. or in

contrived situations and reportingthe findings through different modes.

Please Remember• experiences planned for tuabitforma-

tion, development of attitudes andvalues will continue across the lev-els

• continuous watch needs to be kepton each child in relation to the aboveso that they become a part of thechild's nature by the time she/hereaches /completes level III.

Teaching-learning MaterialsAs per the nature of the curriculararea, the best learning materials arethe actual objects, living and non- liv-ing things in the environment of thechild and the real life day-to-day situ-ations. Since it is not possible to pro-cure and interact with actual objectsalways, its representation in the formof pictures, charts and models can beused in the classroom situations.


For classroom activities, specially de-signed Workbooks for level I, Textbook-cum-Workbooks for levels II and III inthe form of graded modules and Hand-books for teachers need to be devel-oped. The Workbooks for level I shouldcomprise only activities and will in-volve limited reading or writing in viewof the child's lack of skills in these atthis stage. But the Teacher's Hand-book should contain detailed instruc-tions to help the children actively par-ticipate in all the activities.

Books are for teacher to read.

Tiny tots should only play

GANDHI, M.K.

The Textbook-cum-Workbooks for lev-els II and III should have activities pre-sented in a variety of ways such asstories, anecdotes, poems, dialogues,hints for discussions, open ended les-

sons etc. to cater to varied needs ofchildren.

Different media (both print arid horiprint/electronic) such as librarybooks, newspapers, magazines, radioand television programmes are othersources of getting information.Play material, games and sports equip-ment and equipment needed for physi-cal exercises including rhythmicmovements such as some musical in-struments and other locally availablematerials/tools for manual activitiesetc. are needed to develop related skillsand values.

(For more details please refer to Learn-ing Corners in Chapter 6.)The learning experiences mentionedearlier are not exhaustive but thesewill have direct link with the threeKey Learning Areas and the specificcontent identified by different agen-cies with reference to the local envi-ronment. But whatever is the contentand the specific learning experiences/activities, the focus would be to helpeach child attain the major learningoutcomes aimed at in each pillar.Some suggested indicators are givenin Appendix II.

Please Note: The indicators are notin the Teaching Sequence. They canbe clustered in any way as persituation(s). There need not be one toone relationship in any situation suchas curriculum development, develop-ment of instructional material, teach-ing-learning process including assess-ment.

APPENDIX I

Common Core Components

A conscious effort, has been made to integrate, the common core; components as specified inthe National Policy on Education (1986/1992) in ways appropriate to the primary stage ofeducation as follows:

• the history of India's freedom movement—in the form of stories of local/national freedomlighters, anecdotes etc,

• the constitutional obligations—in the form of rights and duties of the child as a citizenand as specified in the pillars learning to live together and learning to be.

• content essential to nurture national identity—in the form of national symbols, nationaldays, interdependence of people living in different parts of the country, variety in food,clothing and ways of life etc.

• India's common cultural heritage—such as role of important men and women in makingIndia and our lives what they are today, historical monuments, dances and music (bothclassical and folk).

• egalitarianism, democracy and secularism—such as need for equal opportunities to all thepeople.

• equality of sexes—such as contribution of both men and women in political, socia] andeconomic life.

• protection of the environment—such as knowledge about the environment, the need andways to protect it and habit formation in this context.

• removal of social barriers—such as equality of all irrespective of caste, religion or language,interdependence of different members of community etc.

« observation of the small family norm—such as impact of smaller and bigger numbers onlife situations.

• inculcation of scientific temper—such as development of habits of critical thinking,reasoning etc.

APPENDIX II

This part of the chapter contains some exemplar indicators/suggestions for use by teachers,authors of instructional material and curriculum developers.

Please Note:

• They are not exhaustive

• All of these need not. be compulsorily used by users all the time, some additional ones canalso be included

• They are not in teaching sequence.

• They may be used for developing graded 'modules'

• They may be clustered into different, sets for providing learning experiences and monitoringthe progress of each child in different situations.


Key Learning Area : Me and My WorldMajor Theme : My BodySub-theme : Body parts (external and internal organs) sensations and feelings.

ELOs : The child should

• understand the functions of different parts of the body• develop and demonstrate skills of life long learning such as observing, selecting in-

formation, comparing, reporting etc.

Indicators ,

Level I Level II Level III

The child• observes and relates orally

how 'I am' similar and how"I am' different from othermembers of the family

• differentiates between 'my:

self and 'my friend' and re-ports orally/pictoriallythrough actions

• relates (orally/through ac-tions) how she/he uses dif-ferent, parts of the body

differentiates throughtouch between hard, soft,cold/warm, surfaces andliquids like water

differentiates between thetastes of different eatablesexpresses orally/throughactions/body talk/facialexpression

differentiates between thesounds in the immediateenvironment and the dis-tant places

enquires from f>arents ancjreports the story of 'How Igrew up' and changed1

compares these changeswith those in friends andother members of the tarn-

• understands that rate ofgrowth differs in differentindividuals

• accepts and respects differ-ences between individuals

• identities the names of ma-jor organs of the body relatedto processes like breathing,ingestion and digestion offood, excretion etc.

• perform simple activities/experiments and finds thatmaking changes in the formof some materials leads tochanges in their surface

• identities the internal or-gans of the body in a chartand knows their functions

• identifies and describes sim-ply the following system ofhuman body— skeletaJ system— digestive system— respiratory system— circulatory system— excretory system

• practices habits to keepsthese systems in properform

• depicts through role play,drama drawing, the likelyeffects if any of the systemhas a problem

• experiments and finds outthat different parts of thetongue help in identifyingdifferent tastes

Environmental Education. 43


• differential es between thepleasant and unpleasantsounds

• identifies situations thatmake her/him happy, sad,angry etc.

expresses feelings in differ-ent ways (through speaking,drawings, dancing, singing,facial expressions, etc.) .

• participates in activitiesleading to creation of pleas-ant sounds (musical, rhyth-mic)

• identifies and names thedifferent sense organs anddevelops habits or takingtheir proper care

• participates/performs ac-tivities that give happinessto others

• does not hurt the feelings ofo tlicrs

• take care of the animals,bird, plants and helps theold, the sick

understand the harmful ef-fects of loud and unpleas-ant sounds

• understands the signifi-cance of sense organs inhuman life and the needand ways to take theirproper care

• develops the qualities of agood human being

• experiences the sounds ofher/his body through exer-cising concentration

• respects the feelings of oth-ers

44 The Primary Yearn

Sub-theme : My Needs (Physical Fitness, Emotional fitness)

ELOs : The child should

• develop awareness and understanding about, her/his personal well being and ways to keephealthy

• demonstrate he.a1thy habits

• participate in and enjoy activities for developing and strengthening concentration, stamina(both physical and emotional), speed, balance, coordination, and grace appropriate to her/his age group

• develop positive attitudes towards doing work with hands and participate In activitiesinvolving manual work and develop necessary skills

• apply her/his own mind and take independent decisions in simple situations and in dayto day life

• follow rules and take precautions to avoid accidents

• demonstrate good work habits like neatness, accuracy, proper care of materials and tools

• use simple, locally available materials, tools and equipment required in day to day life withskill1?, efficiency and safety


Level I Level II level III

The child• relates, orally/through ac- •

tions her/his daily needs

• finds out the daily needs •of friends/peers and com-pares the needs of self withthose of others

• recognises that most •people have common

recalls what she/he eats/drinks everyday

• relates the habits followed •before and after takingfood and the reasonsthereof

• associates food with theability to play and work

• develops habits of safehandling of food anddrinking water

distinguishes betweenneeds and wants

displays regular habitsthat help meet the needsof sell and others aroundher/him

recognises that wantskeep changing whereasneeds are more constant

displays understandingthrough habits and ac-tions the necessity tomeet the basic needs

understands the need forand follows regular habitsof taking food and clean-liness of hands and eatingplace.

recognises the need forand ways of safe storing offood items and drinkingwater and shares themthrough role plays, po-ems, songs, drawing etc.

finds out the sources fromwhere the food items anddrinking water are obtained

recognises the importanceand develops habits ofeating roughage anddrinking plenty of water

finds out how each foodstuff is useful for humanbeing (for giving energy,body building, preventingdisease etc.) and reportsfindings orally throughrole play/dramatisation orin writing

recognises that it is nec-essary to eat a variety offood items for growth andto maintain good health

classifies local food itemson the basis of their nu-trients

depicts, relationship be-tween lack of particularnutrients in the diet andoccurrence of deficiencydiseases, through partici-pation in dramas, discus-sions etc.

displays knowledge of tak-ing different combinationsof local food items toavoid occurrence of defi-ciency diseases



• acquires and practices thehabits of personal clean-liness including toilet hab-its

• keeps persona] belongingsand the classroom cleanand in order

observes and reports lackof order and cleanliness inimmediate surroundings

takes simple steps to cor-rect, these situations

associates good healthwith personal cleanlinessand displays themthrough drama, drawingetc.

keeps a check on the hab-its of personal cleanlinessof siblings and peers andencourages them to followthese habits

keeps immediate sur-roundings clean and par-ticipates in activities forcleanliness of school/neighbourhood

realises that each indi-vidual has a responsibilityand role in keeping thesurroundings clean

identifies the ways of col-lection and disposal ofsolid and liquid waste at.home, school and the lo-cality and the agenciesresponsible for It.

identifies relationship be-tween unclean food andwater and occurrence ofdiseases

identifies relationship be-tween unclean habits/unclean surroundings andoccurrence of communi-cable diseases

knows about the agenciesto be contacted in case ofoccurrence of certain dis-eases

identifies situations whereORS is needed and moti-vates the family membersto use it. when needed

develops skills to prepareORS and its local substi-tutes

identities and participatesin steps taken to preventcertain diseases

identities local communi- .cable diseases as airborne, water/food borneand insect, borne

identities and practisessimple ways of reusingand recycling of somewaste materials


Level I Level II

47

Level 111

knows about, the sourcesof drinking water and itssignificance for humanlife

practises simple habits ofstanding in a queue whenrequired, waits for her/histurn in different situa-tions/group activities

practises simple habits •such as covering mouth/nose during coughing/sneezing/yawning

understands the need for •the above and demon-strates the effects of notdoing so through drama-tizing, drawing, puppetplay etc.

participates regularly insimple physical exercises,related to every part, of thebody and indoor and out-door games

knows about the sourcesof drinking water and itssignificance for humanlife

knows about the safetysymbols for walking/crossing the road andshares them with peers/siblings orally, throughdrawing etc.

follows habits of personalsafely and rules for walk-ing on/crossing the road/railway line

demonstrates use ofsimple tools such as sew-ing needle, paper cutter,scissors, small hammerbroom etc.

takes necessary precau-tions while using simpletools in work situa^tions

is aware of what to do incase of any accident /in-Jury and inform appropri-ate person(s)

participates in discus-sions on the need to fol-low rules

performs exercises relatedto every part of the bodyincluding the mind (con-centration) and under-stands their signifi-cance

knows about, differentways of purifying waterant! demonstrate themthroughments.

simple experi-

Identifies situations lead-ing to accidents at home,school, locality and takesprecautions to avoid acci-dents

identifies and knows howto inform appropriate per-sons in case of an acci-dent/ emergency

acquires the skills to usesome basic first, aid mea-sures in case of simpleburns and cuts

understands the rules ofdifferent games and fol-lows them

48

Level I Level II

_ The Primary Years

Level III

shares with peers the ma-terial required in differentgames/play activities

takes proper care of the •games material and keepsthem at the right placeafter use

participates in slow inhal- •ing exercises

tries to hold breath for •1/2 seconds and then re-leasing it

practises correct body po- •sJt.ion while walking, sit-ting, reading etc. and iden-tifies the harmful effects ofincorrect, body position inday to day lifo

participates in games that •provide opportunities forentertainment, joy andhealthy competition

participates in deep *breathing exercises

tries to hold breath for 5/6 seconds and then exhal-ing it slowly

sits still and listen to thesounds in the environ-ment

acquires and practises thevalues of sportsmanshipand team spirit such astolerance, cooperation, ac-ceptance of defeat and vic-tory with grace

takes proper care of thegames equipment andplaces it at proper placeafter use

tries to control breath upto a minute and then ex-haling it slowly


Key Learning Area : Others in My World .

Major Theme : Social Institutions and Living thingsSub-themes : Family, community: cultural heritage, scientific and technological devel-

opments, means of transport and communication; plants and animals

ELOs : the child should• develop an understanding of the components of immediate social, cultural man-made and

natural environment and their interrelationships

• become aware of groups that, exist at several levels of organisations in nature as well asin the social environment e.g. family, community, living and non-living things etc.

• demonstrate the ability to think independently e.g. differentiate between facts and opinionand express one's own opinion logically

• demonstrate an understanding of the interdependence of man and nature and of the needand ways of protecting the environment

• demonstrate skills of measurement with standard and non-standard units, skills of esti-mation of physical quantities in daily life situations; skills related to collection, presen-tation and interpretation of data, skills related to location of places, data etc.

• plan and carry out simple safe experiments/activities individually or in a group and re-ports findings in appropriate ways and demonstrate qualities of leadership, biking respon-sibilities, working together on projects/assignments, sharing and helping others

• demonstrate skills related to taking care of the Immediate environment

• learn to live in harmony with people of different communities and participate actively incelebration of festivals of different religions and cultural groups

• demonstrate through appropriate actions sensitivity to the needs and feelings of fellow humanbeings and other living things

• develop awareness of the contributions made by people in the present and past and ap-preciate, how 'these have affected the ways of her/his and the community's life

• respect the rules/laws made for the benefit of the community and lbllow them.

Indicators


The child• identifies simple relation-

ships with members in thefamily and reports thesethrough drawing, stories,dramatisation, focusingon the roles of family mem-bers

knows the concept and sig-nificance of communityand shares it with peers inappropriate ways

50 The Primcuy Years

Level I Level U Level III

identifies simple relation-ships between people in theimmediate neighbourhood

realises that every memberin the family/neighbour-hood has some responsibili-ties

• talks to parents and othermembers of the familyabout their occupationsand reports in appropriateways

• interacts with people indifferent occupations andreports their significance inher/his family's lifethrough writing orally,drawing, role play, dramaetc.

• understands and reportsthe interdependence ofmembers in family/neigh-bourhood and community

• surveys and reports aboutsome common essential fa-cilities in the locality suchas drinking water, electric-ity, park, primary healthcentre etc. and who man-ages them (panchayat/mu-nicipality)

• identifies people who en-force rules at home, schoolneighbourhood, on the roadetc. and reports about themappropriately

identities own family's roleand duties in the neigh-bourhood and participatesin performing duties at, her/his own level

knows about the rights andduties of every member inthe community and respectst hem

finds out about the agen-cies/bodies/institutionsthat ensures the rights ofevery member in the com-munity

finds out simple facts abouthow these agencies (local/state /national level) areconstituted and shares theinformation with peersthrough role play, drama orin any other appropriateway

follows rules identified forthe community and collectsinformation about the localauthorities that enforce them

differentiates between arule and a law and finds outhow laws are enforced

imagines situations whatwould have happened ifthere had been no rules andshares them through sto-ries, illustrations, dramaetc.

• explains very simply (with-out use of technical vo-cabulary) the need for a gov-ernment

- to represent people- to fulfill the needs of the

people- to make and enforce laws


Level I Level II

51

Level III

• identifies some activitiesthat, she/he does with her/his family for fun and en-joyment and reports thesepictorially or throughdrama or stories

• names the festivals andother occasions that thefamily/neighbours celebrateand reports how they arecelebrated

• identifies the householdand other materials whichare a source of entertain-ment and joy such as toys/games material, radio/TV,cinema, visit to fairs, exhi-bitions, museums, zoos etc.

• participates in singing thenational anthem

identifies and participatesin local festivals with thefamily and shares theseexperiences, with peers inappropriate way

finds out from elders thesignificance of these festi-,vals and th« stories, if anyrelated to them

identifies national symbolsand respects them and de-scribes appropriately eachsymbol

memorizes the national an-them and sings it. withproper respect, correct pro-nunciation and tune inspecified time

listens to and reads storiesabout local and nationalleaders

listens to and reads storiesabout people who made dis-coveries and inventionswhich have made our livescomfortable

visits important places/monuments in the neigh-bourhood and finds throughtalking, reading (from librarybooks) stories if any, asso-ciated with these and sharesthem with peers

recognises the pictures ofthe current and nationalleaders (President, PrimeMinister) and names them

collects information aboutthe highlights of the free-dom struggle and shares itwith peers in the form ofstories/anecdotes etc.

• shows due respect to andappreciates the contribu-tions made by local/na-tional leaders in thestruggle for freedom

• collects information aboutpeople such as architects,painters, dancers, musi-cians, writers etc. who havemade our culture rich in thepast and present and sharesit with peers

• attends performances, ifpossible, by known artistsin different fields and en-joys them

• finds out from elders in thefamily/community whatchanges have taken placein their own lives duringtheir life time and also thesocial, cultural and politi-cal life

• finds out how new discov-eries in science, medicine,technology have broughtabout changes in daily liteand shares the informationin appropriate ways


Level I Level II Level 111

• identifies the local means oftransport, differentiates be-tween fast find slow movingvehicles and shares theknowledge about themorally, through actions,drawing etc.

• collects pictures/drawingsof different means of trans-port and prepares scrapbooks alongwith classmatesin a small group

• identifies means throughwhich we can send and re-ceive messages from othersliving in the same city/vil-lage or another city/village

• relates orally/in writing theexperiences of the visit It)relatives/friends living indistant places

• finds out how one canreach people who are awaywithout going personallyarid differentiates betweenmeans of transport andmeans of communication

• listens to and reads storiesabout persons who inventedimportant means of trans-port and communicationand shares them with peers

• writes about/relates orallythe journey of a letter fromone place to another

• learns how to operate ra-dio/TV, telephone andother gadgets at home andtakes necessary precautions

• visits (with parents/teach-ers) places like industrialplaces, hospitals, banks orany other place, interactswith people working thereand shares the experiencesWith (Jeers

• discusses in small group ofclassmates/[x;crs how devel-opments in means of com-munication and transporthelp in bringing people andplaces nearer to each otherand reports in appropriateway

• finds out how the means oftransport and communica-tion are harmful io thehealth of common man andprecautions that should betaken Io avoid the harm ef-fects.

• visits with elders/teachers apost/telegraph office, busstation, railway station, air-port, radio/television sta-tion, newspaper office, ifpossible, and shares her/hisexperiences in different, ways

• differentiates betweenmeans of communicationfor individuals and masses

• differentiates between factand opinion

• cites examples how informa-tion available through massmedia help her/him in dif-ferent ways (studies, healthhabits, physical exercises,entertainment, values etc.)

Environmental Education m


guides friends/peers how tofind her/his house if theywant to pay her/him a visit.(II.No, name of the street/road etc.)

uses verbally/and in actionsimple relative directionwords correctly such as infront of, at the back, left,right, next to. above, belowetc.

uses simple terms to de-scribe relative size and dis-tance

identities the animals andplants found in the sur-roundings

draws/collects pictures ofthe animals/plants foundin the surroundings

shares her/his feelingsabout a pet/domestic ani-mals if any in home, withpeers, friends

• reads and interprets sym-bols for directions, crossingthe road, level crossing etc.

• knows how to find out aplace with the help of stan-dard and non-standardsymbols and demonstratesthrough drawing, dramati-zation etc.

• draws a simple plan ofclassroom and other smallareas, not to scale, usingsymbols to show the posi-tion of things

• measures distance in non-standard units in the class-room, between classroomand different places in theschool such as library, maingate etc.

• observes the animals/plants (hiring visits to zoo/park etc., and shares theinformation with class-mates orally through draw-ing, reciting poems etc.

• talks to elders and finds outthe uses of animals andplants in day to day life andreports in appropriate ways

• partir s in activities/related ^ planting/takingcare of plants at home/school, appropriate to her/his age

• knows the names of na-tional bird, national ani-mal, national parks etc.

draws sketch maps, not toscale showing, routes fromschool to nearby placesindicating landmarks : ddirections of movement

uses globe, maps of thecity/state/country to locateplaces and other importantinformation

knows about the signifi-cance and the use of sym-bols and scale on maps andglobe

discusses in groups aboutthe need to take care/pro-tect the animals and plants,interdependence of humanlife and plant/animal lifeand reports in appropriateways

finds out the characteristicsof different types of animalsand the different parts oftheir tody and how they areuseful to them

finds out how water ani-mals and water plants aredifferent form those foundon land in the immediate,environment


Level 1 Level I! Level III

• identifies how animals andplants art: like human be-ings and how they are dif-ferent.

• collects flowers, leaves ofplants from the surround-ings and prepares a scrapbook

• observes classifies and re-ports the observable eharâcteristios of animals in thesurroundings

• differentiates between acreeper, plant and a tree

appreciates the beauty inanimal and plant life andexpresses her/his feelingsthrough creative activitieslike drawing, painting recit-ing/writing poems/proseand drama etc.


Key Learning Area : The World Around MeMajor Themes: Significant, features of natural and man-made environment; the non-living

things/materials; time and space; significant features that make one proud of the eoun-

Sub-themes• The physical features and phenomena—The Earth, The Sun, The Moon, The Sky, Day and

Night . •";::.,• weather climate, land forms/soil—their characteristics and influence: on human life• The non-living things, materials, natural resources-—their characteristics and role in huntan

life and the need to protect them• Time, continuity and change — significant developments in different, fields over the time

and their effects on human life• I am an Indian .ELOs: The child should• identify the natural phenomena and their relationships with ways of life of the people• knows ahout the significant features of physical environment• identity and know about the natural resources and understand the need for their proper

utilisation, conservation and preservation• demonstrate an understanding of distance in space and time and the relationship hetween

the two• demonstrate skills to experiment and find out the characteristics of materials• develop skills related to biking care of the environment.• learn to live in harmony with nature• show, concern and respect for the environment• develop, awareness of and appreciate one's own culture and traditions and be proud ofbeing

an Indian

Indicators

Level I Level U Lewi HI

The child* identifies physical features

in the surroundings suchas hills, ponds, rivers etc.

• identifies the sun, themoon, the stars in terms oftheir observable properties

finds out how the earthlooks (shape and concept—land and water masses)

collects stories about thepersons who found thatthe earth is round, andshares it. with peers

identities that the surfaceof the land masses has dif-ferent forms such as hills,plains, plateau and desertsetc. and collects their pic-tures if possible

appreciates that the earthis the habitat of all livingbeings

56

Levell Level II

The Primary Years

Level III

knows that the houses andother buildings have beenmade by human beings

observe and finds out thatvarious objects in the im-mediate environment aremade up of a variety of ma-terials such as clay, glass,metal, wood etc.

• collects pictures of theearth taken from the space-ships

• finds out. that the earth, thesun,: the moon and thestars rotate on their axis oraround each other and thedurations differ

• identifies that day andnights are formed becauseof the earth's rotation onits axis

• records time of sunrise andsunset from newspaper,T.V. etc. and realises thatthe timings change overdays/monlhs

• differentiates between manmade and natural environ-ment in terms of observableproperties

experiments and finds outthat some of the materialschange their shape andproperties when processed

classifies materials on thebasis of their properties; assolids'and liquids

handles, observes and iden-tifies the soil as sandy, al-luvial, clayey, rocky on thebasis of its observable prop-. t ies

identifies how the sun isimportant for life on theearth

examines very simply ingroup discussions, how theman made environment andnatural environment affecteach other and also the lifeof human beings andreports in appropriateways

finds out. the relationshipbetween design and mate-rial used in buildings andthe natural environmentand natural resources

finds out the uses of differ-ent materials in differentfields and how they havechanged the way of life ofhuman beings

differentiates between lanaand soil



•investigates the formationof soil by weathering ofearth materials

• describes daily weather us-ing simple terms likecloudy, sunny or rainy

• describes todays' Weather

• plays'dressups'to show theeffects of w»*.;ither on choiceof clothing

• identities food items takenthroughout the year andthose taken at differenttimes of the year

prepares weekly/monthlyweather charts in groups

differentiates betweenweather and climate

finds out from elders/teachers/reading bookshow different types of dressmaterials protect humanbeings from effects of cli-mate

collect pictures/observesdifferent types of dressesworn by people and preparesa scrap book or draws andcolours them.

• examines the local environ-ment e.g. the school groundfor signs of weathering andsuggests ways of overcomingthe problem

• identities some factors thatlead to soil pollution suchas use of pesticides andother chemicals and theneed to protect the soil

• identities relationship be-tween major types of soiland major crops

• collects pictures of men/women wearing differentdresses; different food itemsand prepares scrap booksalongwith peers

• infers that variety Indresses and food habitsadds to the richness of thecountry's culture

• identifies relationship be-tween land form, climateand life of people such asfood, clothing, occupations,festivals, types of shelterand cultural activities

observes and records differ-ent seasonal variations inplants, trees, crops duringthe year, based on personalexperiences

88

Level I Level II

The Primary Years

Level lit

identifies, simple uses ofwater tor human beings,plants and animals

• identifies the presence of airthrough simple activitieslike blowing

develops habits like breath-ing through nose, coveringnose/mouth while sneez-ing/coughing etc.

finds out the naturalsources of water and shareswith peel's in appropriateways

observes and records thethree states of water

demonstrates how Ihe rain-fall occurs through thestory of a drop of water orin any other way

cites examples of activitiesthat lead to water pollutionand role of every body toavoid it

demonstrates some proper-ties of air through simpleactivities and shares thefindings with peers

collects information abouthow water is being used tocreate energy and electricity

• locates on trie map theplaces where dams havebeen constructed and findsout their benefits

• visits some dam site, ifpossible, and shares theexperience with classmates

• collects information aboutother sources of energy andthe places they arc foundand locate them on the map

• compares renewable andnon- renewable resou rces

• shows concern for limited,resources and the need touse them carefully

• detects air pollutionthrough simple activities(smell, feelings in the eyes,simple experiments)

• identifies some causes ofair pollution and relatesthem to some commonhealth problems

• develops habits to protectownself from health prob-lems related to polluted air(such as avoiding going inopen places during storm,playing near roads, high-ways and industrial placesemitting toxic gases.



tries, listens and finds out:ways in which air crcfil.cssounds (passing throughtrees whistling, blowinginto pipe, playing a fluteetc.)

differentiates between loudand soft, pleasant and un-pleasant sounds

• classiiies people accordingto age, sex

• talks of personal experi-ences in terms of yesterday,today and tomorrow

• uses the language of time

• observes arid describes se-quence of events in aday, a week

• recognises changes inownself/others in the fam-ily In photographs taken atdifferent times

• observes changes in a plantover short and longer peri-ods and reports changes

• predicts next event (such asrecognition of lunch timewhen food is being cooked)

differentiates between * cites examples from thesounds created in handling/ natural phenomena toplaying with different male- show that light travelsrials/instruments faster than sound

Identities the sources of • recognises the musical in-unpleasant sounds in theimmediate environment andtakes precautions not: tocreate such sounds herself/himself and motivates oth-ers also not to do so

• identities harmful effects ofpersistent loud or suddennoise (such as lack of sleep,concentration, effects onthe sick and the ears ofindividuals)

• identities similarities anddifferences in the lives ofpeople of various genera-tions (ownself, parents,grand-parents)

• describes events on a calen-dar as taking place lietbre orafter each other

• makes a calendar (groupactivity—week/month /year)and records significantevents (such as class timetable, birthday's, festivals,weather

• draws a time line showingmain events of own life

• identifies somethings that,change throughout people'slives and some that do notchange (colour of eyes, nameetc.)

struments that functionwith the help of air andlearns to play some ofthem, if possible

reads and discusses storiesdescribing the ways of life,beliefs and practices fol-lowed by men, women andchildren in the past

examines how the design ofhuman shelter has changedover time and the reasonsthereof

finds out about the discov-ery of fire, wheel and thechanges that have comeover time and how that hasinfluenced the life of hu-man beings form time totime

examines the changes thathave come in our lives dueto technological develop-ments

60

Level I Level 11

The Primary Years

Level III

identifies the sequence ofactivities related to day andnight

sequences three or fourmajor events that tookplace within one schoolyear using words like 'first','next', 'then', 'before', and'after'

participates in singing na-tional songs

• compares the old buildings,monuments with the onesconstructed recently andrecords the difference

• takes pride in participationin celebration of nationaldays

• reads and shares the storiesof national leaders withpeers

• practices values followed by. great men and women of

the country and the world

• respects people from allwalks of life irrespective oftheir occupation, religionspeaking different lan-guages, eating different foodand using different kinds ofclothing

• examines the positive andnegative effects of new dis-coveries in various fields(recreation, telecommunica-tion, refrigeration, landdealing and transportation

• recreates/dramatises thelife stories of great men andwomen, important eventsassociated with the strugglefor independence

• realises that people from allover the country partici-pated in struggle for inde-pendence and the processtook several years.

