exercised learner choice, that is, they had control over
the outcome for each lesson.
Students were encouraged to talk to the class about their
"finds" on the nature ramble and these "finds" were
displayed on tables after the ramble. During the combined
arts class, students selected one another's art or craft
work for display on classroom notice boards. They listened
attentively to a group singing or acting and were
enthusiastic about one another's sketches and paintings.
During the self-defence class the skills were more enhanced
than taught. This implied that the skills were an
improvement of what was already there. What did seem
reassuring was that the follow-up of this enhancement
programme of existing skills suggested that a form of
creativity was being learned while communicating in a
multilingual classroom environment.
These creative activity classes posed the question on the
desirability of widening the choices of learners, so that
students were more involved in making a decision about when
and how to do language learning in an environment which
they selected.
In the other fourteen classes which were observed, Anglo-
Indians were misfits in the ability settings for learning
an Indian language. Their ability in English was
frustrated by the lack of a stimulating setting for mother
tongue learners. The language teaching environment in
Anglo-Indian classrooms disadvantaged these minority
students.
The Anglo-Indian misfits and rebels were created in the
classroom because of the contradictory nature of teaching
languages which reversed the bilingual skills of Anglo-
Indians. LI, the mother tongue, English, was taught to
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