C. PROMOTION OF OTHER MODERN INDIAN LANGUAGES AND ENGLISH

7.28. Assistance to Voluntary Organisations for the Promotion of Indian Languages: The scheme provides grants to voluntary organisations for bringing out Publications like encyclopaedia, bilingual dictionaries, books of knowledge, catalogues of manuscripts, books of cultural, literary, Indological, linguistic and, scientific interest, for holding literacy conferences, seminars, exhibitions and for teaching Indian languages in the regions where they are not the regional or official languages. Grants are given covering proportions of costs varying from item to item, but no item-wise annual target is fixed for a particular year. Requests are processed and grants sanctioned during the course

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of the year as and when they are received. Grants are generally of a non-recurring nature. However, an over-all financial provision of Rs. 5.00 lakh per annum has been ear-marked for the scheme as a whole. In 1969-70, grants amounting to Rs. 4.08 lakh were sanctioned to various organisations for purposes like publication of suitable books, purchase of books including remuneration to experts, teaching of languages, conferences and conventions, dictionaries and encyclopaedia. During 1970-71, grants sanctioned under the scheme were of the order of Rs. 3,02,000.

7.29. The Central Institute of Indian Languages, Mysore (CIIL): The Institute was established in July, 1969 with a view to assisting and coordinating the development of Indian languages, to bring about their essential unity through scientific study and inter-linguistic research and to promote the mutual enrichment of the languages and thus contribute towards the emotional integration of the people of India. The, functions of the Institute, among others, comprise coordinating the work of various institutes, organisations, bodies, etc., engaged in language development and linguistics, in the country; serving as a clearing house of information on Indian languages; promoting the development of the former languages and those of scheduled tribes, Sindhi and Urdu; formulating and executing important co-operative projects to highlight the inherent unity among the Indian languages; developing methods, material and aids for teaching Indian languages and conducting language courses; and developing suitable translation techniques and conducting courses for translators. Among the activities undertaken during the period, the following deserve mention:

(a) Publication of the Bulletin: To highlight the activities of the Institute and to disseminate. information on various matters concerning linguistic research and language planning, the Institute began publication of the bulletin "VARTAVAHA" in December, 1969. With this bulletin, the Institute has been able to establish contacts with various national and international. agencies in the fields of language study and linguistics.

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(b) Conference on Dictionary-making: The Institute took the initiative in convening a Conference on Dictionary-making in Indian Languages. This conference, the first of its kind in India, was held in Mysore on March 25-28, 1970 and was attended by well-known lexicographers and scholars from all over India.

(c) Summer School of Linguistics: The Institute, in collaboration with the University of Mysore and the Linguistic Society of India, organised the Summer School of Linguistics in Mysore. The main advantage, consisted in providing training to the staff of the Institute and the Regional Centres, particularly covering courses in language teaching useful for the language teachers and field methods and tone languages, useful for the study of tribal and border languages. On this occasion, a seminar on 'India as a Linguistic Area, dealing with the regional universals of Indian languages, was conducted. Eight papers were presented by the Institute staff and these are being published in the Souvenir Volume of the Summer School.

(d) Project on the Study Skills for College Entrants in Kannada: To help students opting for instruction in regional languages, a project entitled 'Developmental Project in Study Skills for College Entrants with respect to Kannada' was taken up, based on the. assumption that there is a gap between the language achievement at the end of the school stage and the language competence required at the college stage. It is proposed to bridge this gap by a special intensive skill-oriented course of approximately 100 hours duration designed to improve language competence. The work on this project is nearing completion. About 900 students from the three universities in Mysore took a pre- test prior to the administration of the bridge course in various

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colleges to approximately 300 students. A post- test will be given to all the 900 students at the end of the course. The results will be analysed for improving the course. On the completion of the Kannada bridge course, it is proposed to take up a similar project in another Indian language.

(e) Establishment of Field Stations: An important programme is to survey and make a linguistic study of the border and tribal languages of India. Accordingly, a three-man team was deputed to survey the areas of Assam, Manipur, Tripura, Nagaland and Meghalaya. Based on the reports of this survey team, the first batch of six scholars was deputed to the eastern sector to study the languages of Meithai (Manipuri), Tripuri, Ao, Angami and Thadou. In addition, a socio-linguistic survey of Nagaland with special reference to the problem of inter- tribal communication is being conducted.