• infers that independencethus attained is invaluableand needs to be preserved

• identities the ways thepeople in different parts ofthe country are interdepen-dent.

appreciates the variety andrichness in language, reli-gions, classical music anddances, and historicalmonuments etc.

takes pride in being andian

APPENDIX HI

Web Chart (Examplar)

Level I• Names of local means of transport• Slow and fast moving means of trans-

port• Awareness of how messages are sent• Awareness of rules of crossing roads

and other day-to-day situations• Awareness of and practising 'walking'

as the easiest and no-cost means oftransport and as a means of physicalexercise

Means of Transport andCommunication

Level II• Uses of means of transport• Stories of inventors and discoverers• Means of communication• Persons and agencies responsible for

managing the names of transport andcommunication, awareness about theiroccupational skills

• Safety measures in using the means oftransport and avoiding accidents onroads

• Knowledge of road symbols and sym-bols on railway crossings

• Skills in handling means of masscommunication such as radio, TV, etc.

• Physical exercises through use of somemeans of transport such as bicycle

Level III• Role of means of transport and com-

munication in bringing the country/world closer

• Difference between means of individualand mass communication

• Harmful effects of means of transportand communication on health ofpeople and ways to avoid them

• Proper use of means of mass commu-nication by developing skills of an alertconsumer

• Initial skills in handling e-mailinternet, only if the facility is available

3

SPEAKING AJHINKING

READING

COM P RE H E NSI ON

Teaching of Language

IntroductionY THE TIME a child comes intoa formal school around theage of six years, she/he

already has with her/him some com-petence in the language/languageswhich are spoken in and aroundher/his home. These early languageexperiences of the child are logicallybest suited to serve as the mediumof early education since the childlearns much faster and with greaterease and comprehension in a lan-guage she/he is already familiarwith. In view of this universallyaccepted fact, the National Curricu-lum Framework (1992) clearly statesthat the medium of instruction atthe primary stag should be themother tongue or Ji. regional lan-guage. It also prescribes the studyof only one language i.e. the mothertongue/regional language at the pri-mary stage. The idea is to enrich thecompetence of the child further inthe same language that is the child'shome language which, in turn, wouldfacilitate all learning.

In this context it is necessary toclarify what is 'administratively'meant by 'mother tongue'. Most ofthe states in our country have been,formed on the basis of language.Education being " state subject, thedevelopment of . iculum, syllabusand textbooks takes place at thestate level. Hence in the educationalsystem of any state, administrativelanguage of the state which is usedby a major'i.v of people in the statein their daily life is defined as the'mother tongue'. Therefore, in Orissathe mother tongue would be Oriya,in Tamil Nadu it would be Tamil andin Madhya Pradesh it would be Hindiand so on. At the same time it is alsotrue that all major languages of ourcountry have numerous dialects.This, in fact, is not the case only inour country. All the major languagesof the world have their own regionaldialects. But there is not much dif-ference between their dialects andthe standard language i.e. the Statelanguage. Hence, even if some peopledo not speak it they can understandthe standard form of their language.For instance, if there is a fair in a


Brij or Bhojpuri speaking area wherethe shopkeepers or performers speakkhari boli (or the standard form ofHindi), people/children do not expe-rience any difficulty in understand-ing them. They can also follow radioand television programmes pitchedin khari boli.However, there are certain areas,mostly tribal, where the reach of thestandard language is comparativelyless. Thus in every state there arechildren whose home language isvery different from the language ofthe state. In big cities there arenumerous families who have comefrom different states of the country.The 'mother tongue' or home lan-guage of children from these familiesbears no direct relation to the lan-guage of the state.

It is worth noting that there is nofundamental difference between dia-lect and language. It is certain so-cial and political situations that leadto a dialect being used in a geo-graphical area becoming accepted asthe standard form. It is then usedfor such collective purposes as ad-ministration, trade, education etc.However, for those who speak a dia-lect it suffices to fulfill the require-ments of their daily life. From nopoint of view should a dialect beconsidered inferior. For example,classical literature which is availablein the major dialects of Hindi is veryimportant from the point of view ofeducation and society.

If we consider the role of languagein the curriculum, there is need tomake a distinction between• teaching of a language• teaching in a languageAnd in both cases at the primarystage, the prescribed language is themother tongue or the dominant re-gional language. The proposed cur-riculum framework also supportsthe same view — but, with a dif-ference.The 'difference' arises from the con-cern that, as discussed above, in amultl lingual country like ours, canthe decision to make the dominantlanguage of the region the mediumof instruction be really workable?If we seriously take into account thewide variety of languages thatabound in every nook and corner ofour country we will realize that it isnot always so. If we go by availablerecords, India has as many as 1652mother tongues which are spoken.Yet, there are only sixty-seven lan-guages which are actually taught inIndian schools! Most of the mothertongues are not developed because oflack of their recognition and there-fore lack of use outside a particularcommunity and their homes. There-fore, these are not taught in formaleducational institutions.

Since a large part of our country is,by and large, multi-ethnic and there-fore multilingual, to what extent cantextbooks be made in each of these


languages, and also when some ofwhich do not even have a script?Besides, there are problems of avail-ability of teachers speaking theselanguages, political motives of thelocal leaders, poor analysis of theproblems etc. As a result, for a verylarge number of children in ourcountry, their home language isactually different from the schoollanguage and they therefore, do notget to study in their mother tongueat all. In such situations, the goal ofusing the 'early language experi-ences' of the child as the medium oflearning never gets realised. Thissituation therefore, leaves a verylarge number of children in ourcountry not only illiterate in theirown mother tongue or home languagetaut also with low achievement lev-els in the dominant regional languageitself and, because of that, in othercurricular areas as well! There is,therefore, a need to approach theteaching of language for the differ-ent situations in the country in wayssuited to each situation so that thechild's new learning is based onwhat the child already has with her/him and not on its rejection.

What are these various languagesituations that we can identify in ourcountry? Very broadly we may, forthe sake of convenience, be able togroup these under the followingcategories :1. situations in which the child's

home language is the same as the

school language e.g. a Banglaspeaking child going to a Banglamedium school.

2. situations in which the child'shome language is similar to theschool language but with somevariations; for example, a child inU.P. may be speaking Bhojpuri orAwadhi at home but is expectedto move on to 'standard Hindi' inschool.

3. situations in which the home lan-guage is very different from theschool language e.g. in tribalareas where even if 90% of chil-dren belong to a particular tribalcommunity they are still requiredto study in the regional language,often through a teacher who alsodoes not know their language. Inthis context, it would be interest-ing to know that in India thereare as many as 400 tribal mothertongues.

4. situations, largely in the privateschools or Kendriya Vildyalayas,where children have to learn En-glish as a subject from Class I on-wards and also learn other sub-ject through English withoutbeing exposed to it at home or inschool. And, this becomes a de-terrent to their learning.

This chapter attempts to deal withthese various language situations inthree parts.The first part takes up the very firstand most favourable situation where


the child has the opportunity tolearn not only the mother tongue /home language taut also through thehome language. Mother tongue isdefined here as the home languageor the language that the child comesto school with. The assumption hereis that the child has come to theschool with some familiarity andcompetence in the language and theschool programme should build onthis early foundation and help thechild move on further from there.

The second part addresses the othertwo situations where the school lan-guage and home language of the childare different. It discusses the possi-bilities for helping the child bridgethe gap smoothly from the homelanguage to the school language,while also nurturing the home lan-guage which is already with thechild.The third part deals with the teach-ing of English. This has been in-cluded for the primary stage in viewof the evidently growing demand inthe community for introduction ofEnglish at the primary level.

SECTION I

Teaching of Mother TongueIntroductionAs we are all aware, a child's mothertongue is a natural expression ofwhat the child is thinking and

experiencing. From the time the childis born, she/he gets exposed to thelanguage being spoken by her/hisparents and siblings. She/he hearsthis language in the neighbourhood,on the streets, and also over theradio and television, if the facility isavailable. The child thus learns tospeak the same language that she/he hears in the environment. A smallchild looks at the world around her/him, associates names to objects andpersons in the environment andstarts to talk about them. In this wayshe/he begins to gradually constructhe r /h i s knowledge of the worldaround. And thus, as the child'sstore of language develops, so doesthe child's world grow and expand.This language that a child grows upwith is known as the child' s mothertongue.

Mother tongue as defined here is,therefore, the language that thechild already possesses beforeshe/he enters primary school. Achild growing up in a normal environ-ment has a vocabulary of about 1200-1500 words and possesses all of thosebasic sentence structures throughwhich she/he makes sense of the lan-guage spoken in the immediate envi-ronment. She/he is also able to usethe spoken language to convey, whatshe/he wants, to others.

In fact the teaching of mother tonguedoes not begin in school. It is onlyrefined and carried forward in theschool. Even when taught as a


subject in the school, the child ba-sically learns to use the more devel-oped forms of language, to acquireknowledge through reading, andlearn to express her/his ideas andperceptions in diverse ways.

Language, Thoughts and FeelingsAs children grow, their languagebecomes more and more internalised.All the words used by them are notspoken out loud; instead, they givebirth to more and more thoughts intheir minds. In their imaginationthey can even talk with fairies orchallenge the greatest athlete on thesports grounds! As they grow older,the proportion of words becominginternal will increase. Of all thatthey think, there is very little thatthey will be able to speak out aloud,but the 'rising and whirling' of imagi-nation and ideas is absolutely essen-tial for the development of the mind.Language is constantly generated inthe minds of human beings in theform of thought. This language ofthought has a vocabulary and gram-mar identical to spoken language,but its content is very different. Ateacher can teach children what tosay and how to say it, but it isimpossible for her/him to teach themwhat to think.

Our thoughts, in turn, are governedby feelings and perceptions arisingwithin us. But, as we are all aware,we have little control over our feel-ings and perceptions. The way the

particles of vapour above the cloudsare invisible but, nevertheless, givebirth to clouds, in the same waybehind our invisible thoughts too liesa whole universe of feelings andperceptions which govern thethoughts in our mind and these inturn give rise to words in our brain.If we wish to develop in childrenskills for expression in the mothertongue, it will not suffice for us tofocus only on the external aspect oflanguage. It is essential to pay at-tention to what happens in theminds of children before they sayor write something. Thus, in orderto strengthen expression in themother tongue among children, it iseven more crucial to address theirfeelings and thoughts.

Three Kinds of Skills inMother Tongue .. ...We can broadly divide the skills oflanguage usage in the following threecategories :a. Mechanical skillsb. Semi-mechanical skillsc. Reflective and creative skillsUnderstanding the nature of thesethree types of skills and the differ-ences between them will help us todevelop these skills better amongchildren.

Mechanical skills

If we ask a person to multiply 7 by


3, we know that the result can onlybe 21. If any other answer is givenwe will call it wrong. In language,too, there are aspects that can defi-nitely be placed in categories of 'right'or 'wrong'. For example, recognisingwritten symbols and reading themcorrectly is a mechanical skill. Writ-ing words correctly too is such anarea. Spelling mistakes can easily beidentified and corrected. To a greatextent, the area of grammar toocomes under this category. If thechildren are using gender incorrectly,we can easily draw their attentiontowards this mistake. The area ofpronunciation too is an area ofmechanical skill to a large extent.Children's attention can easily bedrawn towards mistakes in pronun-ciation. It is often felt that themechanical skills should beemphasised in the primary classesbecause if there are shortcomingsfrom the very beginning, it becomesdifficult to remove them later. Butthe emphasis should be in a positiveway by demonstrating the correctform and not by reprimanding thechild or penalizing her/him for it.

Semi-mechanical skills

In our daily life, when we listen,speak, read or write in any language,we do not pay attention to the enun-ciation of every single word, or itsbeing written correctly or to thegrammatical structure of our sen-tences. Language seems to flow

effortlessly from our lips or pen, inkeeping with the context. This ispossible only in the language wehave practised from our childhood.Semi-mechanical skills imply theskills involved can be defined assemi mechanical facility and flu-ency in comprehension and expres-sion. The development of oral semi-mechanical skills starts before thechild enters the school. At home,children can quite easily understandat their level whatever is said byothers, and can put across what theywant to say quite fluently and evenforcefully. On coming to school manychildren become hesitant in sayingwhat is in their mind, since theyoften develop inhibitions. It is, there-fore, important to address thisproblem by helping children de-velop positive feelings about them-selves and confidence in their ownabilities.

The practice of reading and writingtakes place in the school. Semi-


mechanical skills in these areaswould imply that children read andeasily understand material of theirlevel, and can express themselvesthrough writing. These skills candevelop with practice only. Hence itis essential to provide each child inthe school with as many opportuni-ties as possible to listen, speak, readand write the mother tongue.

Reflective and creative skillsIt would be more appropriate to termthese as abilities rather than skills.Skills tend to have a greater element

of the physical, whereas abilitiesimply emphasis on the mental andemotional aspects. In the process oflanguage teaching we should payattention to the importance of beingable to differentiate between fact andopinion. In any language, manywords tend to have different mean-ings for different people, thoughlimited within a range. Hence exceptin science and mathematics whatthey write reflects their own

thoughts. Unfortunately our educationsystem ends up communicating tochildren that in the various subjectstaught, there are certain definite ques-tions and definite answers — and thatthe children's job is to memorise thedefinite answers to those definitequestions! Good students are consid-ered to be those who, even in higherclasses, memorise the 'correct' an-swers and write them down in theanswer-book in the examination hall.There probably is no better way ofrestricting the growth of children'sintelligence and creativity.

From the very beginning, childrenshould be encouraged to speak outtheir mind in their own way. It isonly then that they will be able todevelop the ability to think indepen-dently. From the very beginningemphasis should be laid on ensur-ing that children are not repeatingverbatim what the book says or thatthey are not copying one another.Each child has a mind of her/hisown, the development of which is oneof the major objectives of education.A child's mind will develop only whenshe/he is given as many opportuni-ties as possible to speak out in her/his own way in the mother tongue.

Importance of Oral LanguageIn the first few years of the of lifethe child, development of both mindand language takes place through theoral use of language. During thisstage of their life, it is oral language


that children use in order to under-stand their immediate environment,to relate with it, and to think in it.It is the spoken form of language thatis the basic form of language anddespite all technological advance-ments, the importance of the oral formis increasing all the more, ralher thandecreasing. Not only in the classroom,but in normal conversation with oneanother as also in various conferencesand meetings, it is the oral form oflanguage that is used. With the expan-sion in television networks, the spo-ken form of language is reaching moreand more people as compared to thewritten form.

At the primary stage, therefore, spe-cial attention should be paid to thedevelopment of oral skills — listen-ing and speaking skills — becausethese have the greatest role to playin language learning. The more op-portunities the children get to listenand speak, the faster they learn thelanguage. In the education system oftoday, the oral form of language isbeing totally ignored. Teachers tendto feel that children already knowhow to speak, hence there is noneed to develop it separately. Theresult is that children's oral expres-sion does not become effective andthis affects their written expressionas well.

Reading — Its Meaningand Significance

We have discussed above the oral

form of language. This does not implythat reading has become in any wayless important. If we know today thethoughts and ideas of those who livedthousands of years before us, it isdue to the written form of language.Recognizing the written symbols ofany language and converting theminto meaning is reading. Merelyknowing the letters is not reading.Reading is an art, a habit. Whenchildren begin to take pleasure inreading they are always able toobtain material in accordance withtheir own interest. If they do notdevelop the ability and interest inreading, they may become literatebut are not good readers.

Why is the Development ofReading Skills iriaportant?

To a great extent, the mental andemotional development of childrendepends on the development of theability to read. The more they read themore their vocabulary and the powerto use words grows, with the resultthat their ability to comprehend in-creases. The more this happens, thebetter they are able to speak, thebetter they are able to write.

It can perhaps be said that thepractical form in which educationmanifests itself is through reading.Reading books, newspapers, maga-zines, announcements , notices,greeting cards etc. are the practical


forms of reading. The development ofthe ability to comprehend writtenlanguage enables children to under-stand concepts in other areas.

The success of reading is when thechild reads and understands as wellas understands and reads.

The Importance of WritingThree aspects are included in theability to write — written symbols,spelling and composition. The first isrelated to the manner in which let-ters are written, or character forma-tion. Spelling is related to how let-ters are used in words, while com-position has to do with grammaticalstructure as well as the movementfrom controlled composition to freecomposition. A child can expressher/his feelings and ideas throughwriting. In daily life too writing isuseful in tasks such as writing let-ters, filling in a money order form,preparing, a shopping list, sendingmessages to others, and so on.

It is only through the written formthat the knowledge and experience ofone generation of human beings canbe carried forward to the next gen-eration. Writing skills are related tothe needs of day to day living.

Present Concerns inLanguage TeachingLet us take a look at what the present

situation of language teaching atprimary stage is generally like acrossthe country.• A large number of children com-

ing to school are first generationlearners. In the absence of astimulating and educational en-vironment at home, they gener-ally come into school withouthaving developed the necessaryreadiness for learning to read andwrite. Often they may not beinterested in education itself. Amajority of these children do notget the benefit of a sound EarlyChildhood Education either. Oncethey come into school also, no ac-tivities are undertaken to gener-ate in them any interest or readi-ness for learning to read andwrite. From day one they arecompelled to begin on formalreading and writing. The conse-quence is that they face difficul-ties in their learning and loseinterest in studies.

• Our education system has alwaysignored the oral aspect of language.There are two main reasons forthis. One, teachers tend to feelthat there is no need to focus onspoken language separately, aschildren already know how tospeak. Two, from the very begin-ning, our examination systemfocuses on evaluating children inthe written mode, as a result ofwhich we do not pay attention tothe oral form at all.


• We know that each child isunique and that her/his pace oflearning may be different fromothers. Some children learnfaster, some slowly. But an effortis made in the classroom to teachall children at the same pace. Somechildren do get to learn, and someare left behind. They move onfrom one class to another with-out having learnt what they needto in that class (particularly as aresult of the no-detention policy).

• By and large the focus in the class-room is on completing the lessonsin the textbook. Teachers areunder pressure to complete thesyllabus in the prescribed timeand it becomes difficult for themto determine what each child haslearnt and to what extent.

• No activities are undertaken for thedevelopment of creative and imagi-native faculties among children.Even for composition, a few top-ics are identified by teachers withwhose help children are made towrite a few sentences. Childrenare not encouraged to write inde-pendently on their own, nor arethey provided opportunities forwritten or oral expression ontopics of their interest. Conse-quently, creative faculties do notget nurtured. Often their expres-sion is limited to repeatingwhatever has been learnt by rotememory.

• Other than the textbook, childrenare not encouraged to read anychildren's literature, nor is anymaterial available for them to read.This results in children not devel-oping any interest in reading, andtheir vocabulary too does not grow.

Major Questions

In view of the above concerns someof the major questions addressed inthe following pages are:• What do we expect in terms of

mother tongue development fromchildren who complete primaryeducation?

• What are the specific objectivesfor mother tongue teaching at thedifferent levels of primary educa-tion?

• What should be the process ofmother tongue teaching at everylevel? In what ways are the meth-ods suggested here for mothertongue teaching different from thetraditional methods used?

• What should the teaching-learn-ing material be like?

• What should be the nature andmethod for assessing progress inthe development of mother tongueabilities?

Vision of the

In view of what has been discussedabove, let us look at what we expect


from the child in terms of develop-ment of skills and abilities in mothertongue by the time a child completesthe primary education stage.It is expected that a child would beable to• use the mother tongue for effec-

tive communication in daily life• take pleasure in reading and lis-

tening to what is of interest toher/him and increase her /h islevel of information.

• think independently• use language creatively.The proposed curriculum frameworkhas been developed keeping theseobjectives in mind. Let us take a lookat some of the major features of thisframework:• It gives sufficient space to the

language abilities related to readi-ness that are to be developed atthe pre-school level and shouldform an essential part of theprimary curriculum.

• The expected language abilitieshave been identified at three lev-els, as suggested in the documentto take care of the difference inpace of learning by different chil-dren.Level 1 introduces the skills oflistening, speaking, reading andwriting after ensuring readinessfor these skills. Level 2 carriesthese abilities forward, but at ahigher difficulty level than that of

level 1. Level 3 contains sugges-tions towards the consolidationand enrichment of all these lan-guage abilities.

• With a view to develop creativeabilities and imagination amongstchildren, it emphasises indepen-dent thinking and writing. Lan-guage is not being looked upon onlyas a tool of communication but asa powerful medium for children'sfeelings, thoughts and expression.

• It spells out in detail the differ-ent methods of teaching-learning,and relates the process of learn-ing language tq life.

• It emphasises the development inchildren of the ability to distin-guish between fact and opinion.

• It lays special emphasis on thedevelopment of reading compre-hension ability because readinghelps in enhancing the vocabulary,acquiring new information andunderstanding concepts in othersubjects.

Level-wise Expected LearningOutcomes

Readiness for Learning To Readand Write

Before introducing reading and. writingto children it is necessary to first en-sure that the child has developed• interest in learning to read and

write by seeing its relevance indaily life

• some basic vocabulary and


expression in that language• ability to discriminate beginning

and end sounds of words• ability to relate sounds to pictures,

words etc.• a sense of directionality i.e. moving

while writing from left to write or inany direction, depending on the di-rection typical of the language tobe learnt

• adequate eye-hand coordination tobe able to hold and control thepencil properly

A good Early Childhood Programmeshould be able to help children developthis readiness. However, many childreniri. our country do not get this opportu-nity, either because they come directlyto the primary school, or even if theygo to a preschool, the quality of theprogramme is not always very good. Itis, therefore, necessary to ensure thisat the beginning of level 1 through agood school readiness programme.

Level IA child should, by the end ofLevel I, be able to

Listening and Speaking• listen to and understand the lan-

guage spoken around her/him• listen with understanding and

pleasure to short, simple poems,stories, descriptions, dialogues,conversation etc. and get themain ideas in them

« express herself/himself confi-

dently while participating in con-versations, discussions etc. at avery simple level

• ask questions with confidence• solve simple riddles and play lan-

guage games• use courteous and respectful

language• listen to others attentively and

wait for one's own turn• recite simple rhymes and poems

and participate actively in groupsongs

• role play situations and storiesusing dialogues. . .

Reading• recognize and discriminate differ-

ent sounds and relate these topictures, shapes, symbols, wordsetc

• develop the habit of reading fromleft to right and top to bottom (de-pending on the direction of thescript of the language)

• read pictures, recognise and readfamiliar words, sentences, poemsetc

• read with understanding andenjoy simple poems, stones, dia-logues, descriptions etc.

Writing• feel the need to learn to write and

enjoy writing on her/his own

Teaching of language 75

• demonstrate adequate eye-handcoordination while drawing,tracing, copying forms, shapesetc ,

• write short and simple words andsentences on her/his own

• write a few sentences on a famil-iar topic with the guidance of theteacher, if necessary.

Grammar

• know the opposites of simple ad-jectives and nouns

• use simple punctuation markslike comma, full stop, questionmark etc.

The above mentioned abilities arebasic to all the three levels and aretherefore not being repeated. How-ever, the complexity of the tasks/activities for these will increaseappropriately for each level.

Level II

In addition to the skills/abilities atLevel I, at Level II the child shouldbe able to

Listening and Speaking

• take part In debates, discussionsin the class, in bal sabhas etc.

• answer specific questions on con-tent /mater ia l that has beenheard

• use language in a context-specificand person-specific manner in

both formal and informal situa-tions

• narrate stories, recite poems, de-scribe events etc with correct pro-nunciation and action, expressionand gestures

• answer open ended questions e.g.what will happen if using her/his creativity and imagination

• begin to understand differencebetween fact and opinion.

Reading

• read simple text with comprehen-sion and understanding

• read aloud with correct pronun-ciation, emphasis and fluency •

• read various kinds of material e.g.notices, traffic signs, advertise-ments, stories, simple essays,newspaper, children's magazinesetc

• read other's handwriting• read silently• consult the dictionary.

Writing

• write clearly, correctly and legiblyusing punctuation marks appro-priately

• take dictation• write short compositions on a

topic of one's choice, descriptionof events experiences on her/hisown with interest and pleasure


Grammar• identify broadly on the basis of

use, different parts of speech e.g.pronouns, adjectives, adverbs,subject, predicate etc

• identify synonyms and antonymsand use them appropriately.

Level IIIBy the end of level III the child shouldbe able to :

Listening and Speaking• speak fluently in the standard

form of the mother tongue• speak to strangers with confidence• speak with confidence for two to

three minutes on a topic appro-priate to her/his level

• participate in language games ofvaried nature

• organise 'Bal Sabhas', formallywelcome a guest, offer thanks etc.

• participate in an elocution/decla-mation on a simple topic withconfidence.

Reading• consult a dictionary• read with understanding and in-

terest poems, stories, travelogues,letters, one act plays, simple es-says

• develop the habit of reading for

Writing• write an application for leave• write one's own experiences, de-

scriptions• write short stories using her/his

imagination

• take pleasure in writing.

Grammar• understand prefix and suffix,

simple and compound sentences,punctuation marks such as colon,semi-colon etc.

What should Mother TongueTeaching be Like?Relating teaching to child's dailylife experiencesWhile fostering the development oflanguage abilities of children itshould be borne in mind that theyare not being developed from scratchand should be based on themesrelated to their life and environment.The themes that are of interest tochildren are the ones that have thegreatest potential for language usage.Content should be prepared aroundthemes such as animals in the en-vironment, occupations, fruits andflowers, seasons, natural objects(such as the sun, the moon, rivers,hills, waterfalls etc.).

In all the activities planned for chil-dren a variety of examples from dailylife should be selected so that


children's vocabulary grows and theirspeaking ability develops. Childrenshould get sufficient opportunities tospeak and listen in the school througha range of activities. Discussions anddebates around familiar topics canbe initiated. There should bedramatisation of short and simplestories. Children should get oppor-tunities to speak on any incidentfrom their own experience. Theteacher should narrate stories, etc.Children can be asked the names ofobjects when their pictures areshown. Their attention should alsobe drawn to the written name of theobject. Children can be encouragedto describe various kinds of scenesor even develop stories individuallyand collectively.

Setting up a LanguageLearning Corner

If a 'Language Learning Corner' canbe fixed in the classroom, it will beof great use and interest to children.In this corner reading and writingmaterial should be displayed accord-ing to the interests and age of thechildren concerned. For example,different kinds of pictures, such asfruits, flowers, vegetables, action pic-tures, animals, various kinds ofchildren's books, magazines can bearranged in this corner. Library booksprovided under Operation Blackboardcan also be included. Childrenshould be encouraged to pick up and

read whatever is of interest to them.If reading material cannot be madeavailable in the school, childrenshould be encouraged to bring oldchildren's magazines to class fromtheir own or friend's homes, andthese should be kept in the class-room. Short stories, poems and pic-tures produced by children should bedisplayed as their literary creationsin the language corner. This wouldhelp increase their enthusiasm anddevelop their creative abilities.

Methodology of TeachingLanguage

It is important to adopt an easy andinteresting methodology for teachingof reading and writing so that chil-dren get interested and learn faster.Two tried out methods are discussedbelow :1. Word method2. Whole language development

method

DOLL.

K I T E .

WATCH.


Let us take a look at both thesemethods.

