Sindhi Language Teaching And Learning

Abstract

The people of Sindh have been maintaining a spoken and written language since the time of the ancient Indus civilization (3500 BC). Sindhi is probably the oldest written and taught language in Pakistan. Even in the historic period, it has been used formally since the Kalhora period (1690-1782), and especially during the British period (1843-1947) for teaching and learning at different levels in Sindh. Since 1947, Sindhi teaching has been declining, day by day due to the two-way migration (from Sindh to India and India to Sindh), and due to the government language policy. However, currently, in Sindh and Balochistan (Sibi, Lasbelo, etc.) Sindhi is taught as a first or second language at different levels. However, concerns are expressed about the quality of teaching and curriculum, especially in the private schools established in the urban areas of Sindh.

In this study, Sindhi language teaching in public and private English medium schools from primary to matric level of Sukkur has been examined. For this purpose, qualitative and quantitative analysis was done by collecting data from fourteen representative schools of the public and private schooling systems by adopting the methods of questionnaire, interview, observation, and content analysis.

Results of the study shows, that after the measures taken by the education department government of Sindh, Sindhi is being taught in almost all public and private English medium schools of Sukkur, despite some shortcomings. There is no proper provision of Sindhi teaching in the private sector, especially in Cambridge board schools. There, Sindhi is being taught as a non-mother tongue to all students from third to grade eighth. Even those, who have it, as their mother tongue! On the other hand, there is a provision for teaching Sindhi in government and semi-government English medium schools, but it is being conducted in a sub-standard manner. The performance of children in public schools is slightly better than the private schools.

In terms of linguistic ability, most of the students are not monolingual, but bi-lingual and multilingual. With learning the Sindhi language, the linguistic difficulties they face are phonemic and alphabetical, which are due to linguistic interference caused by the situation of mixed language contact and the poor teaching process. There was a clear linguistic interference in the form of vocabulary, phonology, and alphabetic influence from Urdu and English in the language of Sindhi students. There has also been witnessed linguistic interference from Sindhi to Urdu in a few schools.

Keywords: Sindhi Language teaching (SLT), Pedagogy, Language Skills, Curriculum, Linguistic difficulties, Language testing, School culture, Language prestige, Linguistic Interference, Linguistic Accommodation, etc.