A somewhat skeptical essay on teaching/learning a language other than the “mother tongue”: conundrums and practical challenges under the lenses of multilingualism

The idea of teaching/learning additional languages is a highly context-sensitive one, if only because it hinges crucially on what constitutes one’s ‘mother tongue’. The idea of mother tongue may seem too obvious to need any further comment; but in societally multilingual settings, it is far too slippery to be of any use as a theoretical term. In such societies, which routinely use more than one language for their day-to-day transactions, ordinal ranking of the languages involved as first (mother tongue?), second and so forth is often anybody’s guess. The issue is further complicated by the practice of translanguaging, which is becoming more and more common and whose full implications we are only just beginning to get to grips with (MAKONI; PENNYCOOK, 2007; OTHEGUY et.al., 2015; RAJAGOPALAN, 2022). On the other hand, the topic at hand is a hot one in many supposedly monolingual situations where decisions made to introduce additional languages bring with them all sorts of major policy implications and pedagogical challenges, over and above the highly sensitive popular reactions and long-standing prejudices that they often ignite. I shall try to focus on these political sensitivities relating to the topic, seeking to drive home the point that those in charge of overseeing these acts of important educational decision-making should be guided by long-ranging consequences for the collectivity as a whole, rather than that of meeting local or passing aspirations of certain sectors of the population, no matter how sensible they might seem at first glimpse. Needless to say, such discussions will have a direct bearing on what happens in the classroom, which is where these policies are put to the ultimate test as to their viability and their capacity to bear fruit.