Word MethodIn the word method children arefamiliarised with the picture of aknown object and then the writtenword related to it is introduced. Theyare able to understand this on thebasis of their prior knowledge. Theneach letter occurring in the word isintroduced.Some scholars believe that the wordmethod leads to meaningful reading.The burden of memorisation is re-duced because words are taken fromthe child's vocabulary and beingfamiliar, children are able to learnto read them with ease. The famil-iarity and meaning helps childrenexperience joy in learning. In thisapproach children move from known(word) to unknown (letter), from thewhole (word) to the part (letter).

Whole Language DevelopmentMethodIn this method children are taughtreading and writing through thedescriptions of events, stories or ofexperiences from daily life. It is a factthat children are already familiarwith language usage. At home theylisten to adults talking among them-selves. They might even see themwriting or reading a little (especiallyin those homes where the parents areliterate), see in the written forms the

names of shops in the market,names of roads, advertisements, etc.They understand that these writtenmessages carry some meaning.Therefore, their mind already con-tains the concept of reading andwriting.This pre-knowledge is the basis onwhich classroom activities areorganised. Since it is a sentence thatis a meaningful unit of language, thechildren are presented with a mean-ingful use of language and theirattention is drawn towards the wholedescription. The learning process isbased on meaningful communication(oral and written). Great emphasis islaid on the child's expression. Chil-dren are encouraged to learn throughinteraction with classmates. Usingstory telling as a medium, childrenare taken from the whole to the partor, in other words, from the sentenceto the word, and from the word to thealphabet. This method has beenfound to be very interesting and morenatural from the point of view oflanguage learning.This approach is however not seenoften being used in the classrooms.To implement this approach there isa need to provide a very comfortable,secure and natural environment in theclassroom. Children by their verynature are interested in listening andnarrating, and through this processthey get acquainted with sentences.They experience for themselves theneed to become literate. The teacher


organises the learning environmentin such a way that children evalu-ate themselves and find out whenthey are right or wrong. Language is,thus, developed in its total form. Inthis approach there is no definitesequence among the competencies ofreading and writing. Children areencouraged to select their activitiesaccording to their own interest andthey are provided all possible oppor-tunities to undertake as many lan-guage exercises as possible. Forexample, reading an advertisement,reading the map of the locality, find-ing out the rules for crossing theroad and following them, making alist of things needed, making charts,having conversation over an experi-ence, singing songs of one's interest,etc. are some possible activities.

Despite numerous advantages, theexperience of many teachers has beenthat this methodology presents a fewdifficulties. If the number of childrenin the class is large, organising andmanaging them properly becomesdifficult. Also, if children's errors arenot corrected at the initial stage theykeep on repeating them.An ideal classroom environmentwould perhaps be one which blendsthe more useful aspects of both themethods. With children having dif-ferent learning styles, one childmight learn better from the wordmethod while another may find itnecessary to have more direct rec-ognition of the alphabet. Keeping in

mind the different learning pacesand styles among children, a com'bination of methods would caterbetter to the needs of all children.

To learn a language well a child-should• feel the need to learn It• get a lot of encouragement while

learning it• get a variety of opportunities to

learn it and use it• find meaning in what is being

learnt• experience joy and satisfaction in

the process of learning itA good language teaching ap-proach caters to all these needs.

Teaching GrammarThrough Use

Grammar is considered to be themost uninteresting area of languagelearning. The reason for this is theway in which it is taught in theschools. We have discussed earlierthe close relationship between lan-guage and mind. Accordingly, thestudy of grammar should actuallylead us to an understanding of howour mind functions. But we reducegrammar to merely getting childrento memorise a few definitions andevaluate them on it. This leads tochildren losing interest in grammarfrom the veiy beginning and they areable to read only that much of gram-mar as will suffice for the examina-

The Primary Years

tion, and that too is often done justbefore the examination!In reality, the child begins to pick upthe basic grammar of the mothertongue from the very beginning. It isalso true that if the child does notstudy grammar formally this will notcreate any special barrier in the useof language. Yet, there might be a fewoccasions when a technical vocabu-lary might be needed. For example,if the correctness of some languagespoken or written has to be as-sessed, we need to know a greatmany grammatical words such assentence, subject, verb, masculine,feminine, past tense, etc. to be ableto discuss and analyse. If grammaris taught emphasising this practicalaspect of language, it will no moreseem uninteresting to students. In-stead, children may find it a usefulactivity.

At the same time, through the analy-sis of language, children will alsobegin to understand the relationshipbetween language and thought bet-ter. For example, some of the inter-esting examples given below caneasily be explained to a class V child:We can say the same thing in one ormore than one sentences. "There wasa poor farmer. He had a cow. Helooked after his cow with great, love."What these tivee sentences contain canquite accurately be said in one sen-tence "a poor farmer had a cow whohe looked after with great love."

Both these examples say exactly thesame thing. Children get to knowfrom this that meaning in languagedoes not depend on the number ofsentences or words, nor is it neces-sary that there is greater meaningin one who speaks more. We cancount the number of words, but wecannot measure meaning. When welisten to others, it is only words thatcome to us and it is we who givethem meaning. Hence it is necessaryto listen to others carefully.

What is most important is that chil-dren should be given full freedomto say what they want to say and inthe way in which they want to sayit. All that teachers have to see isthat they use their language effec-tively in consistence with grammarand courtesy. It is not necessary thatwhat children say should agree withwhat the book or the teacher says.Children should not be asked tomemorise and repeat others' words.

These are only a few examples whichshould make it clear that instead ofbeing boring the study of grammarcan be interesting and useful andthat it can help in the mental devel-opment of children. In fact, Indianthought starts with an analysis oflanguage and understanding the lim-its of language. Ancient Indian think-ers have said that if we understandthe mystery of language we will knowthe mystery of creation itself. Thefirst step towards understanding this


serious thought can be in primaryclasses itself through interestinganalysis of language.

How are Oral SkillsDeveloped?

Keeping in mind the above pointsand the existing requirements, thefirst task of the teacher is to createsuch situations in the classroom asmotivate the children to speak. Thisis not as easy as it might appear atfirst glance. In the normal course ofevents, in the name of speaking-lis-tening activities children are madeto speak out some known/evidentfacts. (For example: Wtiat. is this? Amango? What is its colour? Yellow?) Insuch a situation children do not haveto think much on their own or cre-ate anything in their mind. The netresult is that language abilities donot really develop.The teacher will have to search forcontexts where children feel the needto think, speak, express their re-sponse. For this need to be felt it isimportant that children get the op-portunity to think on their own orcommunicate meaningfully, based ontheir interests and inclinations. It isonly when children work in suchcircumstances that we can givethese activities the label of languageteaching or activities leading to lan-guage development. On such occa-sions our emphasis should not beon the correctness of language used

but on active participation by ev-ery child with confidence in theoral language activity, be it a con-versation, a discussion or debate.Providing children a democratic en-vironment in the class and oppor-tunities for interaction with theirpeers as also with the teacher, notonly in the language class but alsoin other areas, is important for mo-tivating children to participate. Theatmosphere of the classroom shouldbe lively. Children should not only belistening to the teacher but speak-ing out freely. If the teacher commu-nicates with children, expects themto answer her/his questions, thenchildren will not only listen to her/him carefully but will also be eagerto speak. Before children can speakcorrectly it is important that theyrid themselves of the natural hesi-tation that many of them have inthe classroom situation. Hence,without making errors an issue,children should be provided oppor-tunities to speak a great deal. Toomuch of emphasis pointing out mis-takes is very likely to reduce their mo-tivation to do anything at all! Thisapplies to writing as well. Beforechildren can write correctly it isnecessary that they start writingeven if it is make-believe writing. Thefocus on removing errors shouldcome only when children are writ-ing without hesitation or reluctance.

Mother tongue education should notbe restricted only to learning mother

The Primary Years

tongue. There should always be scopetn textbooks for discussion on var-ied topics related to life outside theschool. For example, if there hasbeen heavy rain or too little of it,discussion on how this is affectingthe life of children should be seen aspart of mother tongue education.Children's attention should be drawnto whatever is happening in the lifeof the village or city that is new anddiscussions held on it.

How else can language developmentbe facilitated, with reference to think-ing and oral skills?Activities involving objects, pictures,discussions (on events, processes,experiences, or what has been imag-ined), varied forms (such as stories,poems, riddles) and role play can beboth enjoyable and useful for thispurpose.

When children create something (pic-ture or clay models) or perform cer-tain actions (sorting out a knottedrope, or solving a problem along withfriends) they are continuously usinglanguage meaningfully and develop-ing their language and thinkingabilities on their own.

Using Pictures

If we show children the picture of acow or a house, there might be alittle response. But if we show ahouse with a cow standing on top ofit, children will immediately startspeaking; there will be curiosity to

think or find out how the cow got onto the top and what will happen now.It Is not necessary that all responsescan be generated only through fan-tasy. If there is someone standing ona chair and screaming, with a snakehissing on the floor below, that toowill lead to thinking-speaking. Canyou guess why?It is clear that pictures which arouseinterest and curiosity do provoke chil-dren to speak. With a little effort ateacher can convert a mere object/picture into an interesting trigger forspeaking. Take the same picture of amango. It is a challenge for the teacherto ask such questions as get childrento think and even lead to differentanswers from different children. Forinstance, what are all the things thatare made from mango? How manymangoes can fit into my palm ? (Ifchildren say — it depends on themango, how big or small it is — pleasenote that they are thinking on theirown and using spoken language!)

If the mango falls, what kind of soundwill it make? And what kind of soundwill it make if it falls on sandyground, or on water? And now comesthe most provocative question, if thismango were to fall on a dog sittingbelow, what sound shall we hear, andwhat sight shall we see? Can youwork out for yourself how the otheractivities suggested can make lan-guage learning process more possibleand interesting?


How to Teach ReadingMere recognition of sounds is notenough to get the meaning out of atext. Recognition of written wordsand understanding their meaning isequally important. Hence, it is nec-essary to develop the skills of read-ing for which the children need to beexposed to a variety of written ma-terial• that is interesting and meaning-

ful to them• whose meaning is already well

known to them (some well-likedpoem or story, etc.)

• which has a pattern, in whichorally known vocabulary is re-

.• peated a few times. If the samesounds and letters are in suffi-cient 'quantity' the possibility oftheir being recognised by thechild becomes greater.

There can be more than one func-tional way of teaching reading.Without emphasising one specialmethod, a process of teaching read-ing is being shared here that is inconsonance with the principles oflanguage learning that have beengiven here, and emerges naturallyfrom them.

A step-wise strategy for teachingreading• Enable children to become famil-

iar with the kind of material men-tioned above

• Present the written form of thismaterial to children

• Enable children to recognise unitsof meaning from the written formof this language, such as sen-tences or words

• From the recognised units (suchas words), lead them on to rec-ognition of individual letters basedon similar sounds and shapes oc-curring in the written text

• Start putting together identifiedletters to form words, so that chil-dren can understand how wordsare composed of different soundstogether and how letters come to-gether to lead up to words.

It is worth noting that this need notbe done with eveiy single letter of thealphabet. Children have greater dif-ficulty in the beginning because theyare moving from pictures to symbols.When a line drawing or a stick fig-ure is inverted, its "meaning" doesnot change, it remains the same. Butwhen the symbol for a letter is in-verted, it is no more that letter.Children take some time to under-stand this. Once children under-stand that specific shapes havespecific sounds associated withthem, they can progress very fast inlearning to read. On many occasionsit is enough to say what a specificshape is called.

The recognition of vowel symbols(matras) too, takes place in much


the same manner. When childrenrecognise two words then they learnto distinguish between the two andmove towards learning to read thematras.At this point, the presence of goodreading material and an encouragingatmosphere are very crucial for chil-dren. The material should be suchthat in addition to being interestingit should provide greater possibilityof being guessed correctly by chil-dren, to get to the correct meaning.This will enhance reading abilitiesgreatly.

How to Teach Writing

While children use their eyes andbrain in reading, in the case ofwriting, their eyes and brain need towork in coordination with theirhands . Before children come toschool they do actions with theirhands such as eating, playing withtheir toys, putting on their clothes,etc. If they are given wet clay tomodel into various shapes and toys,this enables the finer muscles oftheir hands to develop. They can alsobe asked to do free drawing, makepatterns and so on. Whatever shape,pattern or picture that childrenmake, they try to see some meaningin it. In the beginning children willfind it difficult to write the curvingletters of the alphabet and need tobe provided some readiness activi-ties and experiences involving

eye-hand coordination before actu-ally starting on writing.To begin with, children should beasked to draw pictures of their owninterest. It is not necessary thatchildren should colour these pic-tures. Ask them to draw a few simpleshapes (circle, triangle, rectangle,semi-circle, etc.). Then move on tohorizontal, vertical, sloping lines,e.g. a horizontal line followed by avertical line, or a horizontal line atopa vertical line etc.

Gradually children should be pre-sented appropriate and familiarmaterial. In this material picturescan be used to draw children's at-tention to words that would bemeaningful to them. Then the wordscan be used to lead on to letters andalso to explain the relationship be-tween the shape and sound of theletter. When children are able torecognise at least three-fourletters, then only they should beexpected to do formal writing. We canalso give them a few pictures andencourage children to make an effortto write their names. They shouldalso practise tracing or copyingwords. Gradually they can be en-couraged to write small sentences ontheir own.

Children should not be discouragedeven if they commit errors. Beforelearning to write correctly, childrenshould at least begin to get inter-ested in writing and infact even take

Teaching qf Language 85

pleasure in writing. If there areerrors, the correct form of the wordsor sentences should be presentedbefore them. This generates in themthe ability to correct themselves. Butthey should not be scolded ordemotivated. •

Children can be given the task oilooking at a picture and writingwords/sentences related to it. Simi-larly, a sequence of pictures can begiven and children can be asked towrite more than one sentence. In thesame way, a few words or symbolscan be given and children asked todevelop these into a story, or anevent.In Levels II and III, in order to de-velop creative and imaginativeabilities, there should be a specialemphasis on free writing. Childrencan be given a topic of interest tothem and asked to write a story, de-scription, conversation etc. Whileconducting this activity it needs tobe borne in mind that there shouldbe emphasis on providing opportunityfor developing creative thinking andImagination of every child. There canbe one topic for the whole class butthe teacher must remember thateveryone's perception will be differ-ent, leading to different expressions.The teacher should not pre-determineone type of expression with a fixedsentence-sequence. This hurts thefeelings and expression of children,and hinders rather than helping

their language development. As hasbeen said before, mother tongue isthe expression of children's minds,and the most fundamental basis oftheir education.

Learning Through UseBecause a major aspect of languageis in terms of skills, this aspectemerges as important during thelearning of language as well. Inmuch the same way as any skillsuch as riding a bicycle or drawingis learnt by doing it oneself andpractising it, in the learning of lan-guage too it is necessary to givechildren opportunities for using lan-guage. As against this we generallyfind that, in the classroom, childrenare asked either to keep quiet or areasked to copy spoken or writtenlanguage as used by the teacher. Inboth the situations^ children are notusing language on their own and thisobstructs their learning.

'Meaningful' LanguageOne important characteristic of lan-guage is that it is always meaning-ful and relevant for the person us-ing it, or it would not get used. If weask some one to speak, she/he mightsay, what should I speak? That is,for what objective should I speak?Usually we use oral or written lan-guage only to fulfill some objective.But when efforts are made to teachlanguage in the classroom, children


are asked to do a number of thingswithout it being seen whether it ismeaningful or purposeful for them.As against it, it is essential thatchildren get opportunities in theclassroom to use language that ispurposeful and meaningful to them.This is important since, as empha-sized earlier too, there is a strongrelationship between language,thought and feeling.

How does Language CaptureMeaning?If we come in contact with someunknown language we try to guesswhat it is that, is sought to becommunicated to us . We try tofind meaning by looking carefully atthe speaker's expressions, gestures,intonation of the voice and use ourknowledge of the context at the mo-ment to understand what is beingcommunicated. In other words weuse the whole context to derivemeaning.If the unknown language is in writ-ten form, we turn around the mate-rial looking for clues, or look atanything near the material thatmight give a hint. We might find thata picture of the place at which it iswritten/located (e.g. a poster or asign board) might tell us what it issaying. That is, once again we arein search for a context which willenable us to guess the meaningcorrectly.

We do this because in our languageit is not only words that are used;it is the specific relationships be-tween the words used and the cir-cumstances/situations/contexts inwhich they are being used that de-termine what the words mean at thatmoment.From the point of view of languagelearning, it is important to under-stand the following aspects of 'con-text' :• We understand the meaning of

any word (but especially newwords) on the basis of words usedbefore and after it, that is, fromits context.

• Often, the context can change themeaning of a sentence. For ex-ample, if in a restaurant some-one says, 'The chair is vacant" wecan understand that we may nowsit down to eat; however, if aminister has resigned and it issaid, "The chair is vacant", wewill understand something differ-ent altogether.

• For the same objective, we mayuse different words or sentencesin different contexts. For example,the words with which we requestfor something will depend on whowe are asking from, whether froma little child or from our motheror an elder.

Thus it can be said that one objec-tive of language learning is thatchildren learn to derive meaning


from the context and they also learnto use context-specific language.

Context in Written and SpokenLanguage

Where the language of children isdifferent from the language of theschool, the expressions, actions,gestures and the voice modulationused by the teacher become veryimportant. in enhancing communica-tion in standard language, becausethey enhance the context and henceincrease the possibility of it beingunderstood. Hence, it is also anobjective of the development of spo-ken language that children shoulddevelop in themselves these aspectsthat are specific to context.We use many ways of indicatingsomething when using spoken lan-guage because what we speak isaccompanied by non-verbal cues ofcommunication like gestures, expres-sions etc. When we move towardswritten language we find that it isnot enough to say "The chair isvacant,1' We have to indicate whetherw£ arsi talking of the restaurant orsomeone's resignation, etc. etc. Thatis to say, we have to recreate thatentire context which was very natu-rally a part of the situation when-weused spoken language. Also, insteadofjije modulation of our voice, we arenow using punctuation marks.

Wheil children are presented withwritten material, it becomes impor-tant that all the means which

enhance context are brought intouse. Also, while teaching wilting, it isimportant to understand that childrentoo have to learn how to bring contextinto the use of written language.

Proposed Teaching-learningMaterials

In the language Readers of Level 1,themes can be chosen from areassuch as home, family, games, fairs,festivals, market, animals and birds,simple songs and stories.In Levels II and III, themes for Read-ers can be from areas such asmonuments and sight-seeing places,journeys, zoo, the life of children fromother states, discoveries, scientificinventions, lives of great persons,stories, poems, letters, historicalevents, simple essays and so on.

Some Learning Aids forDevelopment of Language

In the development of language therole of teaching-learning material isto encourage trie flow of language inthe child's mind. The material shouldnot be such that will only promotedevelopment of mechanical skills butshould alsjo serve to enhance, skillsrelated to creative use of language.Because language is not only in printform, material for language teachingtoo should not be only in this form.

This concept throws open a wholetreasure of opportunities for us —


because any ordinary object, picture,event, experience or written/printedmaterial can contribute greatly to thedevelopment of language. A few sug-gestions are given below, but teach-ers can, of course, think of so manymore possibilities than what are givenhere.

ObjectsInteresting conversations and de-scriptions are possible with differentkinds of objects, e.g. an activity like'show and tell' is a very creativeactivity wherein children can beasked to say whatever they like aboutany given object. Children can beasked to make pictures of the objectsor make patterns or toys from themwhich will foster development of cre-ativity and reflection in children.

Pictures, Charts and CardsA great deal can be done in the classwith shape-, letter- and word- (or

word-picture) cards. Though the kindof charts that are seen in typicalclassrooms are often very limited inscope, the teacher can, if she wants,do many interesting activities fromthem wherein children are requiredto think on their own.

Many types of pictures can be help-ful in the language classroom. Pic-tures of familiar objects, animals etc.are especially useful for activitiesinvolving classification, identifyingrelationships, learning to read, etc. Toget children to loosen up and to getrid of inhibition as well as to think,action pictures are the best e.g. pic-ture of someone standing on a chairwith a frog below. Pictures that havea lot of detail, e.g. a market or a mela,are fascinating for children, and leadto development of skills of observationand use of spoken language.

Events, Processes, ExperiencesThese are not normally given the


status of 'material' but these are veryimportant for the development ofmany language skills such as usingsentences in a sequence, creating astory collectively, making a descrip-tion interesting in accordance withthe audience and so on. This leadschildren far beyond mechanical skillsinto the realm of creativity.

Written-printed Material

In addition to pictures, cards andcharts, teachers can also make useof sections from newspapers,children's magazines etc. In olderclasses, children's creations mightalso be interesting material for otherchildren (e.g. in the form of wallpaper, children's newspaper, etc.).

Textbooks and supplementary mate-rial are the commonly availablematerial, but they too seem to havemany limitations. It is not necessarythat teachers should only confinetheir activities to these. If they wantthey can surely find more creativeuses of these materials.

Library books are now becomingavailable in some schools. Unfortu-nately they are not used for fear thatthe books might tear off or get lost.It is important to understand thattorn books have been more usefulthan books that have never beenopened. Where teachers are actuallymaking use of their libraries, it is notnecessary to keep the library activi-ties confined to the reading of

books—there can be discussions, writ-ing/ drawing activities, role play, quiz-zes etc. related to the books particu-larly at the stage of Level 3. Where fa-cilities permit, class libraries can bevery useful since they make booksmore easily accessible to children.These also allow for more flexibility inaccess to children as and when theylike, since all children may not be inthe mood to read at the same time.

Some Aspects related to the Use ofMaterial

Material can be of many kinds: col-lected from the environment, createdby teachers and children or suppliedby the department.

There is a great need for variety inthe material and its uses. There isalso need for

• variety in the process or methodthat is being applied with the ma-terial

• the kind of objectives for the fulfill-ment of which it is being utilised,

• and the kind of language usage itis giving rise to.

It is important to bear in mind thelevel and experience base of childrenwhile using the material.

Often material is used simply for thesake of using material, because it isexpected of the teacher. But it isimportant to realise that without anylearning objective in mind the use ofmaterial could be meaningless.

90 The piimary Years

Material can be used not only inenabling learning but also in assess-ing learning. Material brings with itthe aspect of management of mate-rial. How it should be acquired,distributed, stored — all this is achallenge for the teacher and needsprior planning.

Cross-curricular Linkages, from theLanguage Point of ViewIn the first two years of primaryeducation particularly, there aremany activities conducted with chil-dren which would be difficult toclassify in terms of the curriculararea they belong to. For example,classification, relational concepts,discussing experiences, making mod-els with clay or other objects andmany such activities have relevanceacross different curricular areas. Inother words, many aspects of othersubjects are part of language learn-ing and in every activity performedin other subjects language skills arealways involved.

In higher classes the role of languageIn other subjects becomes morespecific in nature. In mathematics itbecomes more oriented to symbolsand definitions, a kind of languagein which the possibility of doubt orvagueness is minimised. In environ-mental education there is a prepon-derance of instructions, definitionsand a specific kind of description,while communication is also estab-lished through pictures, tables,

graphs etc. The language books givespecial place to imagination, creativ-ity and aesthetic use of languageand are therefore generally mostpopular with children.In a holistic language developmentprogramme therefore, it is necessaryto understand that the developmentof language is not taking place onlythrough the language textbook, butthrough the study of all subjects. Itis important to expose children to thedifferent forms and uses of language,e.g. the language of newspapers, ofscience, or language related to maps,tables and pictures, etc. Along withthis, it is also necessary to keep inmind that the language being usedin other subjects should not end upbeing more complex than the lan-guage used in the language class-room, or it will surely lead to diffi-culties in learning.

How should Language Learning beAssessed?

Assessment is not an end in itself.It is merely a means for the teacherto find out whether children havelearnt what she/he was trying toteach. It needs to be noted that inthe case of language learning, thereare many aspects that cannot bedefined easily. In aspects such asreading correctly, spelling correctly,using words properly, information onthe categories in grammar, etc. theteacher knows what she/he has toteach and the extent to which her/


his students have learnt. But beingable to enjoy poems, the ability tothink and reflect, the ability to putacross one's opinion in one's ownway, the development of creativity —there are several such areas wherethe teacher can never be certain thatthese have been fully developed inchildren. These areas are very im-portant in mother tongue teaching,but one can only make constantefforts to develop them.

Though assessment has a significantplace in learning of all the subjects,we have highlighted those majorpoints below that have a specificbearing on the learning of mothertongue in primary classes.• Teaching-learning and assess-

ment should go hand-in-hand.The best assessment would beone where the teacher can checkat the end of the class whetherchildren have learnt what she/hewas trying to help them learn.However, this is not always pos*sible, hence a good alternativewould be to do a weekly assess-ment.

• For those aspects that have adefinite nature and form, the as-sessment should be similarlyclear and definite in nature. Forexample, in reading and writingchildren know what it is that theyare being assessed for, and wherethey have made errors, whichenables them to make efforts to

improve. Another assessment canbe undertaken after a gap tocheck whether the students haveovercome their errors

• Assessment should not be donewith the sole objective of beingable to make comparisons. Whileassessing children the teacher isin a way evaluating her/his ownwork so that, she/he may knowwhether there has been a short-coming in her/his teaching pro-cess. The direct impact of assess-ment should be in terms of animprovement in the learning ofchildren and the teaching processas adopted by the teacher.

• With the exception of reading andwriting, oral assessment shouldbe given greater importance in theassessment of other language as-pects. Correct pronunciation,reading fluently, reciting a poem,expressing one's opinion withconfidence, narrating a story, etc.are many such abilities whose as-sessment can only be oral innature. But in other aspects toooral assessment can easily bedone. For example, the assess-ment of all aspects of grammarcan be oral. Whether childrenhave been able to understand themain points of a story, too, caneasily be assessed orally.

• Children should not be asked suchquestions during assessment asencourage them to memorise. We


have seen above that in verbal •language with the exception inmathematics, most of the ques-tions do not have definite answers.Hence, children should be encour-aged from the veiy beginning tothink on their own on every ques-tion, and answer it in their ownway, in their own words.

• The use of marks needs to bestopped. In an examination of 100marks if a student is ahead ofanother by 1 mark, this does notnecessarily mean that she/he isthe best student in the class. Inreality it cannot be decided whois the best student in the class,nor is it necessary to decide. Tomake a language class more livelyand participatory, an element of •competition can occasionally beintroduced, but to use the exami-nation as a medium to declaresome children as better thanothers and some as being poorerthan tethers will lead to a; d;is^;-;tort-ed self-image in the case ofboth: In this context we shouldremember the statement ofJ. Krishnamurthy that 'To compareB to A is to destroy them both."

• There should not be a pre-decidedlevel of attainment because therace to getting there puts a greatpressure on the teacher and thestudents. Children's attainmentgrows gradually. This is whatshould be used as a basis to pro- •ceed forward gradually.

Children's weaknesses should beidentified through constant obser-vation, different activities andtheir language behaviour. This ob-servation is part of the continu-ous evaluation. This should be insuch a form as enables childrento enhance their abilities. Weak-nesses and their causes can beidentified through diagnostictests. Alongwith weaknesses, in-formation should also be collectedon aspects on which the child isdoing well. Using the child'sstrengths as a basis for furtherteaching in areas in which thechild needs help can be a posi-tive way of providing remedialteaching.

Writing correctly is possible onlywhen we have learnt to read cor-rectly. Therefore, when a teacherputs a cross sign on a spellingerror made by children, they getdiscouraged. The emphasis oncorrectness should not be suchthat the children lose interest inreading and writing. Instead ofthis their attention should bedrawn to the correct form. Thiswill result in children graduallycorrecting their errors on theirown and they will also develop theability for self-evaluation. Thesame method can be adopted forerrors in words or sentence struc-tures.

During the assessment of oralskills of students, they should not


be interrupted for making errorswhile speaking. This shakes theirself-confidence. Instead theyshould be given more and moreopportunities for listening to thecorrect form of language.

• Because more than one skill andability go together in the learningof language, their assessment tooshould be done in the form of re-lated skills and abilities clubbedtogether into units, with one unitbeing assessed at a time. e.g.speaking skills are related to lis-tening, similarly comprehensionand speaking are related to read-ing.

