CHAPTER 7
THE FIELD STUDY: THE LANGUAGE
ISSUE IN ANGLO-INDIAN SCHOOLS
1. Introduction
The purpose of this chapter is to assess the empirical data
collected during the field study on the language curriculum
offered to Anglo-Indians in their own schools.
The argument is that the inability to attain fluency in
reading and writing an Indian language has contributed to
inequalities suffered by Anglo-Indians in their own
schools, an issue that was explored earlier (c.f.
discussion above Ch.l p.30). The curriculum programme
that was investigated is neither bilingual or bicultural.
As a result, teachers' expectations place Anglo-Indian
students at the wrong end of the ability continuum in
learning Indian languages .
The structure of the chapter is:
(i) The field study in 1990
(ii) Teacher expectation and the legitimation of
language inequality in the classroom
(iii) Pre-vocational compensatory education
(iv) Bilingualism: the way forward
(v) Conclusions.
The next section, on the 1990 field study, examines the
educational experience of Anglo-Indians in Anglo-Indian
schools. The researcher investigated the classroom as a
non-participant observer. During the classroom
observation, there was no contact made with the students.
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