E-mail: sotheeswaran@usp.ac.fj
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Chemistry is International but Language is Not...
Languages in Sri Lanka and Chemistry Teaching
Problems Met at University Education
Problems in Teaching Chemistry in the Mother Tongue
Does Bilingualism Adversely Affects Intelligence?
Right at the outset I would like to state that Chemistry is an international subject. I will not elaborate on this. I will merely say that chemistry is the study of the components of matter, their arrangement, their properties and transformations, and, since we and our environment are made up of matter, chemistry concerns everybody. It is taught in almost every country of the world. However, there are about 4,000 major and minor languages spoken in the world. Now chemistry has to be taught in some language or other and in my talk I would like to discuss the problem of selecting and using a linguistic medium in which to teach chemistry. I know it has been a problem in Sri Lanka; and it must be a widespread problem if not an international problem. It is a problem that has been solved with ad hoc measures in various countries but has not received any recognition as a widespread problem. For example, chemistry is taught in numerous small island nations of the Pacific at secondary school level in English, which is an international language but not a first language to most people in those countries. Chemistry is taught in English at undergraduate and postgraduate levels in the University of the South Pacific, which caters to chemistry students of 12 pacific island countries. There are difficulties; but these have barely been identified or studied.
In many Asian countries, Chemistry is not taught in the mother tongue but in English. In some other Asian countries, Chemistry is taught in the mother tongue.
In Sri Lanka, there are two distinct language communities, and the term first language, or mother tongue, means Sinhala or Tamil in the Sri Lankan context. English is used widely in Sri Lanka, and, in some westernized homes and in the homes of a few Eurasians, it may even be used almost exclusively. However, English will not be referred to as the mother tongue of any section of Sri Lankans. And Chemistry is taught in the mother tongue in Sri Lankan schools.
Chemistry was not always taught in the mother tongue, that is in Sinhala or Tamil, in Sri Lanka. Until the mid sixties it was taught in English. The reasons for the use of English are historical and we need not go into them here. One word -- colonialism -- explains it. There was no problem with regard to text books and other teaching material because these were imported from English speaking countries, mainly Britain. There was no insurmountable problem with regard to teachers either. There were a number of local chemistry teachers proficient in English and they were helped by expatriate, mainly Indian, teachers.
Starting from 1945, there was a move to replace English with the two national languages as the medium of instruction in all schools. There may have been covert political reasons for the move. However, many overtly altruistic arguments were put forward, by politicians, and educators in positions of power, in favour of the mother tongue. One famous argument was "Look at the Japanese. See how well they do everything in their mother tongue." (The irony is that today, the Japanese are racing to learn English because it is an international language and is no longer the language of the English people only). Another famous argument was that it did the child a great deal of psychological harm to be educated in an alien language and that bilingualism warped and confused the mind of the child. (Ironically recent research has proved that this notion is false and baseless. At the end of this talk, I shall return to recent research on bilingualism and its beneficial effect on intelligence.)
In 1966, Chemistry (as well as other science subjects) was taught for the first time in Sri Lankan schools in the mother tongue. The switch from English to the mother tongue as the medium of instruction for science was made in the GCE Ordinary Level classes.
To cater to the students who were learning science for the first time in Sinhala or Tamil, English textbooks were translated into the local languages. Before translation work could be undertaken, glossaries of technical terms in Chemistry, Physics, Biology and so on were prepared in order to assist the translators.
The mother tongue was introduced as the medium of instruction for science subjects at the GCE Advanced Level in 1968. At this stage, translation of text books from English to the mother tongue was piecemeal. You must remember that the teachers themselves had been trained in English. Of course many of them were also competent in Sinhala or Tamil, but their general competence in the mother tongue was insufficient for teaching science subjects, for example Chemistry, in the mother tongue. And there were a few teachers who were not very competent in the mother tongue. The text books were not satisfactory, because the translations were not always faultless. Chemistry material available in the mother tongue for the GCE Advanced Level was fragmentary. And of course many schools had to have two teachers where previously they had had one, to teach a particular subject. The change from English to the mother tongue as the medium for teaching chemistry in the secondary schools was made despite these many teething troubles.
Let me now describe the language problem in teaching Chemistry in Sri lankan universities. The first batch of students who had been taught through the medium of the first language entered the science faculties in 1970. Straightaway problems began to crop up.
According to the Higher Education Act, students had the right to expect to be taught, nay the right to demand that they be taught, in the mother tongue. However, the Universities were ill equipped to do this.
In each of the science faculties every lecture would have to be delivered in Sinhala and then in Tamil. This meant that the faculty had to recruit a lecturer proficient in Sinhala and another lecturer proficient in Tamil to teach each specialty. It was found that no one had thought of translating prescribed text books, let alone reference books. The resources of the government had been mobilized to translate school text books. But when it came to university text books, there was a dearth of financial and manpower resources to undertake the task of translation.
For example, to cater to a student entering the Medical Faculty, the prescribed biochemistry text book should have been translated. This had not been done. It has still not been done. The lecturers teaching biochemistry made feeble efforts to teach biochemistry in the mother tongue, but soon gave up. They could not find suitable equivalents in the mother tongue for many technical terms in biochemistry. Very soon, there was not even a pretence of teaching biochemistry in Sinhala or Tamil in the Medical Faculty.
Even now, the prestigious Chemistry honours programme is taught only in English.