• No single competency can be as-sessed in isolation. Such a assess-ment is usually forced upon andartificial. The holistic approach tothe teaching of language appliesto the assessment of languagelearning as well, which in turnshould also be holistic.

SECTION II

Teaching of Languageother than MotherTongue/Home LanguageIn the previous section we discussedthe teaching of language in situa-tions where the home language andschool language of the child are thesame or very similar. In this sectionwe will take up the other two situ-ations listed earlier and in the next

section we will take up the thirdsituation wherein english can beintroduced at the primary stage.Before we go into the approaches toteaching language in these situa-tions, let us try to understand thepossible harmful effects of teachingchildren in a language which is notfamiliar to them and ignoring/dis-couraging the language they are bornand brought up with.We need to consider the effects oflearning a new language from twopoints of view :• learning of a new language or• using of the new language as the

medium of instruction.Research has consistently shownthat children in the early years havea tremendous capacity to learn newlanguages provided there is enoughof it in their environment. There-fore, introducing new languages to achild will not be a burden on thechild if she/he is able to get expo-sure to these naturally. By this ismeant being placed in an environ-ment which provides the child withample opportunities for listening tothe new language and speaking it.The child will pick up the languagespontaneously if the child feels theneed to communicate in that lan-guage. Therefore, the two essentialsfor learning a new language are

• the desire or need to communi-cate, which should be there in thechild.

94 & Primary Years

• an enrollment in which there isa lot of listening and speaking inthat language, (as a prerequisite)followed by opportunities for read-ing and writing which should beprovided to the child.

The problem a child faces in a situ-ation where her/his home languageis different from the school languageresults from• being made to use a new and un-

familiar language as the mediumof instruction which is likely tointerfere with the child's informa-tion processing

• mot receiving a positive responseor encouragement to use thehome language that has beenhers/his since birth.

A child's home language or mothertongue is very closely linked with thechild's own identity and therefore,has a great deal of emotional signifi-cance for her /him. In situationswhere this language base i.e. themother tongue or home languageforms the foundation for furtherlearning, the child moves ahead withconfidence and a sense of compe-tence. Being already familiar with thelanguage, learning and understand-ing in other curricular areas alsobecomes much easier, thus helpingthe child move on from one success-ful experience to another. The posi-tive attitude existing in the environ-ment for the language, which is her/his mother-tongue, also develops in

the child a sense of pride in her/hisidentity, as also a sense ofbelongingness.If we now consider the other threesituations mentioned in the introduc-tion in which the child has little orno familiarity with the language inwhich she/he is expected to under-stand, learn and express himself/herself, while the language she/heknows is discouraged or not lookedupon with favour, the child is likelyto be affected both emotionally andintellectually. It almost amounts toa rejection of one's own identity orpersonality. The difficulty the childhas to face in such situations inunderstanding what is. taught andexpressed what she/he has learnt isalso likely to lead to under-achieve-ment which can result in a sense offailure, low self-esteem and alien-ation for the child. And all for nofault of the poor child!

Helping Children inDifferent Situations

Although the various language situ-ations likely in the country havebeen grouped into four categoriesearlier in the chapter, these are onlyfor convenience of discussion. Eachcategory can have several variations,requiring its own kind of languageteaching approach specific to thebackground of children, the kind ofteacher available, the facilities withthe school, the language environment


around the school/home of the chil-dren and various other factors. As amatter of fact, socio-linguists believethat most, or even all situations inour country are neither monolingual,nor bilingual but actually multi-lin-gual i.e. every classroom situationhas children of various languagebackgrounds and the teacher mustconsider this not as a deterrent toteaching but as a resource by en-couraging children to learn fromeach other.

However, in order to help plan lan-guage teaching in various situationswe may consider the broad catego-ries separately. In considering theseit must be noted that planning lan-guage teaching should take intoaccount first the objective of teach-ing any language and that is to helpthe child to

• communicate in the language• use it as a tool for learning.The home language is learnt by thechild in an informal manner throughexposure to it in and around the 'home situation. The school language,however, has a different style and atextbook approach to teaching it. Thequestion we need to ask ourselvesis — to what extent does teaching oflanguage through this approach helpmeet the objectives of languagelearning?

Since children axe capable of learn-ing more than one language at anearly age, teaching the school

language does not mean makingthem unlearn their home language.On the contrary, while children arelearning to pick up the mechanics ofthe school language, they can be en-couraged to move on in their homelanguage to higher and more creativeuse of language in thinking andexpression. This can be in the formof creating their own rhymes, stories,riddles etc. It is therefore necessaryto keep in mind that whatever the ;strategy adopted for these differentsituations, it must foster the cogni-tive or intellectual development of thechild through use of her/his earlylanguage experiences, while alsohelping the child make a smoothtransition to the main stream.

Different SituationsSituation 1. The one in whichthere is no significant differencebetween the home language of thechild and the school language hasbeen dealt with in Part I of thischapter under the heading "Teach-ing of Mother Tongue". The overallapproach to language teaching andexpected outcomes at the primarystage spelt out in this part of thechapter hold true for the other situ-ations also. Any deviations that maybe required in view of the differencein situation are dealt with in thissecond part of the chapter. Therefore,while planning a languageprogramme for the primary grades


both parts of this chapter must beconsidered together.Situation 2. Where the SchoolLanguage is Similar to the HomeLanguage, with Some VariationsThis situation is very common in thecountry particularly in the Hindi beltwhere the school language is theregional language i.e. Hindi but thehome language of children is oftenBhojpuri, Maithali, Maghai, Braj orRajasthani. Children are familiarwith Hindi vocabulary and structuresbut need more exposure to the stan-dard form of the language.

In such situations, when a childcomes into school in Grade 1, theschool readiness programme sug-gested in Part I of this document canbe so planned as to help the childtide over any problems the child islikely to face. The school readinessprogramme, which has been sug-gested for a period of six weeks to twomonths at" the beginning of Grade 1;is expected to continue for a longerperiod iri these situations, whereinthe child is expected to get a lot ofexposure to oral language in the formof stories, rhymes, role play, puppetplay, conversation activities etc.Since the child is already broadlyfamiliar with the school language,this will help the child pick up thestandard form more easily, graduallyand in a stress-free and joyful man-ner. It would be desirable to buildin this methodology into the textbook

and transactional practices so thatthe child has the freedom to bringin her/his home language vocabu-lary, experiences and express these,whenever necessary.Situation 3. Where the Home Lan-guage is Very Different from theSchool Language and the Chilli hashad Very Little or No Exposure tothe School Language :

This situation is also very commonin our country. This is particularlytypical of the tribal belts in MadhyaPradesh, Orissa, Andhra Pradeshand North-Eastern Region ofMeghalaya, Mizoram, ArunachalPradesh where the school languageis totally different from the homelanguage of the child.In some States, attempts have beenmade to introduce textbooks in triballanguages. Interestingly, there hasbeen much resentment reported fromparents in such cases. There were afew organised protests reported inMadhya Pradesh, Bihar and Gujarat.The reasons stated were the negativeperceptions of the parents who feelthat if the children are taught in thetribal language, they might remainleft behind in the social ladder .This assumption is totally unfounded,because the tribal children are notrequired to receive their entire edu-cation in their mother tongue.Rather, according to the proposedapproach, only the first two/threeyears of education need to be in their


mother tongue. This approach wouldtherefore, empower the tribal chil-dren through better and more mean-ingful education in the initial yearsby providing them a sound founda-tion. This will also help the childrenunderstand mathematical conceptsand the concepts of environmentaleducation more easily. When we talkabout teaching tribal children intheir mother tongue we do not onlytalk about language. We also talkabout experiences (cognitive, affec-tive and connative). Therefore, teach-ing them through their language andrich context will definitely empowerthem, improve their achievementlevel, reduce drop out rate and it willhelp them develop a positive selfconcept.

It would be helpful to note here thatthe experiments undertaken by dif-ferent organisations in the past havegenerally not succeeded in provid-ing a good alternative as they tendedmore towards disempoweringrather than empowering the commu-nity as well as the children. In somestates attempts had been made inthe past to introduce textbooks intribal languages using a bilingualtransfer model i.e. using both lan-guages together in increasing/de-creasing ratio to help the child movegradually to the school language.

Until recent times this approachcould not deliver satisfactory resultsbecause of the way in which it was

designed. A major handicap was thatadequate research base was notavailable, prior to developing thetextbooks, regarding the nature ofcode switching in the tribal andregional language i.e. how these twolanguages occur together naturallyin the communities, market placesetc. Besides this, certain other con-cerns were also evident with thisapproach such as

(a) it tends to often reflect an at-tempt more at acculturation ormain-streaming of children intothe dominant language culturerather than an integration be-tween the two cultures and

(b) the language in the textbooks inthe tribal language is often not de-rived from the children's vocabu-lary or style of expression.

However, the approach we are goingto suggest in this chapter is funda-mentally different wherein, the re-gional language will be taught only asa separate language in Ley£l I whilein Level II there will be enough flex-ibility to allow the children to bringin their home language and richexperiences in homes and communi-ties into the classroom even when themedium of instruction would be, byand large, the regional language.Another apprehension has been withregard to teachers. Teachers ap-pointed in tribal areas have gener-ally been perceived to be anotherconstraint in such situations, as


many of them are non-tribal teach-ers having very lit Lie knowledge oftribal languages.Appointment of local teachers isdesirable. However, this does notmean that the appointment of non-tribal teachers in places where thereare not enough tribal teachers couldharm the teaching learning process.Another commonly expressed appre-hension is that by allowing the homelanguage in the class, the possibili-ties of building comrriunication chan-nels in the school language betweenthe teachers and the children andalso the possibility of teaching/help-ing the child gradually learn theschool language, become very limited.This could have a negative effect onthe total teaching-learning situationand therefore, on the learningachievement of the children as awhole.One more apprehension is with re-gard to; script. Whenever there issome policy decision or any realattempt to teach these children intheir mother tongue, the controversy

'of script crop's tip. A socio-historicalanalysis of such controversies (forexample Santhali Language in WestBengal etc.) reveal political motivesbeing the main reason behind such

; protests rather than linguistic andpedagogical considerations. Thetime has come when we have to takea stand explicitly regarding which of

.•• the two Hi-, political considerations or

pedagogical considerations —needs;to be given priority.It is however quite possible that thescript of the regional language mightnot always be sufficient to providefull phonetic expression to anotherlanguage. Therefore, few symbolscould be added to the script of re-gional language for bridging thesegaps in the phonetics.What could be the possibilities Interms of approach to languageteaching and taking a decision re-garding medium of instruction insuch situations?Keeping the objectives and consider-ations mentioned above in mind,from the point of view of the child,the approach suggested level-wise isto :• keep the child's home language as

the medium of instruction atLevel I stage but also introducethe school language as a subjectto be taught additionally and tobe continued at all levels. (Itneeds to be noted here that theresearches have shown thatlearning a second language wouldnot be a burden for this agegroup.) :

• introduce the script of the schoollanguage to the child at Level Ithrough the content of the mothertongue with which the child is fa-miliar and which will be learnteasily, through association. Incase of ethnic communities where

Teaching of Language ••: -99

there is a controversy regardinguse of their script or developinga new script for the language,debate could be initiated for in-dividual cases.continue the home language asthe medium of instruction ini-tially but help the child move onto the school language by end ofLevel II since the child would haveacquired some competence in theschool language by then and willalso benefit from the vocabularyof other curricula!" areas.

encourage children to communi-cate with each other in their ownhome language as well and use

it in creative ways so that thesealso get nurtured simultaneouslyinstead of discouraging their use•in level I as well as II; as* isgenerally done.

• help children make a shift to theschool language as medium of in-struction by Level III.

•,, avoid penalizing children for useof home language even at thjsstage at the time of assessment.

Table below gives the expected learn-ing outcomes, level-wise, in terms'ofthis approach, what would be theimplications of this for teaching-learning materials, teacher compe-tencies, and training etc.

Expected Learning Outcomes

Home Language • ! • • < • ! - • School Language

LEVEL I

The child

should be able to communicate her/his needsiiricl ideas meaningfully. * :

should be able to understand and compre-hend what is told.

should be able to think in the language andbe ;ible to learn other currieular ureas withinterest and understanding. ,

• • ; : . • . . • ' : • • • • • . . • • • : • - ' - " • , , • I ; • . . , -

LEVEL II , .

should be able to use language creatively, andexpress ideas clearly.

should be able to increase own vocabylarythrough vocabulary of other subject areas.

should be able to interact in familiar social

LEVEL I

should be able to develop/acquire simple vo-cabulary related to familiar object and events.

should be able to recognize the script throughh o m e l a n g u a g e c o n t e n t . ; • • , > • . • ; . ? , , ' .. r ;

should be able to read and write simple, wordsand short, sentences. , •. • •• . j ;

should be able to read simple text in theform of short poems; shor t stories of-sen-tences with interest and understanding in. thescript of the school language.

LEVEL II . .: : ,';;.,, : • ••.:..,. ;.

should Vie able, to follow simple oral" instruc-tions and narrations, . - ^ :

should Vie able to respond to simply question'sand describe, narrate experiences in simple,short sentences.

should be able to read words, phrases ,and


situations using home language with flexibil-ity.should be able to read short texts and iden-tify main ideas and supporting information.

LEVEL III

should be able to interact in familiar socialand learning situations.

should be able to shift easily from home lan-guage to school language and vice versa.

simple sentences with ease including vocabu-lary from other curricular areas.

should be able to write 2-3 sentences and alsoexperiment with longer sentences, where pos-sible, to convey information and ideas usingscript of school language.

LEVEL III

should be able to understand, learn othersubjects through school language.

should be able to read and write and expressherself/himself with confidence.

If the medium of instruction is to bethe mother tongue/home language, towhat extent can textbooks be pre-pared in so many languages, many ofwhich do not even have a script?The most essential requirement forthis situation is a teacher who isfrom the same community and whois well-versed in the culture of thecommunity from which the childrenare coming.The teacher needs to be given spe-cial training in, and facilities for,preparing teacher-made material inthe children's home language bothfor Level I and Level II. Each teacherwill thus need to prepare her/hisown text for the children. A handyguide for teachers placed in suchsituations, giving specific guidelinesfor development of materials andcontent would be also very neces-sary. Some training camps could beorganised to change the attitude ofthe teachers towards different eth-nic groups and their languages.Besides an essential part of anyprogramme in this context, would be

the regular interaction with, andorientation of, the community regard-ing the merits of the approach fromthe point of view of the child. Theparents' need of getting their chil-dren to learn the regional languagecan be met through this approach byintroducing the regional language asa separate subject. The approach,with adaptations wherever neces-sary, needs to be tried out on an ex-perimental basis before accepting itas a model approach.

SECTION III

Teaching of EnglishIntroductionThe proposed framework endorses thestand taken in the National Curricu-lum Framework (1988) that themedium of instruction at the primarystage should be the mother tongueor the regional language. Englishmay be introduced as a subject atlevel II after the child has acquireda minimal basic literacy in her/his


mother tongue, provided appropriatefacilities for teaching of English exist.It should, however, not be intro-duced as a medium of instructionat the Primary level.

RationaleThe reasons for introducing Englishat the primary stage range fromfunctional to academic :• For the common man English is

looked upon as a means for get-ting better jobs and better place-ment in life. Parents from allsections of society, rural andurban, affluent as well as from theweaker sections are keen thattheir children should start learn-ing english right from the primaryschool. Yielding to public pres-sure, some states like West Ben-gal, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh andHaryana have introduced englishat the primary level.

• English is an important interna-tional language. Most of theknowledge about developments

; that are taking place at breath-taking pace is available in En-glish. Knowledge of the languagewill enable the child of today tofunction more effectively in theworld of tomorrow. It will enableher/him to keep herself/himselfabreast of the latest developmentsin different fields of knowledge beit science, technology, commerceor fine arts.

In order to plan the teachingof english at Level II it is first nec-essary to know what the child al-ready knows when she/he comesinto Level II.

Entry Behaviour of the Childat Level IIThe child who comes to Level II isexpected to have— acquired the elementary compe-

tencies of listening, speaking,reading and writing in her/hishome language.

— learnt to participate in simplecommunicative tasks like seekinginformation and supplying infor-mation.

— developed familiarity in mostcases with almost 500 Englishwords which have been absorbedin level 1 like 'hello', 'car', 'bus','telephone', 'station'.

. ( f ) o r i :•••. . ' i ' r

Learning Outcomes,End of Level II ?By the end of Level II the child shouldbe able to : .• get initiated into the four basic

abilities of listening, speaking,reading and writing English in abalanced way.

• communicate in English in reallife situations and be able to per-form language functions like sup-plying information, seeking

102 The Primary Yi-ars

information, making requests,giving instructions etc.

• acquire a vocabulary store of 400-500 words, about 50 on the rec-ognition level and try to use amajority of words in day to daylife.

• handle the essential phrase andsentence patterns of english likestatements, questions, requestsalong with a few important blocksof language like tenses, interroga-tives.

• learn to understand conversationwithin her/his experience.

• appreciate the melody of the spo-ken word.

• enjoy learning English.

Level III

By the end of Level 3 the childshould be able to

• further develop the abilities of lis-tening, speaking, reading andwriting English and be able tohandle larger content of languagein speech, reading and writing.

• speak 2-3 sentences, to readsimple instructions, short stories,descriptive pieces* letters

• write short paragraphs• communicate in English ^ per-

form more advanced languagefunctions like taking messages,making apologies, expressing

agreement or disagreement, re-porting events etc.

• add about 500 words to her/hisvocabulary repertoire

• handle phrases and importantblocks of language

• understand the emotion/intentionbehind what is being said

• read and understand instructionson the roadside, sign boards,names of places, headlines ofnewspapers, advertisements etc.

• appreciate the melody of the spo-ken words and be sensitive to thecreative uses of the language.

• enjoy learning English.

Teaching-learning Process

Curriculum transaction in the initialyears is a judicioxjs blend of oral -aural teaching ; situational teachingand communicative language teach-ing. Each new language item is firstintroduced orally in appropriate situ-ations and is practised through avariety of communicative tasks.Then it is reinforced through read-ing and writing. Thus, there is anintegration of the four skills of lis-tening, speaking, reading and writ-ing.

Spoken Language

It is essential that teaching islearner centred. It is the learner whoshould use the language in speech,

Teaching of Ijmguage 103

reading and writing. An effective wayfor making the learner, the focalpoint of the teaching learning pro-cess and for developing communica-tion skills is through group or pairwork. This ensures interactionswhich are crucial to communication.The activities used are role play,simulation, dramatization, recitation,exploiting situations from the worldaround the learner and from otherdisciplines, language games, pic-tures, and the electronic media.

ReadingChildren should be able to readwords, group of words, sentencesfrom the blackboard, flash cards, andfrom their books. They should alsobe able to read simple story books,children's magazines etc. Such booksshould be well illustrated and in boldprint to facilitate the learner. Tasksmust be graded.

WritingWriting tasks should be graded.They should range from the tracingof lines to the writing of words andshort sentences. Children should begiven practice in tracing, copying and

drawing lines (horizontal, vertical,diagonal), circles, and broken circles.This would prepare them for writingletters of the alphabet. They thenshould copy words, phrases and shortsentences.

teaming Materials "There should be for each year aLanguage Reader, accompanied by anactivity book and audio cassettes.The Reader should contain languageitems — both grammatical as well asliterary. These should be presentedin appropriate natural situations. Thetexts should be child-friendly i.e.should contain themes, stories, po-ems, legends about birds and ani-mals which would interest the stu-dent of this age-group. The exercisesafter each lesson should be designedto help the learner, acquire languageskills. The Reader should be attrac-tive with lots of illustrations.

The companion activity book and theaudio cassettes should provide thelearner scope for more practice in thefour language skills.Cassettes should contain rhymes,action songs and a few dialogues forpromoting communication.

While developing materials Universities. NCERT (NIE, CIET, RIE), IGNOU, CIEFL,ELT/s, Regional Institutes of English need to-collaborate.

104 Primary Years

AssessmentThere should be only continuousassessment. Continuous assessmentshould be both oral and written.Oral -Assessment : This can be inthe form ofGroup work like a communicativetask between two or more than twopupils (for example giving instruc-tions on how to draw a cat).Individual Oral Assessment. This canbe done in situations where thelearner• asks and answers questions• describes situations• recites poems• describes pictures• reads out a piece from a book pref-

erably other than her/his textbook• answers questions on the passage

read.

Written AssessmentIt should cover comprehension read-ing; elements of language—both gram-mar, vocabulary and composition.It can be done through comprehen-sion questions, cloze-tests, writing ofsmall paragraphs/essays etc.

Points for ConsiderationThe two essential pre-requisites forthe success of the teaching andlearning of english in the primaryschool are :

• Intensive teacher developmentprogramme.

• Development of learning materi-als.

TeatherDevelopmentWith the existing trend in the statesof introducing English at the primarystage in the state schools, a majorconcern that emerges is the lack offacilities and environment for learn-ing of English. The crux of Englishteaching therefore rests with theteacher who should be competentherself/himself in English and welltrained to handle varied teachinglearning situations.

If teachers already working in theschools have to be trained on a largescale the cascade model will needto be followed . To avoid training lossit will be necessary to provide ampleresource material.

Content of the TrainingProgramme (Inservice)The thrust of the trainingprogrammes should be on (a), ac-quainting the teachers with thecourse materials and (b) the strat-egies for achieving the learning out-comes. The training programmeshould have a pronounced practicalbias: The theoretical inputs shouldbe reduced to the barest minimum.Demonstration lessons should be anintegral feature of the programme.

Teaching oj Language 105

In a 2-week lnservice trainingprogramme for the teachers, twohours per day should be set aside forcontent enrichment. During thisperiod they should, for example:• study a bridge course like Enrich

your English — NCERT.• Listen to Lalks, tapes, radio broad-

casts.

• Take part in communicative tasks.• Select suitable stories and narrate

them.Resource persons should be carefullyselected. They should be PGTs, TGTswith specialized ELT training. Theyshould have basic competence inEnglish and should also be willingto be involved in these programmes.

Teaching of Mathematics

IntroductionET us PAUSE for a while andobserve the world around us.Is it not amazing how much

of Mathematics we have in our ownenvironment? Interestingly, natureitself demonstrates to us a perfectmathematical structure, e.g., the rota-tion of the earth, the movement ofstars and planets, the growth ofplants and trees, the blooming of flow-ers are all evidences of perfect sym-:metry and rhythm in the environmentand yet we as teachers tend to keepmathematics confined to the textbookand within the four walls of the class-room!

In Part I of this document, while dis-cussing the objectives of primaryeducation we have said that, "It willbe necessary for every child to acquirenot only knowledge but more impor-tant than that, the basic skills oflearning so that she/he can learn onher/his own. This would include theskills of literacy, numeracy, problemsolving and critical thinking and somebasic knowledge too, to be able tofind/access and understand relevant

information, critically examine it andbe able to apply it meaningfully in dayto day situations".Mathematics, by its very nature, pro-vides ample opportunities to the childfor acquiring the above skills andknowledge if taught properly and inways that relate it to the child's ownenvironment and experiences.Knowledge of Mathematics is neededby each one of us, including a childat the primary stage. A child of theprimary level requires mathematicslearning to be able to :• read a clock/calendar/ railway/

bus time table.• make day-to-day purchases.• measure quantities, (mass, height,

temperature etc.).• make estimates and verify re-

sults.• represent and interpret data from

graphs, pictures etc.• appreciate patterns and symmetry

in the environment.• develop reasoning, logical thinking

and problem solving skills.


Study of Mathematics providesample opportunities for acquiringmany skills and habits which arecrucial in one's life, as by its verynature —• It is exact, true and to the point

knowledge.• It enables one to argue the correct-

ness or incorrectness of a state-ment.

• It develops reasoning, criticalthinking and analytical skills.

• It trains and disciplines themind.

• It helps in learning many othersubjects.

• It is useful in every walk of life.• It has a lot of recreational/fun

content and provides exciting lei-sure time activity.

Some Wrong Notions Attachedto Mathematics• It is a difficult subject and cannot

be learnt by everyone.• It is particularly difficult for girls.• It is a subject of mere symbols

and manipulation and does nothave any relevance or use in dailylife.

• It requires learning definitions/rules/formulae by rote.

• It is not necessary for everyone to

learn mathematics in order to leadan effective life.

Major Concerns in Mathematicsat Primary StageThe National Curricular Framework1988 reads, Mathematics should bevisualised as a vehicle to train thepupil to think, reason, analyse andarticulate logically. But if we observethe situation in schools across thecountry one wonders if in reality weare anywhere near to achieving theseobjectives which are so essentialto equip the child to function in dayto day life. As we take a closer lookat teaching-learning of Mathematics,the following four major issues/problems get significantly high^lighted:

• Children's performance in math-ematics at the primary stage isvery poor as shown by achieve-ment tests conducted from time totime across the country.

• Mathematics teaching-learning to-day has come to mean, childrenmerely performing operations me-chanically, almost by rote, by mas-tering the algorithm without actualunderstanding of concepts. Theskills of learning to know are thusnot developed at all,

• Of all the subjects taught inschool, mathematics is the onemost feared and disliked one bychildren. Such attitudes stem

Teaching of Mathematics ill

largely from the teaching lear-ning strategies adopted when chil-

. dren, though pick up algorithmicskills yet but fail to understandthe concepts. Mathematics beinghierarchical in nature, children failto acquire a sound foundationwhich is essential for building laterconcepts thus leading to learninggaps and a fear as well as dislikeof the Subject. Also, mathematicsteaching is not made interestingenough for children but limited toa very abstract/symbolic levelwhich is not in tune with the de-velopmental status or learningneeds of children in the primarygrades.

• Children's learning of mathema-tics is not related to their environ-ment or previous experiences inand out of school. Therefore, un-like in other curricular areas, thechild's learning in this area doesnot get adequately reinforced orstrengthened outside the class-room H ,-j-

In this chapter we will try to addressthese concerns by reviewing anddiscussing the proposed approach toJive major aspects which have animpact on teaching-learning of mathe-matics ;

Q The Curriculum FrameworkQ The Proposed Methodology• The Teaching-learning MaterialsG The Assessment

• Teacher Preparation for Mathe-matics

The Curriculum FrameworkThe main considerations while devel-oping a curriculum for mathematicsare that it should• relate the expected learning out-

comes (ELOs) to the developmenrtal status of children

• reflect a spiral approach wheretolearning takes place as a slow pro-cess involving loops and feedbackcycles so that children get the op^portunity to revisit concepts againand again

• relate mathematics to the child'simmediate environment

• provide for opportunities where thechild can apply the new conceptslearnt in a variety of situations andthus develop understanding of theconcepts introduced

•, lay stress on certain concepts andskills which will develop ip chil-dren skills of learning to learn as

)• well as equip the child to meetpresent and future needs. Theseinclude among others skills ofproblem solving, seeing patternsand extending them, representingand interpreting data.

Keeping in mind the above expecta-tions and objectives the proposedcurriculum for mathematics mayinclude the following Jive learningareas.


• Numbers

0 Four Fundamental Operations• Measures• Shapes• Graphs*The new focus in the proposed cur-ricular framework is on developing thefollowing skills across all the fivelearning areas listed above :

Problem Solving : Problem solvingsuggests a shift from memorisation tounderstanding of concepts and abil-ity to apply these in both familiar andunfamiliar situations, whether in dayto day life or in problems given in theworkbook/textbook. These skills in-clude skills of observation, experimen-tation, estimation, reasoning and veri-fication, The emphasis in this ap-proach is more on the process in-volved and not just on the product.

The concept of problem solving isbased on. the premise that life's prob-lems are:' iopen ended having ittorethan one solution and hence requirethe use of logic, reasoning etc. to takedecisions. Problem solving activitiesalso help to connect mathematics tothe real world.

