These books are made for learning
Subha Das Mollick
One of the happiest days in every child’s life is the day she gets new textbooks in a new class. She smells the shining new books, lovingly covers them and proudly writes her name. Thus begins her yearlong engagement with these resources of knowledge. By the end of the year, the textbook is dog eared, the margins get filled with notes, and passages get underlined with ‘Impt’ written beside them. The more studious the child, the more are the marks of engagement with the book.
Educationists and producers of textbooks are aware of the importance of textbooks in a child’s life. They try to contextualize the textbook to the child’s lived experience – and this is a big challenge for a country like India. NCERT brings out textbooks aimed at the entire nation and they face the challenge of making the texts relatable to children growing up in a diverse cultural milieu. Months of brainstorming sessions precede the writing of every NCERT textbook.
Of all textbooks, primers hold a special position because they are a gateway to the world of letters for children. Doyens of Bengal Renaissance like Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar and Rabindranath Tagore have channelized their creative energy into writing primers like Barna Parichay and Sahaj Path, which has beautiful linocut graphics illustrated by the highly acclaimed artist Nandalal Bose. Both Barna Parichay and Sahaj Path are primers for Bengali. What about English primers?
Debabrata Majumdar, a professor of physics at a college in West Bengal, developed a keen interest in primary education at the turn of the new millennium and started an organization called “Shekhar Sathi”, meaning “Companion in learning”. In 2003 he published a Bengali primer called “Amar Boi” (My book).Close at heels followed the first English primer. These primers gained significance after the publication of the first ASER report in 2005, which revealed the abysmal state of basic literacy and numeracy in India.
Faced with the challenge of contextualizing English learning taking into accounts the lived experience of a child growing up in a village and not exposed to English, Majumdar decided to take a novel path. He began by making a list of English words in the Bengali vocabulary. Words like bat, ball, bag, van, taxi, train, etc., figured in this list. Using these words, he developed his first primer meant for children aged five. The first two pages of this primer are illustrative of his method. It is clear that he has deviated from the convention of ‘A for Apple, B for Ball’. Instead, he has matched familiar objects with their English names. The child sees the word ‘bat’ and, in his mind, associates the word with the object. But the word consists of letters. How does one make the child aware of these letters as independent entities? In the next word ‘ball’, the child encounters two common letters and two new letters. The new letters are highlighted in red. Thus, on page 1, through pictures of familiar objects, the child starts to recognize four letters of the English alphabet. These letters are written at the bottom of the page. Again, on page 2, there are two familiar objects and two words associated with these objects. These objects have some familiar letters and some new letters. All the letters are listed at the bottom of the page – new letters in red and familiar letters in black.
By page 13, the child gets acquainted with all the 26 letters of the English alphabet. On page 14 he writes these letters inside assigned boxes – all in lower case. On pages 15 to 19, the child sees more pictures with their associated words. Some of these words are part of the Bengali vocabulary, some are not. For example, on page 15, table and line are familiar words, but book and boy are not. So, the child learns new words.
From page 20 onwards, numbers are introduced – numbers spelled out as well as numbers as numerals. By page 24, numbers 1 to 10 are introduced. Pages 25 to 28 are drawing exercises. The child has to read the word and draw its picture in the box above the word.
In the note to teachers at the beginning of the book, there are clear-cut instructions on how to get the best out of this book. Two points are noteworthy in this set of instructions. First, the teacher should sit with small groups of children. Group learning is always more enjoyable and faster. Secondly, the teacher should never try to underline any rule or logic behind the use of letters to form words, or the use of singular and plural in case of numerals.
Part II of the primer, meant for children aged six, begins with a recap of the words they already learnt the previous year – but this time, the words are in upper case letters. So the child recognizes the object from its picture and gets introduced to upper case letters – a continuity from the known to the unknown. On pages 2 and 3, there are outlines of the objects for the child to fill with colour, along with the words written in upper case and lower case. At the bottom of the page, all the letters used in the words are listed and the child is asked to copy the letters. The point to be noted is that the instructions are all written in Bengali. This pattern continues in the next two pages, with some new objects thrown in. The new letters in the words are highlighted in bold and all the new letters are listed at the bottom of the page. Thus, the child is familiarized with all the 26 ‘capital’ letters of the English alphabet. Something interesting happens on pages 8 and 9. Objects are presented in pairs – glass and dish, pant and belt, bat and ball, table and chair. Incidentally, all these words are commonly used in the Bengali vocabulary. So the words are not new to the child. Only, the English way of writing these words is new. In the next few pages, pictures of complete scenes are presented, in which the children can spot and label familiar objects.
