Multilingualism and Teaching Methods: A Study with the Reference of Indian English Language Teaching Classrooms

Abstract

This paper analyses the issues and challenges of linguistically diverse English Language Teaching (ELT) classrooms in India. In India, the English language is not the first language; the majority of them speak Hindi or their state languages. Due to this concern, numerous questions are arising for teachers, such as (a) How many languages and which specific language should be used as a mode of classroom communication to convey the message/instruction effectively? (b) What should be the number of students in a particular class? and (c) Does the teacher have competency in the native language? Most of the local schools in Tribal areas do not teach in native or “Adivasi” language in ELT classrooms. Indian speaking now many languages, they are multilingual but for communicating, we have to speak in a single language. So, the question is arising for how to tackle with this multilingual classroom to teach the English language? This is a challenge for India in the twenty-first century. Thus, we need to have some ways to accept the challenge and to increase the level of students in India. This paper suggests some solutions to those challenges and seeks the answer to such problems to enhance the quality of multilingual in ELT classrooms.