* Inclusion of "Graphs" as an area is in no waya downward extension of higher level topics.This has been suggested keeping in view thechildrens' constant exposure to vast amountof graphs used for presenting the informationon media and the technological advances. Thearea, of course, has to be dealt at the intro-ductory level.

Seeing and Extending Patterns :Study of patterns requires students torecognise, describe and generalisepatterns to arrive at rules and formu-lae. If children are made to identifyregularities in events, shapes, designs,sets of numbers they would realisethat regularity is the essence of math-ematics. It provides the basis for in-ductive learning too. Exploring pat-terns is both fascinating and interest-ing and can also be made a fun ac-tivity for children.

Collecting, Arranging, Presentingand Interpreting Data : A child ofthe 21st century would need tounderstand that information in her/his life will flow in the form of notonly words, phrases and numbers butalso pictures, charts, tables, graphsetc. The television programmes todayare full of such information in theform of charts, diagrams etc. e.g. thetemperature chart or scores ofcricket etc. Understanding and use ofthis information by children needsdevelopment of skills of collecting,arranging and interpreting itthrough their inclusion in thecurriculum of mathematics. Theseskills would not only help in lear-ning various concepts of mathematicsbut also those in other curricularareas.

A Vision of the Child at theEnd of Primary StageIn view of the learning areas and


skills suggested above, a child bythe time she/he completes educationof primary stage should be ableto ;•• understand whole numbers and

numerals and use them in real lifesituations.

%,. understand the four fundamentaloperations viz addition, subtrac-tion, multiplication and division,and perform these with speed andaccuracy in solving problems givenin the text/workbook as well as inday to day life.

• understand various kinds of mea-sures and use them appropriatelyin solving relevant problems.

,• appreciate geometrical shapesand their characteristics and seetheir role in shaping and beauti-

, lying a variety of objects in the en-vironment such as jewellery, build-ings, monuments, floors, textileetc.

• enjoy using mathematics creativelyfor solving riddles, puzzles, creat-ing models, designs, mathematicalstories and rhymes, reading pat-terns etc. individually and withothers.

• relate mathematical concepts todaily life situations.

• interpret data in real life situa-tions.

Keeping in mind the above expecta-tions from the children, the Curricu-lum in Mathematics for the primary

stage will need to focus on enablingchildren to :=> develop an understanding of the

concept of numbers— use vocabulary related to num-

bers— count, read, write, sequence,

describe, round off numbers— see ordinal numbers as posi-

tional numbers— recognise simple numbers as

positional numbers— recognise simple number pat-

terns (even, odd, prime, mul-tiple, factors etc.)

— apply their knowledge of frac-tions, decimals, percentage andtheir equivalents to day to dayexperiences.

=> perform the four fundamentaloperations of addition, subtrac-tion, multiplication, divisionwith speed and accuracy and beable to apply these with under-standing to solve problems indaily life situations— use vocabulary related to

mathematics in connectionwith numbers, operations,symbols etc. e.g. sum of differ-ence between, plus, minus,equals product, quotient etc.

— add, subtract, multiply, dividewhole numbers

— add and subtract like andunlike fractions and decimals


— add, subtract, multiply deci-mals upto two or three placesas for rupees and other mea-sures

— recall instantly sums, differ-ences, products of pairs ofnumbers

— estimate as well as verify an-swers through alternate methods

understand use of different mea-sures such as length, mass, ca-pacity, time, money, tempera-ture and angle and be able touse these measures in situationsarising in the child's immediateenvironment— use vocabulary related to com-

parison— measure length, mass, capac-

ity using non standard andstandard units

— derive and find area and perim-eter of a rectangle, square and

rsee the relationship between'•p'efimeter and area in real lifesituations

— derive and find the volume of acube and cuboid

— read a clock or watch to thenearest second and calculatelapsed time

— consult a calendar to find cor-responding days and dates andbe able to construct a calendartoo

— read a bus, railway time tablefor timings of arrival at, depar-ture from, distance betweenplaces and time taken for travel

— handle simple money transac-tions

— read, record and interpret tem-perature when using a ther-'mometer be it in degreescelsius or fahrerihert and beable to tell the health of theperson

— read and interpret weather/temperature charts and seerelationships of variation oftemperature with weather con-ditions

identify and classify objects inthe environment in terms oftheir shapes and other charac-teristics and be able to discuss,describe and draw two- andthree-dimensional shapes— identify and classify objects in

the environment in terms oftheir geometrical shapes, andtheir characteristics

— recognise, discuss, describeand draw two and three dimen-sional shapes

represent and interpret informa-tion in daily life situations— represent given information in

a variety of ways like pictures,diagrams etc. for effective com-munication


— interpret meaningfully informa-tion given through pictures,simple diagrams, bar charts,graphs that appear on the tele-vision, magazines, newspapersetc.

=> enjoy mathematics and feel con-fident about it

(The detailed expected learning out-comes for each of the three levels areappended at the end of the chapter).

The Proposed Methodology• Understanding the Learner

In order to help children learn Math-ematics it is important for us to knowand understand our learner first.Broadly, at the pre-primary and earlyprimary stages a child is at the pre-operational stage in terms of her/hismental processes where the child'sjudgement is based on how thingsappear rather than on adult logic. Thechild does not realise thai certainactions can be reversed e.g. she/hethinks the same objects placed furtherapart in a line to form a longer lineare more in quantity.

Example 1 Example 2

S/he also does not understand thatif 2+3 = 5, then 5 - 3 will be equalto 2.The child then enters the concreteoperational stage during the primaryyears around the age of 6 to7 years.Gradually, the child learns to con-serve as well as grasp many basicideas of mathematics, but only interms of concrete operations. In moststates, 5 years olds are now enteringschool in grade 1 and they maymaturationally not be ready to under-stand basic number concepts. Nowonder children have problems withthe conventional methods of teachingmathematics on the blackboard be-cause these do not help childrenmake the transition smoothly fromconcrete to abstract experiences. Re-lating the problem to concrete real lifeexperiences at this stage helps chil-dren to rely on their own understand-ing and thus construct their ownknowledge. >J 'Though every child goes through simi-lar stages of development, the processmay vary from one child to another.This difference may be related to thesocio-economic/cultural backgroundas well as individual differences inintelligence, attitudes, style of learn-ing etc. For example, a shopkeeper'schild exposed to selling and buyingcan calculate costs etc. faster than achild only working theoretically in theclassroom. Again, girls in certainhouseholds who are expected to cook

l i e The Primary Yeats

from an early age develop an intuitivegrasp of proportionality, conservationof mass and other mathematical con-cepts. Children use different strate-gies for grasping new concepts e.g. achild may either use a "count all" or"count on" strategy to begin with andgradually proceed to more efficientstrategies on her/his own.

We also need to keep in mind thatchildren of the same age can be atdifferent operational stages, as alsochildren of different ages can be at thesame developmental stage. Thus weneed to observe our learner carefully,assess her/his capabilities and not beguided only by age. The activitiesplanned and learning situations mustmatch the child's aptitude and atti-tude at that point of time. Also oneneeds to be aware that there is acontinuity in the cognitive develop-ment of a child and the stages tendto build upon in succession.

• Making Teaching-learningChild-centred

(a) Ensuring readiness for learningmathematics

Mathematics has been looked upononly as a study of number Symbolseven at the pre-school level. Tenderminds at 4 or 5 years of age cannotreceive the subject in its narrow formof Notations. Children need to forrnsome basic prenumber concepts re-lated to size, length, mass etc., (e.g.,big-small; long-short; heavy-light etc.)

through a process involving Matching,Identification, Naming, Seriation withrespect to each concept. Children alsoneed to sharpen their skills of classi-fication, grouping and sequentialthinking which provide them a soundfoundation for learning Mathematics.These need to be developed by givingchildren opportunities to apply theseskills on concrete and familiar objectsand experiences. Such experienceshelp children form concepts and de-velop related vocabulary which areboth basic to learning of Mathemat-ics. . . : ••" . .•' . .-. • , .•- ' . '• •••; -

These experiences form the readinessprogramme for Mathematics. Since alarge number of children come intograde 1 without a good Early Child-hood Care & Education (ECCE) base,the initial part of Level 1 curriculumshould focus on ensuring this readi-ness in children. At the preschooland level I stage, therefore, a va-riety of experiences in the concreteform should be given greater focusthan asking the children to writenumbers, or simply solve problemsmechanically.

(b) Ensuring expectations from childrenmatch developmental status

At Level I .emphasis should be ondeveloping basic mathematical vo-cabulary and simple computationalskills

At Level II concepts introduced inLevel I need reinforcement along


with some extension of learningAt Level III a more thorough under-standing can be expected-of basicmathematical concepts since by nowmany children are able to conserveand reverse their thinking.

(c) Planning and sequencing experi-ences to suit process of learning

Children's learning follows a processof moving from concrete experiencesto spoken language, then to pictorialrepresentation and onto the symbolicform (E-»L-»P-»S). The planning ofteaching-learning must therefore takethis sequence into account and not beguided merely by the logic of thesubject.

The teaching-learning of mathematicsat the primary stage should, therefore,not be limited to text/workbooks butshould have a combination of meth-ods including :• Concrete Experiences

• Meta learning or talking, discuss-ing, reflecting on the how and whyof solving problems and using ac-tive Mathematics vocabulary

• Paper and Pencil Tasks

• Mental Mathematics

The ratio of such activities will varyfrom level to levei and possibly fromindividual to individual as well. Thisapproach of building activities aroundthese four categories will not onlyprovide for spiral learning in childrenbut also help them progress from

concrete to abstract experiences. Forexample at Level I more concreteexperiences would be required, whileby Level III children should be able tomore effectively handle paper penciltasks and meta learning activities.

Talking mathematics is essential tounderstanding mathematics and de-veloping mathematical thinking.Children at all levels should thereforebe given opportunities to talk aboutmathematical ideas and use math-ematical words and phrases orallybefore learning to represent thesesymbolically.

(d) Relating new learning to child'sprevious learning, both in andout of school

The teacher must begin from what thechild already knows and can do. Forexample, most children understandfractions in the concrete form muchbefore they encounter them in sym-bolic form, e.g. "give me half of thechapati", "it is quarter past 3" etc.Why not. build upon this understand-ing to teach fraction? Using concreteexamples and situations from thechild's environment will facilitate theprocess of drawing out what childrenalready know as also help them torelate learning to life situations.Thereafter use of mathematical sym-bols can be introduced.

(e) Ensuring active involvement ofchildren in the learning process

Active involvement means doing


things, observing materials andphenomena, comparing, asking ques-tions, looking for patterns, classifying,generalising, setting problems, solvingthem and so on. This way children areencouraged to make sense of whatthey are learning and thereby developa belter understanding of Mathemat-ics. A variety of experiences need tobe provided to encourage, promoteand reward active involvement, lay-ing stress on practical Mathematics.Children should also be encouragedto come up to the blackboard andsolve problems to ensure participationand build up their confidence.

(f) Providing opportunity for spirallearning

Spiral learning implies allowing chil-dren to revisit concepts time andagain but with a greater degree ofcomplexity each time to match thechild's level of understanding andmaturity, e.g. Addition of one-digitnumbers is introduced at level 1.AL this stage straight forward additione.g. 7+2 = can be given... Whenrevisiting at level 2 it can be given as3+ = 9 or open ended as += 9. Children also need a lot of rep-etition of experiences to derive under-standing of concepts or pick up skills.

(g) Providing opportunity for peergroup learning

As indicated in Chapter 6 childrenlearn more and better if given anopportunity to interact with their

more able peers and the teacher.Children who have mastered skills orconcepts earlier than the others canthus help to tutor them. This is par-ticularly of significance in a multilevelsituation where children are moving atdifferent paces. There is researchevidence to show that such an inputhelps the learner.

(h) Using /adopting a combined ap-proach of both teacher instructedand child centred activitiesdepending on the learning objective

Research has also shown that any onemethod or technique cannot help at-tain all learning objectives. Even in achild-centred approach there is "aplace for traditional chalk and talkmethods depending on the purpose,e.g. development of skills of four op-erations may need more of formalteaching and drill whereas under-standing of concepts would requiremore of the kind of activity basedmethods that give the child opportu-nity to construct her/his own knowl-edge through active participation andreflection. Similarly, while under-standing is emphasized, rote learningalso has a place e.g. in memorizingtables to gain speed in calculation.

(i) Creating a democratic learningenvironment by

Providing a non-threatening environ-ment where errors are considered asa natural and inevitable part of theprocess of learning is veiy important.

Teaching of Matltematics 119

Children should be encouraged toguess, experiment, and use new/dif-ferent strategies for solving problems,e.g. a child who is always used tofinding the product of four and five by-adding has to take a risk in order toreplace this strategy by a multiplica-tive one.Creating a mathematics corner wherechildren's learning is reinforced andthey can practise Mathematics con-cepts and skills as also make newdiscoveries through interacting withmaterials, and the peer group. Thecorner should make accessible tochildren material from the Mathemat-ics kit like cubic rods, abacus,cuisennaire strips, puzzles, fractiondiscs, mathematical games etc. Thecorner will provide a friendly andrelaxed setting for learning and ca-ter to different learning styles. Theteacher can observe how childrenwork here on different activities andlisten to them discussing etc.

Helping children experience Math-ematics through a variety of examplesin the kitchen, in the market, on theplayground, in the bus, in the class-room and in many other familiar situ-ations can go a long way in makingit interesting and useful. As far aspossible teaching learning should takeplace in settings which provide a richmathematical environment.

Teaching-learning MaterialsTill today, by and large a single text-

book has been in use for teachingmathematics. But, keeping in view thedynamic nature of the curriculum andthe need to cater to the interest of allchildren, no single textbook is likelyto suit all children. Thus there is needfor graded workbooks/modules/worksheets for children and a de-tailed teacher's resource book toguide teachers as to how to deviseappropriate teaching-learning strate-gies. In addition, a lot of concretematerial is required to encouragechildren for development of creativeand critical thinking through fun filledactivities and tasks.

For facilitating learning of mathemati-cal concepts, skills, and processeseffectively it is necessary to selectinstructional materials keeping inview the age and level of children. Thewhole package of instructional mate-rial for Mathematics at a particularlevel may thus consist of :• A workbook in graded form• A text-cum-workbook in graded

form• • Teaching aids in the form of con-

crete materials, games, puzzles,Mathematics kit;

• A teacher's resource bookFor level I, there is no need of devel-oping or prescribing a textbook as thechild at this stage cannot read andcomprehend the language, instructionsor presentation. The child, of course,requires worksheets to practice the


learning provided to her/him, forwhich a workbook may be designed.Since the duration of this level is twoyears or more, one workbook consist-ing of a hundred or so worksheets maynot be desirable. Developing two orthree workbooks would perhaps beneeded. At this level the concretematerials either procured or arrangedby classroom teachers, games, visits tomarkets, excursions, field trips, etc. canform to a great extent, the package ofinstructional material to be used.

For level II, the package may containbesides teaching aids of several kinds,a text-cum-workbook and/or work-book. While developing the text-cum-workbook the vocabulary, form ofsentences and instructions to carryout the various tasks should be withinthe comprehension level of the childof this age group. An enrichmentmodule may also be included whichmay contain worksheets pertaining tothe more complex exercises and skillswhich may be required by only thefast learner.

For level III, the package should con-sist, of a textbook written in a selflearning style. The use of teachingaids may continue but on a limitedscale since at this level the childwould need to get ready for the upperprimary stage. Again, while develop-ing this book the vocabulary, sen-tences and instructions to carry outthe various tasks should be within thecomprehension level of the child ofthis age group.

The most important material inthe package would be the teacher'sresource book—one for each level.This book should guide the teacheron :• how to handle each area of learn-

ing• how to formulate appropriate

teachi ng-lea rni ng activi 1 i es• how to assess individual's learning

level• how to diagnose shortcomings in

the learning• how to develop remedial tasks to

improve learning level of slowlearners etc.

In addition, this book must providethe teacher a range of activities,games, etc. that she/he can use inproviding learning to children.

Assessment of LearningAs mentioned earlier, assessment is aprocess of collecting evidences oflearning, analysing evidences and im-proving trie level of learning. It is anessential and integral part of theteaching-learning process. Assessmentis not a one time activity to simplylabel children good, bad or averagebut aims at improving levels of learn-ing by assessing the learning on acontinual basis. It is not an end initself but the means of providing in-formation which can form the basis offuture action in the form of remedialmeasures. Assessment is aimed at


ensuring attainment of the desiredlearning by all and not on gradingchildren, comparing the performanceof one with the others or screeningchildren.The techniques and tools that ateacher adopts in the evaluation pro-cess, should be such that the processalong with the product of learning isassessed. At this stage, therefore, useof select-type item tests is not desir-able. (Example: A child should beasked to write 0.5 in percent ratherthan to indicate which of these four0.5%, 5%, 50%, 500% represents 0.5?)

Depending largely on paper-penciltests is also not desirable, since oraland performance tests evaluate learn-ing of children of primary stage in abetter way.In order to ensure that the learninghas been attained at the understand-ing and application level and notmerely at the level of memory, assess-ment has to be based on what hasnot been given in the books or usedfor practice. It has been rightly saidthat, "Acquiring information throughrote learning is not the aim of educa-tion as this job can be effectively doneby a computer!"

The various kinds of tools for assess-ment, available to the teacher, couldbe as follows :• teacher observation schedule/

check-list• structured interviews with stu-

dents

• oral tests• paper pencil tests• practical skills test• project work• individual's independent workChild's learning should be gaugedwith reference to the list of concepts,skills, processes and experiencesstated in the curriculum and on athree-point scale, namely A, B and Crepresenting the following levels:A : introduction to the concepts,

skills, processes and experi-ences

B : involvement with the skills,processes and experiences

C : mastery of the concepts, skills,processes and experiences

If difficult to implement, the ideal situ-ation would be to keep each child'slearning profile in a proforma givenbelow. The teacher should tick and putthe date under the appropriate columnwhen the child has acquired.

Concept, skill, processor experience

A B C Columns

Teacher Preparation forMathematics

We all know that the present day


Leaching of mathematics is far fromsatisfactory. But we cannot blame onlythe teacher for that. In fact, the qual-ity of pre-service and in-service prog-rammes need to be scrutinised thor-oughly from the point of view of math-ematics and suitably modified with aview to make them more effective.The teaching of mathematics, involvestwo important aspects, viz. adequateknowledge of mathematical conceptsand efficient techniques of teachingthe concepts. A teacher cannot carryout teaching of mathematics in aneffective way if there is any seriousweakness in either of the two. Atpresent, a large number of teachersteaching mathematics in primaryclasses are neither adequatelyequipped with the content of math-ematics nor adequately trained intechniques to be used for the teach-ing of mathematics. Hence there is anurgent need to equip the teachers onboth aspects, through pre-service andin-service programmes.A teacher who has to teach mathemat-ics to children must be equippedwith:• Adequate understanding of the

subject• A fair knowledge of the applica-

tions of mathematical concepts• A wide variety of teaching-learning

strategies so that each child can behelped to learn what is expected ofher/him at her/his own pace

• A kit of mathematics teachinglearning aids consisting of a widevariety of concrete materials whichchildren can see, touch andhandle

• A battery of diagnostic tests and apool of remedial tasks.

Any teacher education programmemust address all the above aspects Ateacher education programme shouldthus have some component of each ofthe following ;• Subject competence and enrich-

ment• Child-centred and multi-level

teaching-learning techniques• Skills for development, of teaching

learning material• Ways of carrying out diagnostic as-

sessment and remedial teaching.Teacher training is not just a matterof training teachers in new conceptsand techniques but of changing theirattitude to mathematics and towardsteaching, particularly in their relation-ship with children. This cannot bedone by imposing ideas but throughdemonstration of good practices inactual classroom situations.There is also a dire need of develop-ing a series of modules to enrichsubject knowledge of primary schoolteachers so that they in turn will haVethe confidence to provide appropriate,systematic and careful explanation ofmathematical ideas and procedures to .their pupils, with an emphasis on the


development of understanding, ratherthan mere learning by rote.

Integrating Mathematics withOther Subjects

Mathenvatlcs is dull, drab, boring etc.,so say, most adults and these adultsin turn try to influence or ratherimpose the views on children. But achild is not born with a grudge formathematics. It is we who throughour presentation, of the subject in anuninteresting manner groom the littleones to dislike or avoid mathematics.Mathematics can be really fun, chal-lenging and creative provided thecurriculum and its implementationare so designed. We have said earlierin Part I of the document that a childat the primary stage finds it difficultto see subjects in isolation. Thereforeevery attempt should be made to in-tegrate subjects and provide for holis/-tic learning.

If it is so, why restrict story writing tolanguage periods or drawing to thearts period? Let stories, drama, po-etry, puzzles, riddles, games, draw-ings, colour, dance, music aM flow intothe mathematics period and beforelong we will find a highly motivated

and keen mathematics learner! Letchildren colour their geometrical fig-ures, make patterns in them, writestories on fractions or shapes, writedialogues between two numbers androle play it, solve puzzles, riddles,create games and their rules, writetheir experiences of mathematics ac-tivities, create bulletin boards andcany out innumerable such activities.If all these fun filled activities becomea part of mathematics learning, chil-dren will look forward to the math-ematics period as eagerly as they doto their language, environmental edu-cation or arts' period For example,when talking about "Means of Trans-port" or "Kinds of Food" in Environ-mental Education (EVE) let childrensurvey and represent their data pic-torially, which is one of the learningexperiences of mathematics. When do-ing a topic on "water" in EVE relateit to measures in mathematics. In Art,let children make geometrical shapes,patterns, paper craft (folding in 1/2,1/4) etc. Let them use their compass,protractor or other geometrical instru-ments outside the mathematics peri-ods well. The more creative the activi-ties the more enthused will the chil-dren be.

APPENDIX

Learning Outcomes (Mathematics)

The child is able to


Number and Numeration• arrange the given collec-

tions of objects in order (i)by matching and sorting (ii)by one-one correspondence(iii) by counting the objects

• of the collections• make collections of objects

corresponding to the speci-fied numbers (not beyondten)

• place in order and recitenumber sequence (up toten.L

• indicate the position of anobject in a line (e.g. I-Iari isfourth in the line, from the(front/back/left/ right)

• make groups of 2s,3s,4s,5s 10s, from agiven collection of objects

• get familiar with the differ-ence between an ordinalnumber and the corre-sponding cardinal numberwith respect to placementof concrete (e.g. live days ofa week and fifth day of theweek)

• read and write numerals 1,2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10

• classify numbers (upto 10)in terms of odd and even,through pairing

Number and Numeration.

• read and write numeralsupto 100 in a variety ofways

• represent numbers up to100 by bundles of sticks;currency notes of 100, 10and coins of Re 1; and alsoby a flat of 100 cubes, arod of 10 cubes and a cube

• extend number sequenceto 1000, using a cube of10*10*10 cubic roads, cur-rency notes of 1000,100,10 and coins of Re 1,spike-abacus, etc.

• identify the smallest andthe greatest numbers of,one, two and three digits

• compare two or three num-bers and also express thecomparison, using thesymbols > or <

• arrange I he given numberin ascending and descend-ing order, without and us-ing the symbols > or <

• round off the numbers tothe nearest ten or hundred

• add and write the num-bers (upto 1000) both infigures and words

• form the smallest and the.greatest 3 or 4-digit num-

Number and Numeration• read and write of numerals

up to one lakh, (both in fig-ures and words) in a vari-ety of ways

• compare and order num-bers using sign > or <

• arrange the given data inincreasing or decreasingorder

• round off the numbers tothe nearest ten, hundred,thousand, or lakh

• determine the HCF andLCM of two or three num-bers, by (1) primefactorisation method and(ii) long division method

• cite daily life situationswherein the concepts ofHCF and LCM are involved

• solve problems based onthe. concepts IICF and LCM(In the above three out-comes numbers may notexceed 100)


Level I Level U Level III

name number sequence totwenty, through countingof actual objects

read and write numeralsupto 20

classify numbers (upto 20)in terms of odd and even,again using pairing

name number sequenceupto hundred (by rote)starting from one

name number sequence(forward) starting from anynumber

understand and expressesnumbers beyond 10 interms of tens and ones(e.g. 34 = 30+4, 57 = 50+7)

write numbers from 1 to100 in columns of ones,tens and hundreds

count up to 100 skippingin 10s, 5s, 4s, 2s.

compare and arrange num-bers (up to 100) in ascend-ing and descending order

draw a number ray andmarks on it the numerals(with equal gaps)

make a 10x10 grid andwrites numerals from 0 to99

ber from the given digits(with and without repeatingthe digits)

• extend number sequenceto ten thousand, using fivespikes on the spike-abacus

• read and write numbersupto one lakh both in fig-ures and words

• compare and arrange thenumbers in order

• round off thenumbers tothe nearest thousand

• understand the conceptsof: factors and multiples ofa number; prime and com-posite numbers

• sort out the even, odd,prime and composite num-bers that come in between1 and 100

• find all the factors of anumber; multiples of anumber

• make the primefactorisation of a number,using a factor tree

• find the HCF and LCM oftwo or three numbers, byprime factorisation

• describe the properties ofeven, odd, prime and com-posite numbers

Fractional Numbers

• use active vocabulary re-lated to fractions in her/hisconversations in daily lifesituations e^., whole, half,quarter, (Give me "half a

Fractional Numbers

• make proper fractions,such as 2/3 taking twopieces each of size 1 /3 ,3/4 by taking three pieceseach of 1 /4 sizes, etc.

Fractional Numbers

* represent and explainfractional parts of a collec-tion/group of objects ( e.g.half of 6 apples, one-fifth of20 oranges)

126

Level I Level II

The Piijnajy Years

Level III

chapati", "It. is quarter pastthree", "i want the wholeone")identify fractional parts of(i) a whole and (ii) of agroup using concrete ob-jects, drawing, e.g.,(l)colour one half of thesquare or one quarter acircle, (2) colour three outof lour parts of a whole, (3)colour two out of fourcircles

make designs and shapesthrough paper folding intohalves, -quarters, etc.

Pour FundamentalOperations

• compose numbers up to10, using concrete objects(e.g., 2+1=3, 4+2=6, etc.)

demonstrate the equiva-lence of fractions (e.g.,2/4 of a chocolate bar issame as 1/2 of the samebar)

compare and order likefractions (fractions withequal denominators orfractional parts of the samesize are called like frac-tions)add and subtract like frac-tions

demonstrate understand-ing of a "mixed fraction"and aii "improper fraction"convert a mixed fractioninto an improper fraction,and vice-versa


• add and subtract two orthree digit numbers—a re-vision

• understanddivision

fraction as

generate fractions equiva-lent to a given fractionreduce a fraction to its low-est terms

calculate a specified frac-tional part of a collection(e.g. what is 2/3 ofRs~270?)

convert unlike fractionsinto like fractions, usingequivalence of fractions;and then compare/ orderthe unlike fractions

add and subtract, like andunlike fractionsdevelop understanding ofdecimals and percentages,through fractions with de-nominators 10, 100, or1000

express a fraction into deci-mal or percent and vice-versaexpress a given measure-ment in higher or lowerunits (e.g. 3 kg 235 g as3.235 kg and 3.12 m as 3m 12 cm.)

convert unlike decimalsinto like decimalsadd and subtract: like deci-mals and unlike decimals


• add and subtract numbersof any number of digits(Column method)



• understand that addition isa process of putting objectsof two collections together(aggregation) and |oining agroup by some more (aug-mentation)

• understand that two num-bers can be added in anyorder (commutative prop-erty)

• decompose numbers, usingconcrete objects (i.e.,8=5+3, 7=8+1, etc.)

