Sunday, March 2, 2014

How Language Acquisition is Made Difficult for Children !ight Lessons fro" an #rdu Acquisition Case Study
[The later part of this post would derive the lessons learned from my experience of how I learned Urdu. They address the problems that our faulty methodologies are creating today in language acquisition especially in teaching of Urdu. The lessons apply to any other language also as referred by the connections to well established and well known research. ] The first Urdu ook I remember reading around !"##$#% was I think Urdu ki pehli kitab[&]. I must have been around five or six years old at that time. Those were the days when the madness of imprisoning two and three year olds in the pre$school had not begun. 'It is madness because nowhere in the developed world any educationist recommends this except schools in (akistan run by administrators not academics.) I had by then must have gone through the Noorani Quaida. *nyhow+ I distinctly remember a few lines from the very first page of that pehli kitab. ,urprisingly many others who had started their Urdu from this book also do so. The first page had some very simple rhyming sentences with very short -meaningful- words such as. Aa baba aa. Aam la.

La baba la. La Aaam La .... and on it went ..

The very next page followed immediately with short -full meaningful sentences- under self explanatory descriptive pictures. /o -nonsense- sentences that I remember to this day and many others would too. Abba jan namaz parh rahay hain . 0aption under the picture of an elderly man praying on a prayer rug. Bacha ma ki goad may hay. 0aption under the picture of a woman holding a child in her lap.

I think there were a few more pictures like these with self explanatory sentences serving as their caption.

Third page onwards had stories and essays. There was no nonsense masquerading as language teaching methodology. There were no useless exercises in phonetics. There were no useless exercises in tor-jor 'connect$disconnect). 1hatever+ was taught had meaning from the word go. The stories and essays included in the text book were interesting. I also remember that interesting 2ero3esons4 book containing stories from hikayaat-luqman whose stories and even the pictures are etched in my mind to this day. 2amous stories with a single line moral at the end. Piya a !a""a 'thirsty crow) that puts pebbles in a 5ug to get the water to rise up so that it could drink6 khu hamad buri bala hay# where the fox manages to get the piece of bread from the crow by praising the beauty of its voice and making the crow close its eyes and sing by opening its beak and crowing+ the piece of bread falls down and the fox runs away with it7 I think the initial stories were read to me by my mother and later I was on my

own. I think the name of the book was - mazaydar kahaniyaan-[&]. It is still available in the same print with the same text and pictures with 2ero3esons. I saw it the last time I went there a few years ago. I tried opening up the website of 2ero3sons to see the catalog but this fine institution seems to be suffering as appears from its website. 8owever+ one get access to many of these wonderful 2ero3sons books here. 9y parents were avid readers. 9orning could not start without the reading of an Urdu and an :nglish newspaper. There used to be tussle within my elder siblings as to who would first get to see the newspaper. The resolution would often be the pages getting distributed according to the interest. 9y mother started reading to me the story of Tar3an that used to be seriali3ed in ;aily <ang newspaper in the comic$book style6 three or four pictures with descriptive sentences in the speech bubbles and in captions below the picture. =ne day+ I don>t remember when and how+ I found myself having transited from the stage of staring at the pictures trying to figure out what is in the text from figures and action depicted in the picture+ to the stage where I had started reading on my own. ?ery soon from Tar3an pictures+ I had gone to interesting stories and then it all started. The world around us used to be filled with books of all types lying every where. There were some very economical comics style books available on every tea and newspaper stall+ very affordable and sold on the corner of busy streets. I remember one of them distinctively+ a small pocket si3e story book 'around @A x @A) titled tili mi khelona of about twenty$thirty pages. The book had an enchanting story of a princess and a magic box+ who finds herself alone in a new setting+ tangled with strange people. The only thing she has to console herself was the magic box given to her by her father. ,he would take the box outside the castle at night when no one was watching and would open it and out would come a magic world recreating the whole court and attendants and what not. I don>t remember the story but I do remember the thrill+ suspense and excitement because I could not understand the whole story+ but the mystery was nevertheless interesting. ooks like these could be finished in a single sitting by beginners. They had pictures on one page and text on the other. 9y next memory is that of being in class B when I started reading those wonderful 2ero3esons books for the children. It started with the historical drama of C*ik ,ipahi ki DahaniA. I got this book issued from my primary school 'I9,E) class library that had about twenty thirty books. ,ome how I read the book. /ot understanding it completely but can still recall that it had to do with some 9ughal treasure+ loyalty+ bravery and the 5ewel -yaqoot- which had some significance in the story. =ne day+ around !"#"+ I went with my eldest sister to (akistan 0ouncil Fibrary 'later renamed (akistan 0enter Fibrary) in Islamabad near 9elody+ where she was attending a course to learn engali. I was awed at the impressive and the well maintained collection of books there. I still remember going in front of each of the racks containing rows and rows of thick volumes. * practice that continued each time I went to the library+ which was quite frequently+ over the next decade. That first day+ from the rack in the children>s section+ I got another of 2ero3esons4 Urdu translation of Nikolai Gogol4s Taras ulba. I must have taken that book because of the title picture of the ferocious looking Taras ulba with curved sabre. I remember taking this book home and reading it. I wouldn4t say that I understood every thing in the book. 1hat I do remember is that it was a fascinating and thrilling adventure. The scene described in the book where the father Taras