Innovative exercises, in which the child has to complete the word by filling in the missing letter or writing the word that matches with the picture, will keep the child engaged and his leaning will go deep. The last page of the book gives a list of all the new words learnt, arranged in alphabetical order. The words are also spelt out with Bengali letters, which will help the child with his English pronunciation. Some words are three letters long, while some are six to seven letters long. The logic behind the spellings of words like school, or chain, or cycle is not mentioned at this stage.
In the note to teachers, it is written that the child must feel confident that he can learn a foreign language. He will get this confidence by reading correctly and doing the exercises correctly.
How are Debabrata Majumdar’s primers different from other primers? First, he does not go in the alphabetical order from A to Z, because the order is not really important for language learning. But in the two books, after the child gets acquainted with all the letters, he reads and writes all the letters in the English alphabet in order. So, the child knows the order of the 26 letters in the English alphabet. This would be useful to him later in life. Secondly, instead of choosing words that begin with particular letters, he has chosen words that the child uses in his everyday language. Most importantly, instead of going from alphabet to word, he has gone from word to alphabet. Also, he has not shied away from introducing big words at the pre-primary stage because the child is familiar with these words.
Sajal Jena, a primary school teacher at a village school in Hoogly district of West Bengal, shares his experience of using these primers. He says that he tries to bring the objects – ball, bat, bag, etc., to class and spends a lot of time with each object. The children, usually three year olds, play with the ball, examine its properties and talk about their own balls before the word ‘ball’ is introduced to them. The word is constructed using small pieces of cardboard bearing the letters. First the teacher constructs the words and then the children are asked to pick up the right cardboard pieces and construct the same word. This way, more than one day may be spent on one single page of the primer, resulting in unhurried, joyful, stress-free learning. Along with the child, the child’s parents also pick up the English language. However, Sajal Jena laments that teachers prefer to stick to conventions and are too lazy to switch over to this new method.
Raju Baidya, a teacher in Bashirhat district of West Bengal, is another regular user of Debabrata Majumdar’s primers. His daughter, who is now in Class III, has grown up on these primers. The best thing about these books is that new information is given in small doses. So the child is comfortable and gains confidence. The child can also use these primers without the guidance of a teacher. The instructions are simple and in Bengali.
Debabrata Majumdar has written six English primers – two for pre-primary classes and four for primary classes. The primer for class 1 has Bengali rhymes with English words – like the ones shown below. (insert image here)Then there are exercises in which the child has to write the names of four vehicles or four things to wear. These are advanced exercises in which he has to scan his memory and pick up the words that mean different vehicles from all the words he has learnt. Then there are pages dedicated to themes like school, hospital, or circus. Words related to this theme are presented in mixed language verses. This 40 page book can be comfortably completed in 120 days spread over an academic year.
The book meant for class IV children begins with a charming rhyme “Naughty Boy”. Incidentally, the same rhyme is present in an earlier Bengali primer in Bengali. So the child feels happy and confident when he encounters a familiar picture. Debabrata Majumdar says, “All the texts of the class IV primer are contextualized texts of previous English/Bengali books. Identical illustration, somewhat similar texts, bring a smile in the child’s face and a feeling ‘I will read it easily’.” This inter-textuality is interesting. It is a novel way of contextualizing a textbook.
In this book there are full passages in English that the child is expected to read and understand. The pictures and stories from the class 1 book are repeated here, but now the stories are completely in English, instead of a mixed language. The meanings of the new words are written in Bengali at the bottom of the page. So, with the help of his mother tongue – the language he speaks and hears at home – the child will earn proficiency in a foreign language.
Debabrata Majumdar’s books are not meant for pan India use. These are English books written in Bengali. The names of the books are also in Bengali instead of English. The books are contextualized to the life of a child growing up in rural or suburban Bengal. However, similar books can be designed for children growing up in different villages spread across India. All Indian languages have English words in their lexicon and that is the starting point for developing these primers. Presently, Debabrata Majumdar is working on an English primer for Santhali children.
Note: Dr. Debabrata Majumdar, author of the English primers, may be reached at majumdar.debabrata@gmail.com.
Subha Das Mollick is an independent filmmaker and writer residing in Kolkata, India. She can be reached at subha.dasmollick@gmail.com.