• understand that subtrac-tion is a process of "takingaway", using collection ofobjects

• understand the use ofnumber ray (up to 20) tocount on, add and sub-tract numbers along it

• make tables of additionand subtraction facts(1 + 1 9+9 and 9-9 1-1)

• understand that zero rep-resents the absence ofsomething

• understand that :number + 0 = number;0 + number = number;number - 0 = number;number - number = 0;0 + 0 = 0 and 0 - 0 =0

• understand that subtrac-tion is also "difference be-tween" two numbers

• solve problems involvingaddition and subtractionthrough verbal presenta-tion of situations interest-ing to children, involvingnumbers up to 9 or 10{sum not to exceed twenty)

• multiply a two or a threedigit number by a one ortwo digits number

a process of "equal distribu-tion" or "sharing"

• understand that division isa process of "repeated sub-traction"

• prepare division facts outof both the processes andvice versa

• understand that a numberis not divisible by zero(0)

• check division facts usingcorresponding multiplica-tion facts

• classify word problems onthe basis of four operations

• divide a two or three, digitnumber by a number notexceeding 10, using multi-plication tables

• solve simple word prob-lems involving one or twooperations and the num-bers not beyond 999

• add and subtract two orthree numbers of four orfive digits

• solve problems involvingaddition or subtraction orboth but numbers not be-yond five digits

• multiply a number (may beof four digits) by a numberof two or three digits

• divide a number (may be offour digits) by a two digitnumber

• make an estimate of theproduct or the quotient

multiply and divide anumber by another num-bersolve word problemsinvolving large numbersand four basic operationssolve word problems in-volving (1) numbers and (2)different, measuresframe problems in her/hisown words correspondingto the specific requirementmade by the teacherstudy a given pattern madeof numbers and operationsand make generalisations

128 77ie Primary Years

Level [ Level U Level III

form verbal problems cor-responding to a givenaddition or subtraction factof numbers up to 9 or 10

add and subtract two-digitnumbers with and without,regrouping (using forwardcounting, 10x10 grid orany other learning aid)add and subtract two-digitnumbers (column addi-tion/subtraction) wilh andwithout regrouping, usingaddition/subtraction facts

• identity the operation ofaddition or subtraction in-volved in the word/verbalproblemssolve word problems in-volving addition and sub-traction, with numbers upto two digitsunderstand that multipli-cation is a repeated addi-tionprepare multiplicationtables up to 10,using agrid, skip counting, num-ber patterns etc.

understand that two num-bers can be multiplied inany ordermultiply a number directlyby 1, 10, 100, etcsolve verbal problems in-volving multiplication (em-phasizing preference ofmultiplication over addi-tion)form verbal problems cor-responding to a given mul-tiplication fact

when two numbers aremultiplied or divided, interms of tens, hundred orthousandextend a given a patternmade of numbers andoperations by few moretermsgenerate patterns involvingnumbers and operationsestimate the sum, differ-ence, product and quotientof numbers and veritythese after working outusing operations

Teaeliii\g of, . .aihcmatlcs 129


Shapes• develop and use vocabu-

lary of spatial relationships{top, bottom; over, under;inside, outside; etc)

• sort, classify and describesolids and shapes

• observe, describe and con-tinue patterns

• follow and create simplesets ol instn.ict.ions to gen-erate patterns

• recognise basic shapes—cuboid, cube, sphere,square, rectangle, circle,triangle, etc.

• sort ob|ects collected fromthe environment, accordingto shapes and sizes

• recognise straight andcurved lines ; closed, openshapes ; Hat and curvedsurfaces

• make simple patterns andmodels out of shapes

• discover and narrate simplecharacteristics ol shapes

• draw shapes with the helpof objects

• make straight lines by fold-ing , using straight.—edgedobjects, stretched string

• draw horizontal, verticaland oblique (sloping) lines

• draw a straight line with? help of a scale or rulerv shapes (free hand) ofTe, rectangle, circletriangle

patterns and designs,shapes cut-outs

Shapes• make shapes of triangle,

square, rectangle, circle,half-circle, quarter-circleby folding and cutting

• classify shapes made ofline segments and curvedlines and name each clas-sification as triangles,quadrilaterals, circles, etc.

• identity symmetrical andnon-symmetrical shapes,alphabets, leaves, etc.

• verify symmetry of shapesand designs, using folding

• draw circles of different ra-dii with a compass

• name various terms relatedto a circle, namely radius,diameter, chord, circumfer-ence, etc.

• derive the following rela-tionships:diameter = 2 radius ;circumference =3

diameter (approx.)

Shapes• make distinction between a

ray and a line segment• understand that an angle

is made of two rays or twoline segments

• classify angles as right,acute and obtuse

• identity angles occurring invarious shapes

• measure angles using pro-tractor

• draw angles of various de-grees (multiple of 5 de-grees)

• understand that, a triangleis a closed figure made ofthree line segments

• verity the properly of a tri-angle, namely "the sum ofits three angles is 180 de-grees"

• understand that two linesegments are parallel ifthey do not meet at all

• understand that two linesegments are perpendicu-lar if they form an angle of90 degrees

• identify parallel and per-pendicular line segmentsoccurring in variousshapes and objects

130

Level I Level II

The Primary Years

Level III

Measurement(a) Length• compare and order objects

by I heir sizes (e.g. orderingchildren by height, orderingpencils by length)

• use descriptive language:long, short, high, low, tall,wide, deep, narrow, etc.

• use comparative language :lull, taller, tallest; wide,wider, widest, and so on

• compare and order objectsby using linear dimension:longer than, shorter than,etc."

• compare lengths, using asingle improvised unit

• measure lengths, usingpersonal units—span, cu-bit, pace, etc.

Measurement(a) Length• measure lengths in stan-

dard units of length—decimetre, metre andcentimetre

• derive relationships amongVarious units of length:10centiriietres= 1 decimetre

10 decimetres = 1 metre100 centimetres = 1 metre

• select appropriate unitsand measure variety ofobjects, using decimetre,melre, and centimetre andprovide answers in com-plete units (no fractionalparts) making sensible es-timation/rounding off

• express a given length inthe specified unit, using re-lationships between vari-ous units

• convert one unit of lengthinto others

Measurement(a to c) Length, Mass and Ca-pacity• state various metric units

of length, mass, capacity,time and relationshipsamong them

• convert one unit into an-other

(b) Mass• compare and order glasses

through visual differenceand difference on actualweighing (using improvisedunits)

• weigh with improvisedunits : cubes, marbles,cotton reels, nails, etc.

(b) Mass* select, appropriate units

and measure mass (orweight) of variety of objects,using weights—kilogramand grams

• derive relationships be-tween two units of mass1000 grams = 1 kilogramTwo 500 grams = 1 kilo-gramFive 200 grams* 1 kilo-gramTen 100 grams = 1 kilo-gram


Level 7 Leuel JJ

131

Level 111

select appropriate unitsand weigh variety of ob-jects, using kilogram andgram weightsconvert one unit of massinto others

(c) Capacity• compare capacities of dif-

ferent containers by findingout. how many smallercontainerfuls are needed tofill bigger ones

• understand the meaning of"capacity" of a container—the quantity of liquid orsand it can hold

• estimate the capacity of acontainer and verify thesame by actual measuring

• measure and express thecapacity of a containerusing improvised unitssuch as bottle cap, cup,glass, jar, katori, etc.

• arrange in order vessels ofdifferent capacities

(c) Capacity• understand that two ves-

sels of same size and ca-pacity if filled with .objectsof different densities mayhave different weights

• use appropriate units ofcapacity—litre and millilitrcwhile measuring the liquidssuch as oil, water, milk,petrol, etc,

• measure the capacities ofvessels of different sizes,using vessels of 1,2,5 litres,and 500, 200, LOOmillilitres

• convert one unit of capac-ity into others

(d) Time• name the days, months

and seasons (stories andrhymes about the seasons)

• understand that the daysof a week are in cyclic or-der

• name the days of a weekand months of a year in se-quence

• make appropriate use oftoniorrow, today, yesterday

• read a clock and tells time

Id) Time• cite time events/ activities

which are completed in oneor more minutes (but lessthan an hour)

• make use of the relation-ships:60 minutes » 1 hour30 days = 1 month7 days = 1 week12 months ,= 1 yearin expressing the durationof an activity in hours

Id) Time• calculate the duration of

an activity or event, usingclock time or calendar

• understand that the small-est unit of time is the sec-ond (and duration of onesecond is enough both forachieving a success anddisaster), and its relation-ship with a minute"lniinute = 60 seconds"

• understand the concept of



in hours , half hours, quar-ter hoursassociate hands of clockwith regular happenings inthe classroom (start ofschool, play time, lunch/recess, closing time)

state the time of variousevents or happenings byreading 12 hour clock anddigital watchesexpress the instant, time ina.m. and p.m.(Ka] goes toschool at 7 a.m. and hegoes to bed at 9 p.m.)read and interpret a calen-darcalculate the duration of anactivity/event when the be-ginning time and finishingtimes are given in a.m. andp.m.

speed and its relationshipwith distance and timeread the bus and railwaytime tables and make useof them

(e) Money• recognise coins and cur-

rency notes up to 100• make amounts with coins

(e) Money• solve problems related to

money

ff) Perimeter and Area• understand the concept of

"perimeter"• measure the perimeter

(boundary) of simple closedfigures (i.e., of figureswhich are closed and don'tintersect themselves)

• measure area of regularand irregular shapes using1 cm square paper orgeoboard

• derive formulae lor findingthe perimeter and area of asquare and a rectangle

• determine the perimeterand the area of a squareand a rectangle with givendimensions


Level 1 Level [I

133

Level 111

(g) Temperature• read a thermometer (Cel-

sius and Fahrenheit) andfind out the temperature

• know the range of tempera-ture in environment(weather, body, boilingfreezing paints)

(h) Volume and Surface Area• understand the concept of

"volume" as the amount ofspace an object occupies

• find volume of euboidaland cubical containers byfilling in wilh unit, cubes

• see a cube as the mostsuitable unit for the mea-surement of volume

• derive lbrmulae for the vol-ume of a cuboid and of acube

• calculate the volume of acuboid or a cube of givendimensions

• understand the concept, ofsurface area of an objeel/solid and calculate thesurface area of the objects

• calculate the surface areaof the tour walls of a room

• cite difference between vol-ume and capacity and theuse of the basic units litreand cubic centimetre

• know the relationship :1 litre = 1000 cubiccentimetres

• estimate, measure andrecord the errors in eachtype of measurement

The Primary Years


Graphs• identify and interpret

simple symbols, picturesetc.

Graphs* represent and interpret

simple data collectedthrough other activitieswith the help of the teacher

Graphs• collect and record data sys-

tematically• represent data concretely

and pictorially• answer posed questions,

using data and its repre-sentation

•••• describe data orally• interpret information given

in tables and pictorial rep-resentation

Arts Education

IntroductionET us IMAGINE a situation inwhich a small child is sittingall by herself/himself with a

chalk in her/his hand, and no onearound to tell her/him what to do?What do you think the child is likelyto do? Will she/he write numbers andalphabets with the chalk or will she/he scribble circles or figures?More likely the latter. Expressingthrough an art form comes naturallyto a child. Every child is a potentialartist and all art forms provide a sat-isfying medium for a child's creativeexpression and thus contribute sig-nificantly to her/his all round devel-opment.

Young children have an inborn desireto know and to express what they feelor experience in eveiy possible way.They babble, cry, speak and sing.They move, jump and dance. Theyscribble, make lines, draw shapes andpictures. They experiment withcolours and play with surfaces havingdifferent textures. Thus, if given awide variety of opportunities and

materials and the freedom and timefor discoveiy, children will experimentto express in various ways what theyneed to say.Art experiences also help develop inchildren the sensitivity for beauty andaesthetics. We know that childrenappreciate colours, shapes and openspaces. Arts help children to see thebeauty around them, both inside theclassroom and outside (e.g. childrencan be asked to look out of thewindow and see colours outside, andplan how they can use these coloursto change the classroom environ-ment).

Art activities can promote creativity inyoung children. Teachers can provideideas, environment, materials andopportunities to help children to ex-plore, experiment and follow their ownartistic ideas.Nature has given five senses to hu-mans to see, taste, hear, touch andsmell. Art education can strengthenthese through interaction with theimmediate, friendly and motivatingsurroundings.

1.38 The Primary Years

Major Concerns in the Area ofArts EducationThe National Curriculum Framework1988 reads, "At the primary stage themain objective of Arts Education is tomake the child aware of the good andbeautiful in her/his environment andto express her/his feelings throughsimple performing arts like music,dance and drama...". However, in re-ality what is seen is far from the aboveobjective e.g. :

• The definition of Arts Education isoften limited to drawing, paintingor singing alone whereas it shouldbe seen as an integrated learningexperience involving different artforms, such as music, dance,drama, puppetiy, painting, sculp-ture, pottery, print-making etc.

• Arts Education is a process whichstarts with child's play which is anatural part of child's developmentprocess. Play in turn can extendinto various forms of art with someorientation and directions. Emo-tions and feelings when developedinto enactment, narration, charac-terizations etc. lend themselves toperforming arts. Sensation of tex-tures, forms, shapes, quality dif-ferentiation etc. can be developedinto visual arts. Rhythmic motionsand sounds could easily be trans-lated into music or dance. All theabove are often overlooked whileplanning and implementing cur-riculum for arts education.

• Children's spontaneous responsesare rarely encouraged and the cur-riculum tends to become very di-rective and teacher centred. As aresult there is no opportunity forthe child to respond/ react in cre-ative ways or to find an emotionaloutlet through arts activities.

• The significance of the arts in fa-cilitating learning in other curricu-lar areas has still not been ex-plored and practised in classroomsituations. Keeping in view thedevelopmental characteristics ofchildren in primary education,possibilities of adopting integratedapproach to teaching need to beexplored more vigorously.

• Arts Education plays a crucial rolein fostering the child's skills ofvisualisation, adaptation and co-operation in thinking and doingwhich in turn can help the childface the challenges of the factchanging world. But unfortunatelythe existing pattern of arts educa-tion does not take this fact intoconsideration. Conscious effortsneed to be made by all concernedincluding the teacher in this direc-tion.

Objectives of Arts EducationA properly planned curriculum in ArtsEducation should aim at :• sharpening the child's capabili-

ties of observation through see-ing, hearing, touching, and

Arts Education 139

smelling. Through observation andexploration of her/his surround-ings, the child acquires a first handexperience of the world. This expe-rience is unique to every child. Theprocess of observation needs to benurtured and enhanced to fosterthe individual's creativity from earlystage of education.developing the skills of free ex-pression of ideas and emotions,imaginatively and creatively.The child has an instinctive needto express her/ his feelings, emo-tions and ideas. Arts Educationserves to develop the child's skillsto express imaginatively and cre-atively through different materialsand media (music, dance, drama,painting etc.).developing in the child aestheticsensibilities and an awarenessand appreciation of all forms ofart through an integrated learn-ing experience. The child throughparticipation in activities of differ-ent forms of art education discov-ers in her/his immediate sur-roundings relationships, order,harmony, beauty, rhythm etc.

developing the child's under-standing of the world around.Arts Education helps the child toappreciate diversity and be toler-ant to others' view-points whichcan contribute in a big way indeveloping the quality of 'learningto live together' and learning to be'.

• developing in the child a senseof pride in her/his cultural heri-tage. Art education helps the childin familiarisation with traditionalarts, crafts, folk songs and dances

. etc. and appreciate their signifi-cance in her/his life.

Scope of Arts EducationThe scope of Arts Education thereforeincludes both Visual Aits and Per-forming Ails.By Visual Arts we mean —• drawing and painting• collage and applique• sculpture• pottery• print making• constructions, hangings and mo-

biles• masks, puppets and toy making• tie and dye• display and decoration• rangoli• other art activitiesBy Performing Arts we mean —• music — vocal and instrumental• dance — folk, classical, rhythmic

movement etc.• drama — stage, puppetry, street

plays, mime, mask play etc.By arts we do not mean merely put-ting up a performance on stage or a

140 The Primari/ Years

display.We essentially mean a processthat begins with free play and growsthrough a series of graded learningexperiences as a direct outcome ofdoing and thinking.This process of creative play must beretained throughout Arts Education toensure the child's spontaneous andjoyful participation in visual and per-forming arts, as also while learningother subjects. Within the proposedcurriculum, creative activities shouldnot be limited to only a few studentsbut can be developed in all. The fo-cus is on a harmonious overall devel-opment of the child through an inte-grated and holistic approach withinthe arts as well as with other curricu-lar areas.Lesson plans must be devised in sucha way that creative processes can fullyhelp understand and imaginativelyreinforce the concepts taught in othersubjects.Arts Education goes beyond skillbuilding because it broadens thechild's view of her/his own world inseveral ways. It is a very critical areaof a child's education. Given the broadperspective of Arts Education the al-location of time has therefore beenincreased from 10% to 15% at theprimary level.

Creating an Environment forthe Arts EducationThere is no one method of conductingcreative activities with children in a

class. Arts Education is more con-cerned with the creative processesrather than the end product. Here theteacher's role and attitude is of para^mount importance which is reflectedin the kind of environment created inthe classroom. An arts class shouldprovide for:

• A democratic environment

The child's idea of painting is; hot tomake a pretty picture. The child'sexcitement lies in smearing andsplashing colours and discoveringwhat her/his act leads to. An idealopen ended introduction to the activ-ity would be, "Here, take thesecolours. You may choose to paintanything you like and use your fin-gers, brushes or anything else to doso."

• Open ended activitiesArts activities cannot be definitive.Every activity has to be an openended activity, providing the child theflexibility to experiment, explore andnot to be bound by the teacher's pre-scriptions. Likewise, the choice ofmaterials, organisation of space andadequate time must be taken care of.Art activities must be allotted suffi-cient time for the children to be ableto complete their tasks. As the childgets absorbed in the activity, anabrupt end can leave the child feelingdissatisfied and restless which canaffect her/his sense of accomplish-ment.

Arts Education 141

• Open ended materialsThe choice of art materials can be amajor source of interest and inspira-tion. By selecting exciting materialsfor visual arts and exciting activitiesfor the performing arts, one can in-spire the child.

• Open spacesA motivating environment is also In-spirational. Arts being a messy, noisybusiness for children, the space pro-vided must not be limited. In theschools the emphasis is on indoorlearning. The very idea of movingoutdoors is a liberating factor for thechildren. Improvising materials andspaces within and around the schoolcan facilitate. arts activities.

• Catering to the child's developmental level

For effective implementation of thecurricula, the arts activities mustaddress the needs and requirementsof a particular age group as there isa definite sequential pattern in thedevelopment of a child's ability toexpress in visual terms. Activitiesshould be formulated keeping thispattern in mind.In the first stage of development (i.e.\¥z - 4 years of age), the childrenexplore and investigate through body-related movements. This is the scrib-bling stage. Marks are made at ran-dom without any meaning or design.The response to colour is not con-

scious or intentional. As the move-ments grow more rhythmical throughrepetition and coordination, thescribblings extend into linear forma-tions — wavy, zig-zag or circular, cor-responding to the muscular/ motordevelopment of the child.

In the second stage of development (4-6 years of age), a relationship betweenwhat a child perceives and begins toexpress is established through themedium of art. Children at this stagedevelop their own symbols for every-thing e.g. dots for eyes etc.In the third stage of development(6-8 years), the children arrive attheir own symbols for everythingthat is important to them. The knowl-edge/ understand ing of the conceptwhen translated in repeated move-ments gives the children a feel-ing of confidence that they 'know' theobject.In performing arts, creative play be-gins from child's make-belief activi-ties which takes the inspiration fromobservation of her/his surroundings(people, places, animals, objects andevents).The teacher thus has to observe thechildren of different age groups todevelop lesson-plans according totheir levels. In addition, factors suchas the cultural background, geo-graphical location, exposure, locallyavailable resources could vary tre-mendously and need to be kept inmind.


Assessing Children's Art WorkSince every child's work is unique andshould not be compared with others,assessment becomes a very complexissue. There is no ready-made yard-stick for assessing children's art. work.As each child expresses as per her/his inherent ability and perception,the best in her/him needs to beharnessed and nurtured.Expression itself is a matter of draw-ing out and identifying the most po-tent, symbolic and urgent images orfeelings. Therefore, the child requiresnothing more than positive encourage-ment in a congenial environment. Achild's work must always be met withenthusiasm,A sense of belonging can be developedby giving each child a specific spacefor display. Displaying her/his ownwork develops in the child a sense ofpride and accomplishment. In thisway the child learns to analyse, evalu-ate and discuss the works on display.It offers the child not only multipleviewpoints and alternate techniquesbut also a forum for social interactionin a group activity.

Integrating Arts with OtherCurricular AreasAs discussed in Chapter 2 of ThePrimaiy Years Part I, the child at thisage perceives the world around her/him more holistically rather than inisolated segments. Keeping this char-

acteristic in view, the adoption of In-tegrated Approach to teaching learn-ing needs to be experimented in dif-ferent situations and forms. It is es-sential for harmonious and all rounddevelopment of the child's personality.

Performing arts brings about a natu-ral integration of different forms andmodes of expression like—music,dance, drama, visual arts etc. Agreater emphasis on performing artswill ensure simultaneous developmentof all forms of expression. In addition,from the list of activities/ready to useteaching ideas which follow, it comesout veiy distinctively that the arts canbe integrated with other curricularareas as well. An integrated approachto teaching learning within the differ-ent art forms as well as with othercurricular areas would make artsmore interesting, captivating andmeaningful for the child.

Ready-to-use Teaching IdeasAn attempt has been made to providesome activities and related to specificobjectives as exemplar material forplanning Arts Activities for children.Objectives and activities have notbeen classified keeping the nature ofthe subject in mind. However, activi-ties for levels I, II, III will differ basi-cally in terms of complexity of expe-riences provided to the children. It isexpected children will respond to anyactivity according to their own capa-bility and interest.

Arts Education 14.3

When using any material for Arts,care should be taken to ensure thatthe materials are .harmless.Stimulating the Senses —Integrated ApproachFeeling the environmentObjectives• Appreciation of colour, forms and

surfaces in the environment• Experiencing and responding to

the surroundings• Familiarizing with the traditional

arts and crafts

Activities• The children can be taken for a

walk in the park or any naturalsurroundings to look around, pickand collect pebbles, seeds, leavesor other interesting objects; feelthe breeze, the sun, the shade ofthe trees, chase the butterflies,mimic birds etc.The children canthen display, arrange and admire

the things collected from the walk;draw what they saw; expressthrough actions/facial expressionshow they felt during the outing.The children can be asked to ex-plore their surroundings to ob-serve the flora-fauna, geographicalfeatures, etc. and represent theseobsejvations in visual and per-forming arts.

The teacher can organise visits/picnics to nearby places of histori-cal interest/market centres/localoccupational places/crafts-persons/museums and art galler-ies etc. She/he should plan for aspecific activity with reference tothe defined outcomes before goingon the visit. The visit can be fol-lowed with any of the followingactivities — drawing, discussions,write-ups, enactments, documen-tations, story writing, narrationsetc. At times it is not necessaryfor every visit to be followed by anactivity. It can be left at the feel-ing stage only.

The children can be asked to ob-serve and participate in celebrationof various festivals. In various cul-tural/arts activities such asalpana, floral decorations, collec-tive activities of music/dance/en-actments etc. They can also par-ticipate. (This should not to beturned into a structured play orperformance, but a free celebrationand collective participation must


be aimed for). An ambience/envi-ronment/relevant mood must becreated through a variety ofmeans—songs, dances, stoiy tell-ing, enactments, special decora-tions, costumes, ornaments, floralpainting, designs etc. The childrencan also be asked to observe local/regional/national differences invarious cultural/arts activities

Exploring Visual ArtsObjectives• Developing motor skills in children

through exploration ahd handlingof materials.

• Developing colour, shape and tex-ture associations.

• Developing skills of discriminatingfigures and ground perceptions.

• Fostering creativity, generatingone's own patterns, designs, fig-ures etc.

• Developing a sense of planning, vi-sualization" and presentation.

• The children can be asked tomake ink or colour blots betweenfolded sheets of paper; blow inkwith drinking straw on paper;(Could extend into a group activ-ity); read images from accidentalshapes and extend them intodrawings or paintings.

Materials required: Sheets of paper/

newspapers spread on ground ortable; one or more colours slightlythick in consistency; ordinary ink orwater proof inks or any other thinnedand easy flowing colour found locally(like chalk powder, gerru, etc.)

• (a) The children can be asked todraw on mud with sticks; make ahole in a bag filled with white orany other powdered colour; anddraw images on the floor; scribblefreely, draw what they like—seenor unseen; play with wet paints;make finger paintings and handimpressions; smear, drip, rub,pour or spread colours with smallsticks or any linear object. (Theseactivities can be done in groups).

Materials required: Any mud or sandsurface, (sprinkled with water if it ishard) twigs, small branches for mak-ing marks or drawings; rangolicolours, ordinary chalk powder, gerruetc.

Arts Education 145

• The children can tear a shape outof any coloured paper and pasteit on a sheet of paper and draw onit. They then can relate the shapeto anything they see around orimagine.

Materials required: Plain sheet ofpaper and coloured paper or used oldfabrics.• The children can (a) do resist

paint i.e. rub wax on paper andpaint with colours on it;(b) make patterns with candle waxdrippings and fill in wet colours.

Materials required: Ordinary wax /crayons, candles, poster colours orany locally available wet colours.• The children can be asked to

maintain a sketch book. Sketches

from life situations must be intro-duced—like those of school build-ings, trees in the garden, childrenin the corridor, etc.

Materials required: Paper/sketchbook, pencil, pen and ink.


• The children can be introducedto elementary perspective, i.e. howthings look from near and far,what happens to their size, sur-faces, shapes and colours, the

.'.•••• v farther; they are placed in space.Materials required: Paper, pencil, penand ink, pastel colours, water colours.• The children can be involved in

paper dyeing or fabric dyeing,simple origamy/paper-folding,crumpled paper dyeing and tie anddye. They should be encouraged touse local dyes like beetroot, on-ions, haldi, henna, kattha, neel,harshingar, tesu, palash etc.

• Drip and Drop/Flocking: The chil-dren can drip glue and draw orspread it with stick on paper;pour sand or glitter or poweredcolours and shake excessive sandor glitter or powdered colour, aftera while.

Materials required : Paper, glue,sand or powdered colours.• The teacher can evolve a graphic

dialogue between one or'more chil-dren. It can begin in a free, play-ful and stimulating manner whereone child draws something and theother child extends it. Thus thedialogue begins. At times, onechild leads and at times the other,resulting in a painting or drawingof a narrative sequence.

• The children can be asked to col-lect different kinds of materialswith different surfaces and tex-tures; display them and discuss;make simple rubbings of differenttextures; make a large colhige anddisplay.

•••'•• The children can take impres-sions of hands and feet on paper;take any textured material —gunny bags, leaves, tree barks,

Arts Education 147

ropes, wool, crumpled paper, etc.and take their impressions onpapers using wet colours; usevegetables'like potatoes, lady's fin-ger (bhindi) kamal kakri, etc. andprint their own design on paperusing wet colours;-,print their ownbook covers or cards etc.

• The children can make theirown printing block on any sur-face ( stone, wood, paper) by glu-ing various materials like threads,seeds, sand, wire, stones cerealsetc. They can print their own de-sign on paper using wet colours/on fabric using fabric paints.

Method: On a piece of wood or stonewhile using fevicol or any other gluethat does not dissolve in water, chil-dren stick threads, seeds and, mine

stones, cereals etc. or any other mate-rial in a pattern or motif to be printed.This would become their printingblock. They can also prepare a print-ing pad with layers of coarse fabric/gunny material/ blanket, felt: materialor sponge and spread fabric paint ontop. The design can be by stampingthe block on fabric or paper.

• The children can print their book, covers and different kinds of de-signs with one or two blocks orprint borders for a saree or motiffor their T-shirt, or even print theirstationery, posters, folders etc.

• Stencil/printing : The childrencan use any available object withholes or outlets like a sieve orcreate holes and shapes in a pieceof cardboard/ thick plastic sheet/large thick leaves/palm leaves,plantain leaves. To make a stencildesign, pour sand or colouredpowder, or dab paint with a pieceof rag or spray it with an old toothbrush. Soft crayons and pastelscan also be used for making sten-cil design. The stencil can be usedto make a greeting card.

The children can make stencils ofdifferent shapes, animals, objects,leaves, flowers, alphabets, differ-ent parts of the body etc.