ulba and his two sons are lying under the starry night sky and talking about their past and their dreams+ is still etched in my mind. *bout a decade later I would go and see the 8ollywood adaptation starring Tony 0urtis and Gul ryner in 0iros 0inema in Hawalpindi ,addar. 1hat a wonderful experience. 9ind you+ I did not understand these books fully as I read them the first time. I think I read them because there was mystery+ adventure+ unknown words with unknown meanings+ and difficult words. ut there was this continuous encouragement of my mother not to worry about that. ,he said 5ust go on reading+ whether you can pronounce the word or not+ whether you can understand the sentence or not. The important thing is to read about that mystery and that adventure and that drama in life. The context and the story would itself reveal to you the meaning and the mysteries. 8ow true she was. /ow when I compare this approach to the one followed in our text books today+ I know what the problem is. The books are too easy to be senseless. There is no story+ no adventure+ no thrill+ no mystery and no urge to go behind the difficult words and sentences to explore the fascinating meanings that would make sense of the story. =ur books suffer because they are an -Insult to Intelligence- of the bright active mind of the child. That was the time when our parents did not make a huge issue of the grades. They probably saw me reading newspapers+ books and saw my interest in nature and felt that this was enough of the preparation. They reposed confidence in us. /o one cared about my grades 'at least they did not show it to me to make me worry) till I was in my eighth grade. This was when I was made aware of the importance of grades in getting admission to the medical and engineering colleges and entering a career that had scope. efore eighth grade everyone would want to know about what I was reading and what wonderful new things that I was exploring. It appeared that everyone was reading around me. I could not imagine a person at that time who was not a reader.

9y next book from my primary school 'I9,E+ later I0E) library was C PurA rar $azeeraA6 second part of the series of %aa taan e Amir &amza by 2ero3esons adapted for children. 1hat an excitement+ and what a thrillI ,oon I had completed the book+ and then to my disappointment I found that the story is seriali3ed and is continued in next 'third) part -Nau her"an ki beti-. /ow the quest for the next in series was on. This was the time when 'aqbool $ehangir# the writer+ was in the process of writing this series for 2ero3esons and the next part was not out yet. I had to go to the library again and again to see whether the new book of the series has arrived or not. :ventually+ it came out after a long wait of a month or so. =nce I had gone through it+ I had to wait till the fourth part came out and so on it went+ till the last one came out. In the mean time+ there were other 2ero3esons books that I was getting issued and reading them. I also remember getting C 'era Naam 'angu hayA which I got from my Uncle>s house which had a cabinet full of books. This story was about a boy who was kidnapped and turned in to a professional beggar. It was seriali3ed later by (T?. This was followed by several others such as - 'ujh pay kya guzri-+ -Aali pay kya guzri- etc. 9ind you+ these books about kidnapping of young boys had a deep impact on our mind and would terrify me each time I would pass by a residential facility for the orphans near 2ai3abad. 1hy and how the connection was made between this facility and the kidnapping of young boys+ I do not remember.

