Culture linked transitional padded short poems make acquisition of vocabulary of new language smooth

"Short, four-line, poems in local language padded with the words of a new language of which pictures can be made works well both for transition to new language learning in rural as well as inclusive education settings," stated Dr Lalit Kishore of Disha Jaipur whose paper was accepted for 'SEMINAR ON ENGLISH AND EMPOWERMENT IN DEVELOPING WORLD' in 2007 under the theme 'Language and Culture'

The abstract of the paper goes as follows.

ABSTRACT: An action research was done in a single-teacher girls school in rural Jaipur subsequent to introduction of English from grade one. The textbook prescribed the state government has an urban bias and is suitable for mono-grade big schools. To forge the linkage with local culture for introducing English to rural students whose home language is a dialect, the suitable material was developed to build English vocabulary before introducing the text book. Five local children’s folk songs were padded with English words and then completely converted to English rhymes. This was followed by the building of sight vocabulary of words in these rhymes for which the picture and word cards were made. Also, the sight vocabulary of the letters in these picture-words was developed .Thereafter,the grade one text book of English was taught. The students (n= 20) reacted favourably. (p= .05 , df =2, chi-squared test) to this two-week transition programme. Further, the programme was replicated in UNICEF-supported twenty bridge courses for girls in rural Rajasthan,

Key words: Language-culture links,home language, language transition, sight vocabulary

Biographical details of researcher; Dr Lalit Kishore (b.1946) is a research-educator at Disha in Jaipur who did his Ph.D.( Education) from Punjab University, Chandigarh. He has been associated with Teaccher-training and Education –for–All projects. He has published scores of research papers in Indian and foreign journals. Currently, Dr Kishore is working as a Senior Reseach Fellow is responsible for research. curriculum development and teacher education in the organization.