• The children can be asked to il-lustrate a story chosen with one ortwo characters or combine severalcharacters by sharing the stencils;make name plates and sign boards


for the school or make a card; ar-range alphabets into a design.They can also combine different:shapes and colours into a compo-sition, design a scarf, handker-chief, cushion etc.

• The children can also compose orput together on paper a variety ofmaterials like wool, coloured saw-dust, cereals, seeds, paper, petals,pencil shavings, groundnut pealsetc. and bring out a collage fordisplay.

Material Explorations

• The children can discover fromthe surroundings, various kinds ofpaper, fibre, fabrics or any otherlocally available materials e.g.cane, bamboo, wood, etc.; arrangethem in some kind of order—fromrough to smooth, from light toheavy, etc.; observe, discuss anddiscover from the surroundings,the various uses of these materi-

als (making toys, bags, or otherarticles of use); collect and displaythe various samples collected; cre-ate their own things while usingany one or more materials.

Another activity could be identificationof colours through games, like touch-ing the colours called out by theteacher. Following is example of an-other game.

Game: Tippy Tippy Tip Toe, whatcolour do you want?

In this game, one child is chosen theleader. All children sing out in union'Tippy tippy, tip toe, what colour doyou want?" The leader replies "I wantred or blue or__ ". Children runto touch the object of that colour.The first to touch becomes the leader.• The children can be asked to col-

lect different shades of any onecolour of their choice in a varietyof materials—natural or man madee.g. twigs, leaves, barks, flowers,

Arts Education 149

stones, mud, wire, yarn, fabric.They can then arrange and com-pose a design /shape on a sheet ofpaper, display and discuss thedifferent tones of colour; differentintensity and reflections of colour;the physiology and psychology ofthe colour (physical and emotionalimpact of colours).

• Introduction to the colour wheeland mixing of colours (explora-tions).

The children can be asked to explorewith tibgyor through — soapbubbles/prism/colour wheel; maketheir own colour specials usingcoloured and cellophane paper; ex-plore colour reflections through lights.

Create an Art/Specie Corner forDisplay

• Children can collect things whichthey consider precious and displayin a corner of the room and dis-cuss why it is so special to them.Collection and display can betheme based also.

• Children can arrange display ofimages and objects related tothemes like — photographs, handi-crafts, environmental issues, fes-tivals, personalities, places etc.This can be followed or accompa-nied by discussions, enactments,documentation, etc. Children canbe encouraged to maintain a scrapbook and sketch book also.

Themes should be chosen according

to the relevant age group. Some sug-gested themes are favourite tilings,summer holidays, favourite festival,favourite pet etc. The children can beasked to think in small groups interms of layout/design/cailigraphy/innovative ways of presentation anddisplay in the corner.Materials required : Scrap book, glue,images and selected actual objects.• Children should be encouraged to

make collections of— stamps,coins, cards etc. These must be oc-casionally displayed and the chil-dren should be encouraged to talkabout them. It could also be agroup activity.

Mask Making

• The children can be asked to usepaper bags, paper plates, largeleaves for making masks. They candraw simple shapes (round, oval,square,, rectangle, triangle) andpaint eyes, nose, mquth etc. They

'may stick out their tongue andi


twitch their nose in the masks.The mask can also be made bycutting/tearing the materal andmaking holes to indicate eyes,nose and mouth.

Materials required : Paper bags, pa-per, colours, {poster or indigenous,pastels, pencils, cloth pasted withfevicol or starch on the paper, largeleaves, strings, sticks, glue or home-made starch.• The teacher can asked the children

to explore what they can do withfacial expressions; they can mimiccharacters, animals, or reflectsimple expressions of sadness,anger, etc.; they can wear differentkinds of masks and create andact out situations; they can ob-serve the face, particularly the

eyes, eye brows and the curve ofthe lips to identify emotions onmasks.

• The teacher can ask the childrento observe the animals in the sur-roundings or the zoo to find outthe basic shapes of their heads(oval, heart shape, pear shaped,etc.); observe the shape and slantof the eyes, shape of the nose,shape and curve of the mouth andother details; draw and paintthem; observe and make tails andpaws of the animals; use themalong with the masks. They canalso play games like, 'Pin the tail'etc.

Toys and Puppet Making

Children can be engaged in play as

Arts Education 151

well as making of different kinds ofpuppets like glove puppets, stickpuppets, string puppets, shadow pup-pets, animal puppets, pyjama pup-pets, box puppets, cone puppets, fin-ger puppets, etc. They can be encour-aged to make their own toys out ofcommonly available things like rubberslippers, soft toys, various kinds ofrattles, mobile hangers, etc. Teachersand children can likewise identify,collect and attempt to make variouslocally available toys. These toys canbe examined in terms of the variousscientific principles applied. They canalso be encouraged to create their ownplay/drama with the use of puppetsand masks.

Some other activities can includepaper folding (orgami), decorations,making jewellery/costumes etc.The activities should be chosen keep-

ing the age group and the ability lev-els of the child in mind.Materials required: Paper, glue, fab-ric, or any other unconventional ma-terial.

3-D Constructions and Expressions

• The teacher can encourage chil-dren to explore various muscularactivities like pinching, squashing,coiling, rolling, pulling etc. withsoft pliable materials like clay,plasticene, paper machie, m-seal/putti, plaster, chalk powder/attawith starch paste/fevicol/glue;rrwtke simple impressions withdifferent kinds of objects likecoins, bottle caps, stones, seeds,etc.

• Using a variety of materials likeclay, plasticene, paper mache,paper fabric, m-seal, putti, plas-ter, chalk powder or any othernatural material, like twigs, leaves,stones, feathers, etc., the childrencan (a) make simple 3-D construc-tions with or without a theme;(b) make models — cut-out figures,mobiles, etc. related to a theme;(c) can undertake environmentalprojects like organising spacegames around the school, impro-vising swings and ladderswith available objects like oldtyres, ropes and branches, sus-pension bridges for fun andactivity etc.

152 The Primon/ Years

An Introduction to Music •

Objectives

• Listening and discovering soundsin nature

• Articulating variety of sounds

•. Understanding relation betweensounds and emotions/sounds andmaterials

• Understanding of elementary •rhythm

• Appreciation of music and its re-lationship with emotions and othercontextual factors

The children can be asked to• shut their eyes and listen to hid-

den/inner body sounds like the *heartbeats, the rhythm in breath-ing, the sounds through the wall,sounds from the sea-shell etc. anddifferentiate between them;

• identify and express in suitableways a variety of sounds heard intheir surroundings such as: (i) ani-mals and birds ii) hawkers likesahziwallah, chaiwallah etc. (iii) •animate and inanimate things likethe wind, trie rain, the trees, thun-der of the clouds, the cooler, thefan, the blacksmith's hammer etc.; .

• identify qualitative differences, insounds like the soft or harshsounds, gentle or shrill sounds etc.;

• match the sounds with differentcolours/ textures/moods;

• identify the progression in soundsfrom high to low, from slow to fast,from near to far etc. and express it;

identify and express differentkinds of sounds specific to a placeand its activities, like a railwaystation, a market place, a temple,a party, a car workshop, a factoryetc.; paint a soundscape of thesame or express through colours /textures the sounds experienced ina given environment;

create a variety of sounds with dif-ferent materials like paper, broom,fabric, seeds, body, metals etc.;and turn it into a game. The chil-dren can also be asked to shuttheir eyes and guess the materialsfrom its sound.

identify any one material and im-provise a whole range of soundswith it; turn it into a game withone child blind folded and otherchildren creating sounds in differ-ent ways one by one. The blindfolded child should guess how triesound was made e.g. crush, blow,stamp wave, flutter etc. of a sheet.

create sounds to express withoutusing words, anger, happiness,tension, exasperation, discomfort,pain etc. ...'••

try and create a situation of panic,an accident, a celebration etc. Itcan be turned into a game withtwo children through use of non-sense language or just creating adialogue with sounds made fromdifferent materials or gibberishlanguage and other children inter-preting the dialogue.

Arts Education 153

• create a variety of sounds by us-ing varied materials to express thefluttering of wings, the roar of awave, the rustling of the trees, thewind etc.

• identify different kinds of local toysthat make different kinds ofsounds to understand the under-lying principle in the working andthe making of the toy.

improvise various instruments us-ing objects found in the surround-ings like rattles made of tin, matchboxes with seeds or stones,whistles from leaves or paper,mouth.;".; organ with paper andcomb, flutes with different kinds ofhollow pipes, etc. balloon stretchedover a pan, or strings stretched tocreate sounds etc.; turn into agame "where sounds from each ofthem are organised in a linearrhythm or to an orchestra effect.The children can also play the

improvised instruments to a givensong or tune.

• sing and improvise simple rhymes.They can add to the rhythm withclaps or body movements.

• to explore a variety of sounds theycan create, turn them into a gamewith one child making a soundand the other children in imitatingit, turn by turn and creating alinear rhythm.

— the teacher can ask children to ex-plore — a musical pattern (a tune)in a variety of tones (harsh, high,shrill, soft, distant etc.) turn it intoa game of musical dialogue in whichone child sings out to another childand the other child answers in asimilar sing-song manner;

— recite rhymes on a given subject;accompanied with beats and bodymovements;

— stamp or clap in single, double,triple speeds in 3 rhythmical pat-terns e.g. 1,2,3, pause and repeat.a) 1 2 1 2 3 pause and repeat.b) The children create their own

. rhythm patterns.The rhythmic pattern can also becreated by beating sticks, stones,voice manipulations, whistling etc.

Introduction to simple sargams

Children can be asked to• (i) sing a variety of local/folk,

traditional/community/festive/


patriotic/devotional songs/re-gional songs etc., (ii) play a vari-ety of available instruments.

• listen to a variety of music/ bothvocal as well as instrumental, likefolk/classical/patriotic/festive/de-votional etc. Performance by pro-fessional artists can also be ar-ranged.

• the children can be introduced toragas through anecdotes or inter- *esting details like time of year/ per-son/mood/emotion/colours/imag-ery/ songs based on the ragas etc.

All varieties of music should be intro-duced as an extension of life and its *activities e.g. how a regional songsung during the harvest season de-scribes in words, notes, beat andemotions, the link with the activityand what it means to them.

Introduction to Dance/DramaObjectives• Awareness and appreciation of

body, space and rhythm• Expressing emotions through body

language• Sensitization to and dramatization •

of various situations• Sensitization to rhythmic body

movements and expressing andemoting through body

Activities

The children can be guided to• explore the movements of different •

parts of the body, like stretching,bending, rotating, relaxing etc.Each part of the body to be takenturn by turn — the head, theshoulder, the chest, the elbows,the wrists, the fingers, the knees,the waist, the ankle and the toes.Children could stand in a circleand do the movements to a beat orrhythm;

explore movements that their bod-ies can do without moving fromtheir place. They could stretch,bend, twist, turn, rise, collapse,swing, shake, sway etc.explain and explore and observe insurroundings, body postures andmovements ofi) the animate like people, plants,

animalsii) the inanimate like trains, buses,

a tea-pot, a sauce-pan etc.observe people at work, identifytheir pleasing and rhythmicalmovements like walking, cleaning,sweeping, grinding, thrashinggrain etc. and express them in dif-ferent ways;

create a dialogue through move-ments of one or more parts of thebody (through facial expressions,gestures, movement of the shoul-der, arms etc. It can be turned intoa game of 'dumb charade' withchildren enacting or narrating astory;

express through body postures or

Arts Education 155

pure movements (with or withoutmusic) emotions like — sadness,anger, helplessness, love, humouretc.)

• explore the various sensesthrough movements or games(like Aankh-Micholi), such as see-ing and feeling with eyes shutetc.

• learn and participate in folkdances from various states likeChau from Orissa, Gidda fromPunjab, Garba from Gujarat etc.

• explore different levels in space-(high, middle and low) such as(i) move as if in higher levels likea bird, an aeroplane, a kite, breezeetc. (ii) move as if on earth likeanimals, transport etc. (iii) move asif crawling on or burrowing inearth for under water.

• explore directions in space — for-ward and backwards, sideways,up and down etc. They can trytempo development by movingslowly while changing direction,speed and levels.

• identify and express movementsspecific to a place and its activitiesiike a railway station, a marketplace, a temple, a party, a car-workshop, a factory etc. and cho-reograph these movements withsound effects or music.

• arrange a race in different kinds ofwalking such as on a given sig-nal/a clap/whistle or a drum-beat,

children walk on their toes or ontheir heels, then on the inside oftheir feet and finally on the outsideof their feet. These can be tried indifferent directions.the teacher can let each child picka partner and imagine as if theyare standing in front of a mirror.Let one child do a simple actionlike brushing the teeth or combingthe hair—the second child who isthe mirrors image, reflects andfollows the movement. Then add(i) different sounds to it (ii) abstractmovements (iii) various facial ex-pression to it. Switch roles andstart the game again

children can improvise varioussituations like(i) imagine two friends are meet-

ing after a long time. On agiven signal, they greet eachother in a happy mood

(ii) imagine oneself to be in an-other country where one can'tfind the toilet and is looking forone. She/he can try and com-municate it to other children.

Let the children form a wide circle.One by one the children enter thecircle to form a big machine, eachperson being a part of it. Once ev-eryone is part of the working ma-chine increase the speed and fi-nally come to a grinding halt.Let the children sit together in acircle. One of them pulls a face at

1.66 Primary Years

the child setting next to her/himand then passes the impressionaround just as in the 'ChineseWhisper Game'. You could addsounds to it. See how fast theycan do it and discuss how the im-pression changed from how itbegan.

• For creative sounds, let the chil-dren try different ways of sayingfor example, "Give me a knife

, please". They can make it soundpolite, or a threat or musical etc.Using different pauses, differentspeeds to make the expressionvaried.

• Within the group let the childrentiy and recreate different environ-ments by creating soundscapes(using only their voices). They canstart with something simple like astorm breaking out. Discuss thesounds children can use, thegentle wind building up in sharpgusts and finally into a gale, dis-tant wind growing louder andlouder in violent claps, trees fall-ing down and buildings collapsing,breaking of doors and slammimgwindows, the pitter patter of raingrowing into a heavy downpourand then a steady drizzle etc. Thenlet the children try to improvisethe sounds with each child creat-ing specific sounds. Reverse andperform in a regular pattern. Letthem try some of the givensoundscapes or improvise on their

own — early mornings, hauntedhouse, office routine etc.

• Let the children sway with or with-out music/rhythm; from side toside, from back to front, at a di-agonal, in twos holding hands orin a circle holding hands, gentlysway with hands held high, palmto palm; and halt still when themusic stops or at the call of theteacher.

• One begins with (a) making asound and continues, (b) the otherjoins in and continues, (c) anotherjoins in and continues and so on...Soon orchestra is ready. Rhythmicbody movements can be added toit.

• Children can discover movementsrelated to various elements likefire, water, wind, earth, sea, tree,clouds, birds, animals. They candevise their own spontaneousmovements without being dictatedby the teacher.

• Children can present a piece ofmusic through body movements.

• Children can also enact or narratea stoiy through mime/ body move-ment. The same can be choreo-graphed into a group activity.

• Children can explore movementswith props like scarves, ropes,flags, parachute, symbols etc.They create movement patternswith these and choreograph move-ment patterns to music.

Arts Education 157

Introduction to narrations andenactments

• The teacher can ask the childrento tell a story by using picturecards by arranging them in se-quence; telling the stoiy (withoutusing words) through expressions,movement and music; throughuse of puppets; finger puppets,stick or rod puppets, or masks;through illustrations drawn orpainted.

Materials required : (a) Picture cards;(b) simple puppets that can be easily #

manipulated by this age group;(c) paper and paints.

• The children can (a) tell a storyusing art objects/real/improvised/constructed (b) make their ownanimation flip books.

• The child must be motivated andinspired rather than taught todance. Playing a selection of en- •chanting music would naturallylead the child to humming, tap-ping, swaying and moving her/hisbody; the children can be encour-aged to perform folk/regionaldances with a simple rhythm and .easy spontaneous movementsin classrooms. Ideally they canbe introduced to the communitycelebrations linked with seasonal,festive or occasion-specific events.

• Classical dance too can be intro-

duced through exposure to variousperformances. Artists should beinvited to explain, demonstrateand perform for the students.Whenever, expertise is availableclassical dances must be intro-duced in classrooms. The childrencan be encouraged to maintain inscrap books, their observations/impressions of the performancesseen, alongwith photographs andinformation on various well knownartists. The teacher must alsoencourage discussion in class.

The children can be exposed to thevarious folk/regional forms of ex-pression/narration or story tell-ing/enactments. These can be dis-cussed, compared and improvisedwithin the classroom. The chil-dren can also be asked to recordtheir impressions visually or inwriting.

The performing arts could veryeasily be integrated with the vari-ous subjects of the curricula andthereby channelising theoreticalknowledge into practical and cre-ative experience.

The children can also be exposedto various visual arts through, pho-tographs, slides or books where thevast vocabulary of body postures,styles and portrayal of emotions/experiences are well documentedand universally acclaimed.

Teaching-learning with aDifference

A Multi-level Approach

EARNING is A life-long process.Any situation in life providesopportunities for new learning,

releaming of what, is already learnt oreven unlearning of many things. Butthe first reaction to the word 'learning'brings the child into our mind. Whilemost of the learning that takes placein the child is self-initialed, a largepart of it has to be facilitated throughproviding the child systematicallyplanned experiences and activities.

In Part I of the document, we havediscussed the learning needs of chil-dren which differ from child to childas well as how to make teaching-learning child-centred with a view tomeet these needs and strengthen thefour pillars of learning i.e. learning toknow, to do, to live together, to be. Inthis chapter we will try to elaboratefurther on what has been described inPart 1 as a 'multi-level approach' toteaching-learning which can cater tothe variations in learning pace andstyle and discuss how this approachcan be implemented in our classrooms.

We will focus on the following ques-tions: t

• What do we mean by multi-levelteaching-learning?

• What are the different classroomsituations, we find, in our country,in which this approach needs to bepractised?

• How can the multi-leuel approachhe implemented in these class-rooms?

• Can we approach multigrade teach-ing situations via rriulti level teach-ing-learning ?

• What does integrated approach toteaching mean and how will itsadoption help to handle multilevelgroups?

What do we mean by multi-levelteaching-learning?Multi-level teaching-learning meansplanning and transaction of the cur-riculum in the classroom in a way thatallows for flexibility in pace and styleof learning, keeping in mind that chil-dren within a class are widely differ-ent.If we visit a primary grade classroomin a school in our country, we are


likely to find children sitting in rowsand the teacher teaching the wholegroup of children together. Once theteaching is over all the children of thatgrade are generally assigned the samework/ task based on what has beentaught, even though they may be atdifferent levels of understanding ofthat particular concept/idea. The timeallotted for the task is also the samefor all the children. Is this really thechild-centred approach which we haveadvocated in part I of the document?Not really.

We had mentioned in Part I that eachchild is differently abled, differentlyinterested and thus learns differentlyboth in terms of her/his pace andlearning style. For example, somechildren are more able and Interestedin science, some in sports or musicwhile others may prefer mathematicsor some art form or different combi-nations of these. Again, there arechildren who learn best by workingalone and others who are more suc-cessful working in groups.Children also differ in intelligence,readiness levels, interests, learningprofiles. Thus to meet each childwhere she or he is, and foster con-tinual growth, a single, uniform ap-proach of instruction makes littlesense. Also, it is these primary yearsof education that lay the foundationfor further learning and hence need tobe carefully attended to. Multi-levelteaching-learning provides a better

solution for meeting the diversitiestypical of the primary school years.Multi-level teaching-learning advo-cates :• varied methods of teaching• varied learning experiences/tasks

activities• varied learning timeTo cater to children with :• varied ability levels (pace of learn-

• varied interests (styles of learning)• varied age levels• varied backgroundsTo understand how this approach canbe actually implemented in the class-room, it is first necessary to analysewhat are the classroom situations like.What are the different classroomsituations we find in our country inwhich this approach needs to bepractised ?The classroom scene in India is asdiverse as the country itself. Dataabout primary schools shows a vari-ety of situations which can be broadlycategorized as:Monograde teaching situations having:• One teacher for one grade with a

manageable number of children(may be 40)

• One teacher for one grade with alarge sized class (may be 50 andabove).

Teaching-learning with a Difference 163

Multigrade teaching situations having:

• One teacher for four or five grades

• Two teachers for four or five grades

• Three teachers for four or fivegrades

• Four teachers for five grades.

All classrooms, whether mono ormultigrade, include children withvarying interests, maturity levels andneeds whose abilities and achieve-ments place them above, at or belowtheir grade level. In other words chil-dren are at different learning levels.In a multigrade situation this range issimply wider than that in a monograde situation. Therefore, all teach-eis in all classrooms need to use amultilevel approach to teaching-learning.

How can multilevel approach beimplemented in these classrooms ?Let us consider this in terms of thedifferent components of the teaching-learning process viz.:

• teaching-learning strategies

• teaching-learning materials

• assessment

How does this curriculum frameworkaddress these aspects? The proposedcurriculum framework has suggested:

• A Level-wise Approach to allow forindividual pace and style of learn-ing (3 levels across Jive grades)

• development of graded TeachingLearning Material TLM (level-wise)

• adoption of Child-centred Approachto teaching learning including as-sessment

Teaching-learning Strategies

In a multi-level approach to teaching,the learning conditions are plannedaccording to the learners' needs.Maximum scope is provided to ensurethat each child proceeds as per her/his own potential. The teacher, on thebasis of experience in working withthe children of the class, adopts vari-ous teaching strategies to cater to thevaried learning levels and needs of thechildren. If we take any grade as asingle large group we will find that foreach subject area this group can beroughly divided into categories or sub-groups on the basis of ability or inter-ests.

One of the first steps of multi-levelteaching would be to identify the chil-dren in the class who fall in the differ-ent sub-groups. However these subgroups are again flexible for differenttasks/activities as every child is differ-ently abled/intelligent, in differentareas, (refer Chapter 2 in Part I of thedocument). For example, a child goodwith numbers may not necessarily begood in language, arts or music. Inarts again one child may be good insketching, the other in painting or insculpture. Learning styles and patternsalso differ. Some children learn betterwhen attended to individually, othersare more at ease in co-operative

164 The Priwaiy Yews

learning situations. Some childrenabsorb better if information is pre-sented melodically (being more musicsmart), some if presented visually(being more picture smart) while, oth-ers love to experiment and explore(being more logic smart).Thus it becomes vital for theteacher to cater to the differentkinds of intelligence and learninglevels that children demonstratewhile planning teaching methods,materials and assessment. Thesesub-groups of children will need to beflexible in nature to provide for:• children to work at their own pace• children to work in many patterns

— in pairs, and groups or alone oras a whole class

• tasks/ activities which are intelli-gence based, readiness based, in-terest based, to match learningstyles or a combination of all.

• requirements of each curriculararea

While it may not be possible, nordesirable, to plan according to eachchild's learning style, providing for awide variety of activities will enabledifferent children to respond andbenefit from the given instruction andexperiences according to their ownpreferences and aptitude. Multi-levelteaching learning, therefore, advo-cates the use of different strategiesto cater to different situations.

Wtiole Grade Teaching : This is the

most common approach and hencethis is resorted to by most, of theteachers, most of the time. The lessonis aimed at the average level of abilityin the grade. It is easy as the samesubject, theme and textbook is fol-lowed for all the children uniformlythus ensuring better discipline, moni-toring etc. But it is a totally teacher-centred method and the lesson isusually presented in the-chalk andtalk style. No doubt, whole gradeteaching is a proven strategy andworks well but in combination withother strategies. In certain areas it canstill be more effective such as for:

=> introducing a new topic / content/idea/ concept

=> story reading and telling=> making up stories together=> physical education=> music — singing, playing, dancing,

art and craft=> drama, class plays — involving

children of different ages, back-grounds, talents

=> excursion/nature walk=* children's news; talks=> quiz, discussions -*•=> problem solving games, language

games=> planning or sharing learning out-

comesIndividual Teaching-learning : Theteacher here works on a one-to-onebasis with each child. This definitely


benefits the child but is not a feasibleproposition in large sized classes,whether monograde or multigrade.The teacher assists the child eitherwith work that is assigned to the restof the class also or special assignmentgiven to suit the child's own needs.

In grades with, appropriate teacherpupil ratio individual teaching can beeasily practised. Usually teachers at-tend to children individually onlywhen they have learning difficulties inlanguage or mathematics and reme-dial teaching is required. But ofteneven the more abled need individualattention. The teacher must plan tospend time with every child on a one-to-one basis in the class, wheneverpossible by rotation. Listening to ev-ery child read aloud, checking eachchild's work in the presence of thechild, provides for individual interac-tion between teacher and learnerwhich not only meets the child's aca-demic needs but also the emotionalneed for recognition and support.

Some tasks require children to workindividually such as practice exercisesin mathematics and language, exer-cises involving observation, classifica-tion, estimating, experimenting, inter-preting etc. in environmental education,activities involving manual handling ofmaterials, stamina building exercises,creative writing, art activities etc.

Small Group Teaching-learning : Smallgroups provide opportunity to childrento in* ract with each other and learn

from each other while they work to-gether on a specific task. In otherwords it provides for cooperative orsocial learning which, as discussed inChapter 2 of Part I of this document,is an effective strategy for facilitat-ing children's learning and under-standing of concepts, and developingattitudes and values in the context ofliving together. Small group teaching-learning is also effective for reinforc-ing any instruction given in a largegroup and therefore can be used aspart of a combination of techniques.Small groups can be formed in vari-ous ways:

Mixed ability group : Such a groupcuts across the range of age andability. Children with varying skills,maturity levels and experience makesuch a group a rich learning experi-ence for all. This kind of groupingprovides for peer teaching (e.g. moreable children or older children teach-ing younger or less able children),project work (theme based task acrosssubjects) and other such activities thatrequire drawing upon the strengths ofeach child in different areas.

Same ability group : As we mentionedearlier a class can generally be dividedinto three ability groups — low, aver-age, high achievers. Keeping theachievement level in mind the teachercan sometimes group children who areable to work together with others atthe same level i.e. they share the sametask and same learning materials.


Here of course the teacher will have activities involving problem solving,to plan activities for the different reading etc. can be assigned in thesegroups at their levels. Such grouping situations.again can go across age and grades. T h e t e a c h e r h e r e c a n d e v Q t e ^ ^Such grouping helps the slow learn- iQ ^ 1QW & w h j l e

ers and high achievers by providing ,, . ., .,, **. .. , M. ,u other two groups work on their ownthem opportunities to operate at the . *f ' . r , ^ . , . ,

, VJ , i +T r i r . i i o n planned meaningful tasks whichspeed and level they feel comfortable. . . ^„ ,, . , , , , enhance learning.However, the teacher should ensure b

that the task is challenging, yet Age-based group : Grouping can alsowithin the reach of children in the be done on the basis of age of chil-group. The child's maturity level and dren. Some learning situations mayexperience are some of the deciding require grouping of children of almostfactors for identifying such groups and the same chronological age while some

An Example:Level I ( Grades I andLanguage ability groups

1st Group

Shared reading (T)*

won three different activities

2nd Group

Picture sequencing

3rd Group

Matching wordsand pictures.

* T for teacher

Some Do's and Dont's of Ability Grouping in Teaching-learning:• The ability groups should change for different tasks/ activities as each child

is differently abled.• Children should have a chance to sit and work and discuss with as many

of their classmates as possible (younger, older, fast learner, slow learners etc).• Groups should not be given names suggesting failure or success. They can

be given names of colours, animals, fruits, flowers, e.g. rose, lily, daisy etc.• Children progress in different areas at different, speed and hence should not

be permanently branded as members of a particular ability group.• The teacher should constantly monitor the child's progress and move her/

him from one group to another from time to Lime.


others can give better results throughmixed age group. For example, forfield trips/excursions, projects, peertutoring, mixed age grouping wouldhelp. For certain sports, physical ac-tivities, activities for reading, math-ematics, same age grouping may bemore beneficial.Interest group : Each child has a tal-ent or aptitude and learns best iftaught through her/his preferredstyle. If children, based on their inter-ests, are grouped the teacher canprovide tasks accordingly. Here thechild's cultural background can playa vital role too. However the teachershould also ensure that all childrenare exposed to all areas and acti-vities.