Did this not create a problem for the students? You must understand that two kinds of students entered the Medical Faculty (and the other faculties) as far as a knowledge of English is concerned. Though all students had gone through the uniform school educational system and had been taught in school through the medium of the mother tongue, some were highly proficient in English while others were woefully incompetent in this former colonial and now indisputably international language.
How did such a situation arise? Well, after the adoption of the mother tongue as the medium of instruction in schools, English was not abandoned altogether. It was taught as a second language. However, many politicians gave people to understand that English was dispensable. Sinhala, the language of the majority had been made the official language. A knowledge of Sinhala was required for a government job. The euphoria in which the Sinhala people basked led to the neglect of English by the masses. It was resented as the language of erstwhile rulers. So some students came to the university barely able to hear or read and comprehend English and less able to speak and write it.
At the same time there were some university entrants who were highly competent in English. These were the products of urban schools, the better government schools and private schools. Many parents who were themselves proficient in English taught their children English at home. Some students actually came from westernized homes where English was spoken exclusively. Such students had no problem in learning Chemistry in English at the University. Indeed they welcomed it. They welcomed the prospect of learning a fast developing science in an international language.
At first, those undergraduates who were incompetent in English were in a minority. They either picked up English from the majority or dropped out after repeated failures at examinations. They were too few in number to make any impact. With time, those incompetent in English became numerous enough to worry the authorities. All sorts of quick-fix remedies were devised. Desperate situations do require desperate remedies. The remedies never worked very well.
Naturally, students who were deficient in English resented those who were proficient in English, and the whole educational system, which was working against them. You will be surprised to learn that they resented the English language most of all. They did not see it as an international language, as a key to knowledge, as an additional, or second language that need in no way supplant their mother tongue. The Sinhala students who were not proficient in English nicknamed the English language "kaduwa", that is sword, an instrument of power and oppression wielded, not by a foreign power, but by their own countrymen proficient in English.
Let me get back to the teaching of Chemistry in the Science faculties. The general degree in Science was offered in the mother tongue and in English. Students had to choose between the mother tongue and English. They could not follow lectures in two media. Those who opted for a general science degree in the mother tongue knew that their future job prospects and their prospects of postgraduate education were limited. Could they help being resentful? The library was something from which they could not profit at all. There were no Chemistry reference books in the mother tongue and the books in English might just as well have been in classical Greek. They went over only their own notes taken down hastily during lectures, and these notes not have been free of errors.
The lecturers were not in an enviable position either. Their workload increased. The same general degree lectures had to be given in English and in Sinhala and Tamil. A little calculation will show you that two lecturers were doing the work of three.
The problem with giving a lecture in the mother tongue was that suitable equivalents for many technical terms were non-existent in Sinhala and Tamil. Lecturers coined their own terms. The trouble was that a second year Organic Chemistry lecturer would coin one Tamil term and a third year Organic Chemistry lecturer would coin another Tamil term for the same English word. There was no time for consultation. Many lecturers gave up the struggle to coin terms and transliterated technical terms instead of translating them.
I have talked at length about the situation in Sri Lanka because I have experienced it. What lessons can Chemistry educators in other countries learn from the Sri lankan experience? At this point I would like to say that every country must select with care the medium in which chemistry is going to be taught. If the choice is the language/s of the country and if text books and technical words are not available in the medium of instruction, then these should be prepared. If an international language which is not a first language is selected as the language in which chemistry is taught, then this second language should be taught effectively, starting from primary school. Sudden switches in media should not be made at institutions of higher education.
Let me emphasize that. My belief is that, if undergraduates are going to be taught Chemistry or any other subject in a language that is not their first language, say in English, the time to master English is not after entering University but soon after entering primary school. I am not championing the neglect of the mother tongue. I am championing mother tongue-English bilingualism. Let the mother tongue be the medium of instruction in the primary school and let English take over as the medium of instruction in secondary school. Alternatively let there be bilingual instruction, or twin media of education at primary school, some subjects being taught in the mother tongue and others in English. Let English take over in secondary school. Whatever be the medium of instruction, let both mother tongue and English and their literatures be taught at both levels.
Let me now go back to the erroneous idea that bilingualism adversely affects intelligence.
In 1915, the French psychologist Epstein propounded the idea that bilingualism inhibits intelligence.
The hasty and ill-founded conclusion that bilingualism inhibits intelligence had global repercussions. It affected the teaching of Chemistry in Sri Lanka. And it was laid to rest only after decades of acceptance as the received dogma.
The mistaken notion that bilingualism divides and reduces a persons cognitive powers and ability to think has been exploded by rigorous and painstaking research. It appears that the truth is that bilingualism develops cognitive flexibility.
Be that as it may, one thing is certain. Children show great facility in learning a second language (along with or after acquiring their first language). The ability to learn a new language seems to wane between the ages of 11 and 14. There have been adults who have mastered new languages, but it is believed that they do it with some difficulty and that the mechanism for acquiring a language in adulthood is different from the mechanism for acquiring a language in childhood.
If we choose to teach chemistry in an international language to students for whom it is a second language, let us make sure we catch the students young and teach them this language effectively.
Acknowledgement: The author wishes to thank Mrs Sivamalar Sotheeswaran for sharing her experience in the teaching of English as a second language to Science students who entered the Faculties of Science, Engineering and Medicine at the University of Peradeniya in Sri Lanka after having studied Chemistry in the mother tongue during the period 1970-1985.
Copyright 1996 by The Author
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