1hat a fascinating series of books was %aa tan e Amir &amza. 9y elder sister and I must have read hundreds of time as I bought the whole series later on and some of these are still with me to this day. 9y younger brother and sister must have also read the entire series scores of times. The ten books of this series were followed later by the ten books of (ili m e &ou hruba series. These two series provided me with the vast vocabulary of words and diction of urdu. ,oon+ we were all using the phra e and maha)araah# metaphors and similies used with wit and humor in these books. ?ery soon I had a collection of about hundred 2ero3esons books. I had the complete !amran !ay !arnamay+ *mran kay karnamay# Aryang erie +,uper man, etc. There were some great original books as well as translations that 2ero3esons did for the children. I remember in them -irah-kut '=liver Twist)+ !hoon ki &oli '* Tale of Two 0ities)+ .ehra kay dayo# &ujjam aur Qazzaq '8ardy oys ,eries)+ Neeli /o hni !a /aaz# Neela (ota# Bhoot Bangla# !hooni $azeera# 'arekh ka &amla '1ar of the 1orlds)+ and many others. I would longingly look at all the names of the books printed at the back of these books and visuali3e myself owning and reading all of them. I would read all the names again and again. ?ery soon I had collected nearly all of them. I got a stamp made and became a proud owner of the 9illat Fibrary. I would rent out these books at the astronomical amount of ten paisa i.e. Hs. J.!J per dayI These were the days when in each street there would be a library like this with a proud child owner like me. This collection would eventually grow to over four hundred books. * time came when I was reading these books of about KLJ pages in half an hour. I had *bne .a0i>s books that were some how considered stuff for grown ups. ut I was reading them when I was in my class sixth. ?ery soon I had nearly all of them. To this day I retain some of these from that collection. (eople are now beginning to rediscover *bne .a0i after a hiatus of about two decades. *round this time+ my mother would make me organi3e and sort the books in my fathers> cabinets and that began to expose me to the :nglish literature about which I would write in a separate post. =ne of the cabinets had this wonderful collection of monthly maga3ines in Urdu. Urdu ;igests starting from their inception in !"#! were there. I had preserved most of them lovingly and are still there in our *hsan 9emorial Fibrary. I became acquainted with great foreign literature and personalities through Urdu ;igest that had such wonderful stories of adventure and knowledge and discovery. 9y association with Urdu ;igest seems to require another exclusive post. *round mid seventies I was reading all sorts of books+ history books+ literature+ digests and what not. 2rom (akistan /ational 0ouncil Fibrary I had gotten issued the original thick volumes of (ili m e &o hruba and had read them albeit with little understanding. * few years ago I finally got the donation of the original volumes of %a taan e Amir &amza and (ili m e &o hruba from *nsari sb for the *hsan 9emorial Fibrary.

I also do not remember too much emphasis on writing except khu h khati. *lthough my father would always admonish me for not having a better handwriting. They knew at that time the importance of the maxim that reading comes before writing and listening comes before speaking. Fater when I was in U,* and used to write letters home 'decade before the email days and decades before the ,kype days)+ I made a conscious effort to learn khush khati. I bought calligraphic pens and the best letter

heads. *nd then would painstakingly write letters to my parents every fortnight. These letters were preserved by my father and given back to me on my return. Lessons Learned
!. If parents are not reading+ people are not reading+ family members are not reading+ why should the child read& If you want your child to read+ 'i) you and your spouse should start reading. 'ii) There should be books and newspapers around you+ 'iii) you should be meeting those people who read and 'iv) you should be going to bookstalls every week and buying books and en5oying those books. 'v) Gour home should be filled with books. 'vi) If you are not interested in reading+ your child would not be interested in reading. 'vii) Gou should be discussing with other family members the 5oy and thrill of having read some thing interesting every day. 'viii) The household culture should be where everyone should be doing this sharing of excitement. 'ix) visit libraries and websites+ 'x) show movies based on classics 2. I learned to read from meaning and not for meaning. =ne does not construct meaning by recogni3ing the alphabets+ 5oining them in to words+ and then connecting the words in to sentences. This process is against the experience and research. ,ee for theory and details on this in ;r ;ee Tadlock4s -Head Hight-.
3. I learned to read so that I can en5oy and experience the thrill of adventure and excitement

of discovery. ,ee my post 2rom ,imple to 0omplex is an Insult to Intelligence of a 0hild. 2or the detailed theory see 2rank ,mith4s -Insult to Intelligence-.
4. 1hy should a child read a book that holds no excitement and thrill& :specially in the

presence of such exciting and thrilling video games and videos. ,ee why my child does not sit and concentrate. L. Heading comes before writing. ;on4t make the child write+ if he is not reading. ,top making the child to write if he is not reading. The child picks up vocabulary+ phrases+ constructs+ spellings from reading interesting stories.
6. I did not read for passing the exams or for homework or for rewards or for stars. 2or a

detail exposition on this see -(unished by Hewards- by *lfie Dohn.

7. Throw away phonetics. This is the biggest scam in reading. ,ee books and research by

<ohn 8olt and others. M. Throw away tor-jor. * child learns to read and recogni3e -9c;onalds- without any torjor+ without any alphabets+ without any phonetics. tor-jor is counter intuitive. ,ee the works of /oam 0homsky on 0ognitive (sychology for theory of how meaning is derived.