Despite of Learning Mother Tongue Prioritized In the System of Education, English L2 Occupy the Most Important Place in the Learning System

“There are many who understand Greek and Latin, and yet are ignorant of their Mother Tongue.”

John Dryden (1631 - 1700)

English poet, playwright, and literary critic.

Sylvae (translation of Horace's Odes)

The system of learning English or any other foreign language after learning the mother tongue is justified or not is much debated.  The controversial subject needs to be cleared on the sequence of learning mother tongue and foreign language in more psychological analysis.  Although many century linguists strove to make their own mother dialects the basis for a standard language, attempts were also made to work out a general   tongue. Literature, however, languished in dominant language until the late   century, when signs of a marginalized language literary revival developed—in reaction to the dominant language, which had become rivaling, control over other languages.

Some of the language critics say that In case of mother tongue first we develop the competence to comprehend by listening to others and to express our feelings through words, and then we learn to read and write. But in reality we see, that this sequence of learning our mother tongue is hardly maintained while learning a foreign language. In that case first we learn to read and make it accessible to every corner of the society; there is no alternative to mother tongue. But it is pathetic that even nowadays a certain per cent of people think modern Indian languages are incapable of becoming the medium of education and carrier of so could higher thoughts and activities. The English language spread as Britain expanded its colonial empire from the 1600s on and established legal, military, and educational systems in many countries along English lines. British expansion ended after World War II (1939-1945), when many of its colonies sought independence. Since World War II American English has dominated as a world language, largely because of U.S. economic and political influence and the advance of technology, especially computing and the Internet. At the turn of the 21st century, English prevailed as the most widely used language internationally.

 “Mother Language is like mother’s milk in education”—said by Rabindranath. It can be easily anticipated that it is not possible to change the mentality of those person who are not moved by the above words of Tagore. It is not at all feasible to restrict higher education and different paper works and official works of higher post in English on one hand and putting the load of English language on the other by bowing down to the interests, or unscientific unpsychological and antieducational mentality.

 The discussion about language teaching would remain incomplete if another thing remains unuttered, i.e. learning of another language apart from mother language. Nowadays another supporting language is taught in the school besides the mother tongue all over the world. It is necessary to learn a second language in order to maintain a link not only in the international level but also in the interstate level. English is regarded as the window of the world. It might be that the idea is to some extent exaggerated. But it cannot be denied that, this language is the only medium of getting introduced to the world of knowledge. Even now also, this language is the only medium of communication among different states of India as well as outside India. Hence, English will naturally get the priority while making selection of the second language. Now the exploratory question is— what will be the aims of teaching second language and from which standard should it start? At the same time as English became a world language, the number of English speakers learning a second language dropped substantially. Even more disturbingly, English was blamed for the “death” of some minority languages, such as Gaelic and various Australian aboriginal languages. Various measures are needed to protect these smaller languages from disappearing.

This can be said without any hesitation that—the aims of learning a second language will not be as wide as mother language. That is because on one hand millions and millions of children do not have the capability and skill of learning a second language as their mother tongue, and on the other hand it is not needed either. There write, then we try to speak. Though we follow different modern process and method to read and write but the natural sequence and opportunity that the students avail in acquiring their mother tongue will not be observed in case of learning foreign language by innumerable students. That is why, in reality we see that at the first stage of learning English we cannot move a single step without the help of mother tongue. We are reminded of Tagore in this respect, —profound knowledge of Bengali would only be a great assistance in learning English. He used to think that, if writing in mother tongue becomes easy, ‘and then if, other language is acquired in due course, it will not be difficult to pen that down confidently. It is not necessary to prepare a covering carefully with the general English usages. Tagore has expressed in various contexts that learning of mother tongue comes first and then foreign language would be taught together with the assistance of mother language.

The English language seems set to dominate world communications for some time to come. Although dominance brings with it a degree of standardization, it is not the case that English is losing its variety, either within countries or across the globe. Current research suggests that, rather than dwindling, differences in vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation continue to allow people to express multiple identities. The fear of some linguists that mass communications would lead to the death of English dialects appears to be unfounded.