Childhood as the most important stage of the
total development of man and humanity, (22)
offered the earliest stage for introducing the change in
how Anglo-Indian schools introduce and teach Indian
languages .
In the kindergartens in Anglo-Indian schools, these gifts
were lying on shelves. They were usually arranged neatly
and were painted in bright colours. The sizes can be
changed and this would alter a child's perspective of
Froebel's "gifts". Children are inquisitive and
imaginative and the "gifts" could be constructively used to
adopt the theory-practice model. Introducing English and
an Indian language simultaneously to these children using
the "gifts" would introduce bilingual skills to Anglo-
Indians at the most formative stage of their education.
The next section describes the spontaneous learning which
occurred in Montessori's classroom during spontaneous play.
3.3. Montessori: Spontaneity in the classroom
Montessori's spontaneous activity in education in her
Advanced Method can be applied to the education of children
from seven to eleven years. The activity materials
changed children quite remarkably, because as Montessori
stated,
... some originally stupid, become sharp and
penetrating. (23)
Montessori's audio-motor imagery could help to reinforce
the grapho-motor. This would facilitate the retention of
the forms of the letters or shapes of the alphabet in
various Indian languages, by learning to fit the insets
into the spaces provided. (24)
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