Comments on: English Medium Education Can Lead to Poorer English http://6ampacific.com/2010/01/09/english-medium-education-can-lead-to-poorer-english/ Basab Pradhan's weblog about business and life in a 'flat world'. 6 AM Pacific is the best time for a global conference call. Tue, 27 Jul 2010 19:39:26 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 By: Swapnil Pundle http://6ampacific.com/2010/01/09/english-medium-education-can-lead-to-poorer-english/comment-page-1/#comment-16679 Swapnil Pundle Thu, 14 Jan 2010 15:05:31 +0000 http://6ampacific.com/?p=648#comment-16679 I think you have a point. Being exposed to multiple languages early in life does make you a "Jack of many languages but master of none". On one hand you lose out on what can be called advanced language skills while on the other hand working knowledge of multiple languages is a great advantage in a place like India. Allows you connect well with people from different regions. This can help in many ways right from making girlfriends to closing business deals. Take your pick girlfriends, business deals or great language skills!! I think you have a point. Being exposed to multiple languages early in life does make you a "Jack of many languages but master of none".

On one hand you lose out on what can be called advanced language skills while on the other hand working knowledge of multiple languages is a great advantage in a place like India. Allows you connect well with people from different regions. This can help in many ways right from making girlfriends to closing business deals.

Take your pick girlfriends, business deals or great language skills!!

]]> By: Krishna http://6ampacific.com/2010/01/09/english-medium-education-can-lead-to-poorer-english/comment-page-1/#comment-16648 Krishna Sun, 10 Jan 2010 08:51:55 +0000 http://6ampacific.com/?p=648#comment-16648 I think the correlation is grotesque. Better educational outcome is not the reason why people pick up language skills. I think it mostly is because it enables facile communication and ease of access to voluminous material published in that language, that may not be available in L1. By that count, a fair bit of grasp over a L2 that is good enough to glean vital info on a subject from material that is available in L2, acquiring L2 skills indeed helps one to further academic pursuits as well. The attribute of losing out to L2 over L1 is more because as they learn L2, they read less of material published in L1. Hence the culprit is lessened reading of L1 and not learning L2. Now it will never give you a "mastery" (in the true sense of the word) in L2 because human nature is always to think in mother tongue and speak / write in L2 - and the American scores here because he doesn't have to face that dichotomy and hence loses nothing in instant translation. I think the correlation is grotesque. Better educational outcome is not the reason why people pick up language skills. I think it mostly is because it enables facile communication and ease of access to voluminous material published in that language, that may not be available in L1. By that count, a fair bit of grasp over a L2 that is good enough to glean vital info on a subject from material that is available in L2, acquiring L2 skills indeed helps one to further academic pursuits as well. The attribute of losing out to L2 over L1 is more because as they learn L2, they read less of material published in L1. Hence the culprit is lessened reading of L1 and not learning L2. Now it will never give you a "mastery" (in the true sense of the word) in L2 because human nature is always to think in mother tongue and speak / write in L2 – and the American scores here because he doesn't have to face that dichotomy and hence loses nothing in instant translation.

]]>