Browsing by Author "Priya Awais"

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    The use of mother tongue as the medium of instruction till primary level in government school of Punjab to decrease the drop out rate
    (2011) Priya Awais
    This research aims to investigate the need for having mother tongue as a medium of instruction in the government schools of Punjab. The use of Mother tongue as a medium of instruction would most likely result in a decreased dropout rate at the Primary level. This has been proved through an earlier research that teaching the young ones during their initial years in their mother tongue is a strong predictor of their second language acquisition in later years .The children who learn initially in this manner have strong associative skills and can form concepts in a better manner. This research has been conducted taking a population of convenient sample from two government schools located in socio economically similar areas. Sixty questionnaires were disseminated and fifty two questionnaires were filled, out of these twenty seven were filled by male teachers (respondents) of the boys school and twenty five were filled by the female teachers of the girls' school. It was discovered through this research that these schools are facing problems while conducting their lessons in L2, i.e. English and to an extent Urdu, as most of the children use Punjabi as their mother tongue. The raw data quantitatively collected was analyzed on SPSS, and frequencies were found to be further elaborated by histograms. The analysis showed that having the mother tongue as a medium of instruction would facilitate the students and the dropout rate at the primary level would decline. This research signifies that literacy is more important than learning a second language and education can be delivered to young children effectively in their mother tongue. It also revealed an important fact that however the respondents felt embarrassed to use their mother tongue, but agreed during the research that using the mother tongue no doubt makes them feel not only comfortable but also closer to their roots. The teachers also had certain reservation regarding second language teaching as being a non native teacher of English is not an easy job.