A child should never be branded as"music" or "logic smart". To broadeneach learner's potential the teachermust provide every experience to ev-ery child for her/him to explore andbuild on all the talents.

Social/Friendship /Own Choice Groups:Children who get along veiy well witheach other, if allowed to group to-gether, feel more secure and confident.Compatibility is the main consider-ation and rules out a competitive at-titude. Also children with social/behavioural problems (e.g. disruptive,shy, aggressive children) can begrouped with children who can helpthem overcome their problems.

While working in groups, children also

learn to tolerate and cooperate witheach other and this strengthens thepillar of learning to live together.Class organization : A few questionsthat would arise in the teachersminds, "I am alone with two gradeshow can I ensure multilevel teachinglearning?" or "I have such a large sizeclass" or "I have limited space, limitedtime, I can only manage direct teach-ing," and so on. Group teaching, is notan additional burden, it is just a dif-ferent way of teaching. However tomake such teaching more effectiveand learning meaningful, enjoyableand interesting would require a highlyorganised classroom and a structuredenvironment. Space, number of chil-dren, time, material are just somebarriers in the mind and can be over-come by slight reorganisation of theexisting classroom. A few guidelinesare :

Classroom Arrangement

Classroom layout is very vital tomultilevel teaching learning. Sittingarrangement should be flexible toallow for mobility and maximum inter-action among children as well asteacher and children. With furniturelike heavy desks, chairs (that may befixed also), the space in the classroomgets limited. Infact, to allow for groupteaching there should be no furnitureat all but Just mats for children to siton. Where there is furniture it shouldbe light so that it can easily be moved


around and reairanged and should beof a shape and size comfortable forthe child.The teacher must be imaginativeenough to use spaces outside theclassroom too, such as verandahs,halls or even have outdoor classesunder a tree. For large sized classeswith limited space children can bemade to work in pairs or simplyturned around to sit facing each otherrather than all sitting in a row facingthe same direction. There should al-ways be scope for the teacher to movearound from group to group to be ableto interact with as many children aspossible, for as much time as possible.

Blackboard : As this is the mostwidely used teaching learning aid,care should be taken to see that theblackboard is at the height level of thechildren so that they do not have tostretch their necks to look at it. Be-sides children can be encouraged touse it for individual/group activitiese.g. cKffu'reh can solve problems' onthe blackboard or do a word buildingactivity involving the whole class etc.Blackboards should be at least two innumber on either side of the class-room to involve more children inblackboard exercises and activities. Awall to wall blackboard, at children'sheight level can be used for variousactivities too. Portable blackboardsthat can be easily moved for groupwork can be very handy.

The teacher's table should be placed

in such a way as gives anunobstructive view of the classroom.However a teacher should not forgetthe saying, " A teacher on her feet isworth two on the seat".Learning Corners : One would findin any classroom children who havefinished their work earlier than theothers. What could be a better incen-tive to keep these children busy thanlearning corners? Especially 4n largesized classes or even multigradeclasses where the teacher is unable toattend to all the children all the time,such corners assume great signifi-cance. However they have to be reallyattractive, well organised and providefor meaningful learning e.g. a varietyof childrens' stoiy books, magazines,games, puzzles, worksheets, cards toencourage creative writing, sheets forcolouring, flash cards, colours, workcards, paper, puppets, insects in con-tainers, may be even a pet bird, card-board, string, wire,, tape, twigs, stones,leaves, cans, pieces of cloth, pottedplant or any other locally availablematerial which can be used as alearning aid can be part of the learn-ing corner. Materials provided underOperation Blackboard Scheme (OB)should also be a part of these cornersso that they are used and not keptpermanently locked. Classrooms withlimited floor space can have suchcorners built in wall shelves. Thesecorners can be developed at low costthrough locally available material ormaterial made by the teacher and


children. For example children's workcan itself be used as resource mate-rial. Material can also include datacollected through surveys conductedby children. Games, work cards andother material though time consumingto make can be used over and overagain provided handled and storedproperly, if there is space in the class-room the corner can be made morecomfortable with a piece of mat forchildren to sit on and quietly read,construct, experiment, solve problems,draw, colour, paint or engage in cre-ative writing.

At level I even a home corner withtoys, dressing up clothes can beplaced for children to role-play whichis vital for their development and atthe same time needs little supervisionby the teacher. Be it a multigrade,large sized monograde or large sizedmultigrade class the teacher in col-laboration with children must planoptimum use of materials for selflearning activities. Proper planningcan help reduce the load of teachersand ensure learning by all children.

Classroom Routines : These includethe teacher's and student's routine inthe classroom life.Teacher's own dally routine : Whatshould it cover ?A teacher cannot function effectivelyunless she/he is well organised andprepared for the day. Besides the dailytime table, she/he needs a detailedteaching plan indicating ;

• the grade level e.g. I, II or III• subject-theme/activity/task• the strategy — organising whole

grade, small group activities or forindividual children etc.

• objectives — knowledge, skills, at-titudes, the children are expectedto acquire

• aids/material needed e.g. black-board, worksheets,item(s) from Op-eration Blackboard (OB) material

• assessment plan/technique —paper pencil, oral, through indi-vidual/group activity etc.

• own observations — on the lessonand children as well.

The teaching plan should be preparedin advance as it is like a checklist forthe busy teacher and the most impor-tant tool for ensuring smooth andefficient functioning in the teachinglearning process. Some preparationtime after school or in the morningbefore children arrive is thus essentialfor the teacher.The teacher can, before the classbegins, complete preparations such as;

set out tasks for the grade/level andvarious groups within it.lay out all teaching learning resourcesfor the day e.g. work sheets, teachers .book, aids, stationery etc.A well organised teacher makes her/his students feel confident and goodas they can begin work purposefully


and quickly without wasting time.Such a teacher would be able to givetime to more children within theschool day. The teacher can also movearound and check each child's workas such personal monitoring helpsdevelop a better rapport with childrenand also reduces the workload of theteacher.

Children's daily routine : Whatshould it coyer? '-• Children must know what work

they have to do at any point oftime. The teacher can tell childrenthrough writing on the blackboardor through verbal instructions.

• Children must know how booksor other learning material shouldbe distributed, collected andstored.

• Children must know how to behaveduring school assembly, in theclassroom, drawing teacher's at-tention, tidying workplacejgtc.

• i Children must know how to utilizetheir time when the teacher isbusy, when they have finished atask or use of the learningcorner.

••• Children must know how to gettheir work marked or checked bythe teacher or self checking or bya peer etc.

• Children must know their respon-sibilities — grade monitors, lead-ers, peer tutors, house captainscan be appointed for the grade.

Such duties should be rotated sothat all the children get an oppor-tunity. Such assignments can alsobe used as a reward for good workor good behaviour.

Teaching-learning MaterialsDoes multi-level teaching-learningmean only use of different teaching-learning strategies or gm^thing morethan that? No doubt teaching-learn-ing strategies are a very significant keyto success both for the teacher andthe children in any teaching-learningsituation but these need the supportof good quality and relevant teachinglearning material, which needs to be,of course, based on a carefully con-ceived and planned curriculum.

A lot of thought goes into the processof curriculum framing keeping in mindits appropriateness to the developmen-tal levels of children, to make it fea-sible to addressi,the needs of eachchild. However it sis during the class-room transaction that the child'sneeds are best understood by theteacher. A major task ahead for theteacher is to plan learning. experi-ences/ activities/ tasks which allowfor the learning of skills and conceptscatering as far as possible to eachchild's pace and style.

For doing so successfully she/hewould need :• a teacher's handbook giving

detailed guidelines for each step of

Teachbyleaming with a Difference 171

teaching including a variety of sug-gested activities as well as sugges-tions for assessment,

• graded Teaching-learning Materials, presented in a variety of forms such

as stories, poems, quiz, anecdotes,open ended paragraphs/ lessonssupported by good, accurate, rel-evant illustrations .

• g'faded workbooks/worksheets for••••;•;, children ^

i • well equipped learning corners con-sisting of concrete material supportmaterial such as library hooks, pic-tures, charts, maps, globes, rawmaterial for making teaching aids,raw material for activities in artsetc.

And^thus a variety of :• aids and not just the textbook

would be the medium of learninge.g. use of audio-visuals, black-board, music, .games, art material,software, hardware, concrete ob-jects, multiple texts and referencematerial, workbooks in the form ofgraded units.

• experiences and situations arid notjust the chalk and talk methodwould be used e.g. field trips, ex-cursions, getting visitors to schoolto talk about their trade or profes-sion, discussion, debates, creativewriting, projects, surveys, experi-ments, drama, physical activities.

"'•!' In other words situations that are

multi sensory (stimulate one ormore than one sense) and have amultiple intelligence orientation andare designed to create personalmeaning would be provided.

Assessing Children's LearningAssessent of children's learning is verycrucial to ensure that each child isproceeding according to his/her ownpace and yet finding a challenge inthe learning situation. While continu-ous assessment will be very necessary,there will also be need to provide forsome End of A Module assessment atthe end of each graded module whichwill help the teacher to decide if thechild is ready to move on.

The assessment techniques will needto be more of a type of multiple activ-ity based assessment and not just apaper and pencil test at the end ofeach term or at the end of the aca-demic year. In short, a more creativeassessment process would be needed.Keeping in view the fact that childrencan be intelligent in many differentways, a child should be allowed toexpress through writing, illustrations,role-play or just orally.

All activities can have a built in com-ponent of assessment, formal or infor-mal. Assessment can be conductedalso on individual or group tasks, as'per the requirement. Some schoolshave very successfully experimentedwith self evaluation also with children,


which not only eases the work of theteacher but helps children realise thatwe can all commit mistakes but weshould learn from our mistakes.Identifying and sharing their ownmistakes is also likely to develop inchildren inner controls and can bean important exercise in value devel-opment. In some situations assess-ment by peers can also be attemp-ted. ' ' ' -^ •••••' ' i:' ' •

Multi-level teaching simply ensuresthat each child is learning in her/hisown way - the teacher here is work-ing with children's strengths ratherthan trying to compensate for theirweaknesses. Such teaching will go along way in motivating children,arousing their interest, building theirconfidence and preparing them touse their skills beyond the four wallsof the classroom. No wonder it iscalled, 'Teaching Learning with a dif-ference."

Some*p4cial Measures for Childr^rtwith Special Needs n - "• Provide1 a barrier free environ-

ment : "/'•. •, : • • • . • • . . • . ! ) . > • : • • • v

• Arrange preferential seating so thatchildren with special needs receivemore individual attention • ,

•• Use learning activity centres• Provide for regular peer tutoring• Arrange for cross age tutoring• Use parent volunteers and para

professionals

• Provide remedial classes and spe-cial teachers

• Match the teaching approach to„.;; the specific needs of the child e.g.• use more visual aids for the hear-

ing impaired, audio support for the: visually handicapped and provide

for practice and repeated learning, to facilitate recall and recognition. in the intellectually slow learners

•ftK£i Provide a variety of dwstrsetionalmaterials such as visual aids,audio inputs, objects, models etc.to promote learning

• Provide for periodic functional as-sessment for planning Individual-ized Education Plan (IEP) for chil-dren with special needs

• Develop functional/ vocationalskills in children suited to their de-velopmental needs

• Allot more time to children with:special needs to understand con-cepts, copy from blackboard andcompletion rpf., assignments

• Allow children to use tape record-ers and other technical aids

• Use a multi-sensory approach de-pending upon: the .child's specificimpairment, : „ ; ; . -

• Provide appropriate modificationsin the examination/test papers fordifferent kinds of; impairment.

Can we approach muitigrade viamulti-level teaching-learning?In other words, is multi-level teaching-


Has the multi-level approach been adopted/implemented anywhere in thec o u n t r y ? . ' . ;• .:.:: " .. •'.. 'M * ' ' '•

A few non-governmental organisations like Digantar, Bodh, Rishi Valley among oth-ers have been experimenting with the multilevel approach at a micro level in afew schools for the last few years. In Rishi Valley Satellite Schools they have foundit to be a particularly useful strategy for a multigrade teacher. However accordingto them this approach can be more feasible under certain conditions e.g. when:• pnapil-teacher ratio is low i.e. not more than 30-40 children per teacher.• graded material as well as plenty of self learning material is made available to

ttas teacher including a teacher's handbook giving indications for activities, as-sessment etc. . . . . . . . . . . .

• teacher training includes the multilevel teaching learning element with properteaching practice in the schools for a duration of at least 3 months.

• Continuous on-site support is provided to teachers to help them solve theirday-to-day problems.

learning a suitable approach for mul-tigrade schools also? As discussedearlier, multilevel teaching-learning issuitable and useful for all classroomswhether they are monograde or multi-grade. However in a multigrade situa-tion it is the way in which the gradesare grouped that becomes an impor-tant condition iffif applying the pro-posed multilevel approach.

Children's grouping in a multigradeteaching situation is a very importantelement of the teaching-learning pro-cess. However, case study experiencesand grassroot realities of multigradeschools in rural areas indicate thatdue to the absence of practical train-ing for handling multigrade classes,availability of only grade specific text-books, lack of support material andresources and availability of limitedinstructional hours, teachers in these

schools are attempting to find theirown solutions to handle such classes.In practice generally, schools are seento be following a managerial groupingapproach which is based more on ad-ministrative rather than academicconsiderations.

The existing criteria for grpjgtnâg is :

• number of children per grade e.g.if grades I and II together have a,large number of children theywould not be combined. Instead

L grade I and V may be combined• because of their numbers, without

taking into consideration that boththe grades have no linkages by way

.of content or process of teachinglearning.

• number of rooms and their size i.e.space availability 1s a major con-sideration for grouping grades.


• number of teachers available e.g.the number of groups (combinedgrades) depends on the number ofteachers available.

• , age of the children e.g. grade I andV are combined to ensure thatolder children can tutor as well asdiscipline the younger lot while theteacher is busy.

• experience bf the teacher e.g.higher grades are taken by teach-ers having more teaching experi-ence whereas the lower grades are:usually neglected and not takenseriously.

In short grouping is done to merely"facilitate the teacher to handle thechildren and not to enable them tolearn".Keeping the multilevel approach inmind it is suggested that grouping ofchildren be done with learning levelsas the basis and not due to mana-gerial considerations, as this wouldprovide for=> linkages in the content and pro-

cesses

continuity and follow-up in the stu-dents learning as the studentwould be with the same teacher fora longer duration leading to betterunderstanding between teacherand studentsmore homogeneous groups, the agedifference being lesserScope for simultaneous teatfAhg ofdifferent groups meaningftdljj!

What are the most commonmultigrade situations?

Multigrade schools with 2 teachers for5 grades and 3 teachers for 5 gradesconstitute a wide majority of schoolsituations in the country. Let us con-sider the first category i.e. the 2teacher school.The proposed curricular frameworksuggests developing the curriculumlevel-wise for three levels across fivegrades. In the above situation there-fore, we can consider^ that there aretwo teachers for three levels and cansuggest the following method of group-ing:

2 Teachers for 3 levels

1st TeacherLevel 1 (Grades 1-2)

2nd TeacherLevel II & III (Grades 3-5)

Sub-groups Sub-groups Sub-groups Sub-groups

Teachitvf-learning with a Difference 175

If level-wise material is providedrather than the existing system ofgrade specific material, the nudtigradeteacher would find it suitable to teachchildren by dividing them further intosmaller groups rather than giving uni-form instruction gradewise.The above method of distribution ismore appropriate from the point ofview of children's learning. This visbecause Level I is the foundationstage for all subsequent learning andhence needs serious attention. This isthe stage when children need to bemotivated through a develop mentallyappropriate classroom climate so thatthey develop interest in further learn-ing. This is also an important stage forpreparing children for self learning forthe next 2 levels since the basic skillsof reading, writing and numbers needto be developed during this stage sothat once developed they can equipthe children for further learning.

By the time childrenrenter level II theyare at stage 2 of development (referChapter 2 Part I) with improved physi-cal control, better skills of social in-teraction and greater capacity forreasoning ability. A strong foundationat Level 1 will therefore ensure a con-fident, well motivated and interestedchild for Level II.Grouping Levels II and III is againappropriate because :=> there is similarity in these grades

in terms of the teaching-learningapproach and materials. Children

are more independent at this stageas compared to children at level 1.Therefore activities like projects,surveys, creative writing etc. canbe introduced more effectively.

=> more of self-instructional materialcan be used at these two levelswhich will need lesser teacher in-tervention.

•.B* this will provide greater scope forspiral learning by allowing childrenwithin Levels II and III to handleconcepts in many ways and revisitthese through opportunities to in-teract with older children also.

'=* the teacher can resort to smallgroup teaching in the combinedlevels in many ways such as on thebasis of ability, age, interest etc asdiscussed earlier in this chapter.

=> this will allow for continuity withthe same teacher for 3 years.Whenever extra time has to begiven to Level III the secondteacher can involve Level I aricl IIchildren for a-whole-school activitylike a 'bal-mela' or library work,while the other teacher attends tograde V. Time can also be given toLevel III after or before school or onSaturdays.

The teacher who has to teach a com-bination of Levels II and III has tohandle a larger group as comparedto the teacher who handles Level I. Forthis larger group the teacher can re-sort to :


=* whole school activities more oftene.g. discussion, story telling, wholeschool projects, excursions, drama-

/ tization etc. as it will help to facili-tate the two-teacher situation.

=> integrated approach to teaching i.e.the single teacher will have to iden-tify within the curriculum themescommon to Levels II and III. Theteacher here Can introduce thetheme to the combined levels andthereafter design tasks as per theability level of the children in sub-groups.

•=> peer teaching or 'children teachingchildren' as it is found to be veryeffective. Children learn very wellfrom each other and we can seethis in the homes when youngersiblings learn from older brothers orsisters. Such teaching:

• promotes co-operation rather thancompetition

• enables the older child to revisitconcepts

• develop's a sense of responsibity inthe children

av

In China such child tutors are calledsmall assistants. They are given spe-cial training by teachers to preparethem to assist her/him.=> enlisting community help i.e, help

from parents or other communitymembers. The community will helponly when they are convincedabout the effective functioning of

./-, the school. They can lend a handnio'jtp the teacher in theickis$room by

assisting her/him in the daily rou-tine wherever and whenever fea-sible, as also providing resources tothe school.

The second category of multigradeschools could be one in which thereare three teachers for five grades.This situation is more in conformitywith the proposed three levels for theprimary years. A primary school hav-ing three teachers would be in a po-sition to attend to children level wiseas per the proposed curricular frame-work. The need would be for thegraded learning material and appro-priate training of the teachers.

Three teachers for three levels

1st TeacherLevel II (Grades 1 & 2)

'Sub-groups

2nd TeacherLevel II (Grades 3 & 4)

Sub-groups

3rd TeacherLevel III (Grade 5)

Sub-groups

Teaehtng-learnbv} with a Difference 177

What is the effect of multigradeclassrooms on the achievement andattitude of children ?

The multigrade situation is and willcontinue to remain a reality in thenear future too, the reason being thatcertain rural and tribal areas aregeographically isolated and have habi-tations with small number of peopleand s®hool going children. Non-avail-abilityôf trained teachers (especiallyin the North Eastern States) is anothermajor factor. Thus it is out of neces-sity and not choice that this situationwill exist. If so, why not look at thepositive aspects of a multigrade situ-ation and create the necessary condi-tions to handle the situation moreeffectively? Many developed as well asdeveloping countries like Australia,Canada, Norway, Vietnam, Indonesia,China, Columbia, Newzealand haveopted for multigrade classes for its ad-vantages.

They believe that ^ multigrade class-room lends itself to^:• Interaction among a wider variety

of children (agewise, abilitywise,interestwise, backgroundwise).This leads to a greater sense of be-longing, support, security and con-fidence.

• building a stronger relationship be-tween teacher and students as thestudent spends more time with thesame teacher i.e. for 2 to 3 years.

• better learning by older studentsas it is enhanced when they are

asked to tutor younger students intheir group v

• older children in multigradeschools acting as models andguides for the younger childrenwhich gives them an increasedsense of selfesteem and responsi-bility

• younger children adjusting toschool and routines more quicklyby observing,and imitating olderchildren

• promoting cooperation and otherforms of prosocial behaviour thusreducing pressures of competition

• enriching the learning by childrenof lower grades as they get exposedto the material designed for thehigher grade while students in thehigher grades can get opportunitiesfor revisiting concepts and content

• providing for more effective peerlearning and collaborative learn-

v, , f | ng and thus save .teachers' in-struction time. SMUV4 3.S ;

Though research evidence from devel-oped countries as well as the experi-ence of many organizations shows thisto be an organisational alternative tosingle grade situations it must benoted that there are certain conditionsunder which such classes have beenfunctioning effectively, viz. .

• where pupil teacher ratio is low

• where teacher is trained for multi-level teaching4earning ;


• where attempts have been made tostructure the content of the nationalcurriculum and all associatedcurriculum materials (e.g. syllabi,teachers guides) in a way that sup-ports multi-level teaching (e.g. inte-grated subject matter le. teachingthe same subject at different concep-tual levels or a modular curriculumLe. allowing the student to proceedat her/his own PQcg through learn-ing modules) and teachers and chil-dren have access to it

• where learning conditions arefavourable (Refer Chapter 6 Part I)

• where the community is meaning-fully involved in the functioning ofsuch a school

Multigrade teaching is a world-widephenomena, the only difference beingthat in some countries they have con-sciously adopted it while in others likeours it is a compulsion. In view of thesituations existing in our country andthe need to facilitate attainment ofELOs by eaehi|:hild what can be bet-ter than adopting an Integrated Ap-proach to teaching-learning for han-dling multi-level groups ?

What does integratedteaching mean '?

In simple words it means bringingdown the boundaries around the sub-jects at the teacher's level. It alsomeans planning alternative ways ofteaching. One possibility could beteaching based on 'themes' cutting

across the "subjects (disciplines)". It isin short "a theme to subject routerather than 'a subject to theme route".This approach would help in providingholistic learning that is more meaning-ful for a child at the primary stage.However, adoption of this approachneeds; ,'=* a very careful planning by the

teachers which involves a thoroughunderstanding of what lekffiitig bychildren is expected at the end ofa level.

=> careful identification of the themesacross the various curricular areasand detailed planning of tech-niques/methods to be adopted totransact them.

=* developing of web charts based onthemes can go a long way in help-ing the teachers plan their activi-ties.

=»• understanding that all ELOs cannotbe attained through this approachand thus planning the transactionthrough a mix of subject based andintegrated approach as per the re-quirements of the situation.

s> active involvement of children atevery stage.

The integral approach to teaching ifadopted would help in:•=> reducing the work load of teachers.=> reducing the curricular load of

children through removal of repeti-tion in learning the same conceptsin different subjects.

Teachtng-learntrur with a. Dtffkfence 179

encouraging active participation ofboth the teacher and the childrenin the teaching learning processitems making it more interestingand lasting.taking care of the developmentalneeds of the children whose per-ception and understanding at thisstage is more holistic in nature andnot compartmentalised in the form-of dtffoarent subjects.

implications of this approach andonsite guidance from time to timewhenever they face any difficulties. Theimplications may not only be confinedto the inservice teacher orientationprogrammes but also in the pre-serviceeducation programmes of teachers. Itwould further, require Changes in theteaching learning material for teachersas well as children. Above all, the suc-cess in adoption of this approach would

Adoption of the integrated approach toteaching may not be very easy for teach-ers in the beginning. They wouldneed orientation in the implications ofthis approach and onsite guidance

depend on a large extent on the changein the attitude of all concerned espe-cially the teachers who will have tocome out of the cocoon of the traditionalmethods of teaching. r

Epilogue

E ARE NOW on the last page of this document. But we wonder, can there everbe a last page or a last word in the process of developing curriculum for theeducation of our children?

Curriculum development, as we are all aware, is a continuously evolving process. Therecan never be a final curriculum or even THE CURRICULUM since times change, situ-ations change, diversities abound and the demands on the curriculum have to keeppace. And so the process goes on...... . UiriP ••••

This framework has attempted to address the current Concerns and the challengesahead for the young child. We hope this document will stimulate discussion, debatesand introspection in the area of curriculum development for the primary stage. Wealso hope this will motivate states to take on from here and develop contextuallyrelevant and impjementable curricula at their levels which will in turn help to makeour schools centres of joy and learning.

APPENDIX I

THE document was reviewed by the following experts. Their contribution in the improvementof its quality is thankfully acknowledged.

C h a p t e r , ? , , . . . . ;M C h a p t e r 4 , _.,, . ^ 4

Prof. Ada^sh Khanna . - d r Dr T.K. Jayalakshmi ;. ;: ;

Ms Gayatri Moorlhy Ms Anjali Narona • : ;

Ms Raji Sabanayam . Ms Sundari RavindranMs Anjali Narona ' " ',"''.-,,•.

'(\(i:u'-':.-,-r. : ••j'ff,> C h a p t e r 5 : : : L ! ' ; > ' • • ' • • > • ^

Chaptc* 3/fid r : :^W'-n^ i v Shii Feisal;AlkW U b l ;

Shri Subir Shukla Shri Amit PaulDr Harjeet Vasudev Shri Ashish GhoshDr R.K. Dixit .. i?. Ms Kanta SethProf. Bikram Das . :

Dr Mamta Agarwal. . _ •

SUGGESTIONS given by our following colleagues from the Regional Institutes ofEducation (RIEs) are gratefully acknowledged.

RIE, AjmerProf. G.K. LehriDr K.B. RathDr J.P. BagchiDr R.K.S. AroraDr N.K. GuptaMs Jayanti TiwariDr RamniwasMs Gayatri JagtaniShri D.R. SrimaliDr S.K. PranamiDr K.S. KhichiDr K.L. AryaMs Rekha Johnson

RIB, BhubaneswarProf. A.L.N. SarmaShri R.C. MohapatraDr D.G. RaoDr S.K. MohapatraDr B.K. ParidaShri P.K. DasSmt Ritanjali DashDr H. TripathyDr M.P. SinhaDr M.A. HaqueDr P.K. PattnaikShri G.C. BholDr S.C. PandaSmt S. PalitShri P.K. MisraDr (Ms) T. DuttaMs Sampa DasDr Anoop KumarDr V.K. SunwaniProf. K. DoraisamiDr P.C. DashDr P. DasDr P.S. TripathyShri G.S. IlatiDr A.D. TewariDr S.K. Govel

Smt SwarnalekhaDr P. PurohitShri S.C. DasShri Benudhar SahuMs P. NegiShri S.P. MishraDr S.P. AnandDr M.D. PandaShri P. SahuDr M.C. SamalDr (Ms) Jyotsana MohapatraDr T.J. VidyapatiDr (Ms) Madhuri MahapatraDr (Ms) Manasi Goswami

RIB, MysoreDr G.T. BhandageDr P.R. LalithaDr ManjulaDr G.R. PrakashDr M. GandhiShri H.Y. KapannaMs S. ParvathiammantMs T.V. LalithaDr Premlatha SharmaDr VeronicaDr C. JangaiahDr N.M. Rao

RIE, BhopalDr Sant PrakashDr J.P. SinghShri O.P. AroraDr M.D. JainDr B.K. TripathyDr Reeta SharmaDr J.N. VermaSmt HemlataDr A. GrewalDr Iqbal AhmedDr V.P. GuptaDr P.C. Bhatt

Appendix II 183

Dr (Smt) Sandhya KhullarDr Farooq AnsariSmt Asha SinghProf. R. RavindranDr IP. AggarwalDr Subramaniam

University of DelhiDr R.K. Agnihotri

Dr R.D. SharmaMs Romila Soni

. IliltA .'i-fIB'1 . Q . '

MIC .H.iia

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Documents

THE PRIMARY YEARS - IRC · The Primary Years vi: ^, . . i.e the Early Childhood and Primary stage. This stage which serves as the foundation for not only further stages of education