In Ladakh, a four-man preliminary survey team conducted a similar survey. It has been decided to take up the languages of Ladakhi, Shina, Doshkhat and Balti for detailed linguistic analysis. A team of scholars will be sent in July, 1971 when weather conditions are favourable.

(f) Project on Bilingualism: The project on bilingualism was taken up in August, 1970 to study the various varieties of Hindi spoken and/or written by nonnative speakers of Hindi (Kannada, Telugu, Tamil and Malayalam speakers to begin with) and thus to test the hypothesis of the existence of a Pan-Indian Hindi, different from standard Hindi. This will help understand the magnitude of linguistic and extra-linguistic factors such as cultural patterns and social settings and will enable the Institute to prepare pan-Indian basic Hindi texts, vocabulary and grammar.

(g) Nepali-Hindi, Hindi-Nepali, Napali-Bengali, Bengali-Nepali Dictionary Project: Preliminary and ex-

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ploratory steps to undertake this project, in col- laboration with the Government of Nepal have already been taken. Efforts are afoot to get scholars to work on the project sponsored by the Tribhuvan University and the Education Ministry of Nepal.

(h) Development of Language and Linguistics Study and Research: During the year two meetings were held, one at New Delhi on July 13, 1970 and the other at Mysore on July 20, 1970. Problems on the other development of linguistic studies in India were discussed. The representatives of the American Association for Asian Studies discussed the best possible manner in which American universities could collaborate, with Indian universities and institutions interested in the study of languages and linguistics. The meetings were attended by representatives of the Departments of Linguistics and of various government agencies such as the Anthropological Survey of India, etc. A number of suggesetions for the improvement of linguistic study and research in India were put forward at these meetings.

(i) Other Projects: Among the other projects, either already completed or to be taken up shortly, mention may be made of (a) a Psycholinguistic unit to start some fundamental base-line work in relations to language development, language teaching and language evaluation techniques; (b) a Folklore Research Unit to co-ordinate and implement the research work done in India on the cultural aspects of language phenomenon; (c) a Reading Project to develop more efficient reading skills in the country; (d) a Conference on Mother-tongue Teaching to discuss various problems connected with the teaching of mother tongue at different stages of education, to suggest ways and means of improving mother-tongue teaching and to suggest suitable research projects to be undertaken on a priority basis; (e) a

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Conference of Directors and Heads of Tribal Re- search Bureaux and Institutes to co-ordinate the activities of all independent and government- sponsored agencies working in this field and to or- ganise a more systematic and scientific study of tribal languages with a view to producing textbooks and reading materials in tribal languages.

7.30. Regional Language Centres: Under the administrative control of the CIIL, Mysore, the four Regional Language Centres at Mysore, Bhubaneswar, Poona and Patiala were established during the year to provide intensive training in Indian languages for a period of ten months to secondary teachers deputed by State Governments. Set up with the main objective of providing incentive to all states, including Hindi-speaking ones, to implement the 3-language formula on an even basis, the centres constitute a significant development in Indian education inasmuch as they are designed to introduce the concept of 2-language teachers in all schools. The languages taught at each of these are:

(1) Mysore Centre: Kannada, Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam

(2) Bhubaneswar Centre: Bengali, Oriya and Assamese

(3) Poona Centre: Marathi, Sindhi and Gujarati

(4) Patiala Centre: Punjabi, Urdu and Kashmiri

The number of teacher-trainees deputed by the States is: (i) Andhra Pradesh 1; (ii) Chandigarh (Admn.) 3; (iii) Haryana 32; (iv) Kerala 13; (v) Maharashtra 7; (vi) Mysore 3; (vii) Orissa 12; (viii) Rajasthan 17; and (ix) Uttar Pradesh 2. Their language-wise distribution is as under:

(1) Mysore Centre: Kannada 8; Malayalam 10; Tamil 10; Telugu 36.

(2) Bhubaneswar Centre: Assamese 6; Bengali 15; Oriya 1.

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(3) Poona Centre: Marathi 3.

(4) Patiala Centre: Urdu 1.

It would appear that the response, in the first year of their func- tioning, from the states has been rather poor. This is in spite of the fact that the Government of India bear the entire salary of the teachers deputed to the centres by the states during their training period. To remedy the situation, a conference of D.P.I.'s/D.E.'s of all State/Union territories was held by the CIIL at Mysore on February, 1-2, 1971. It is hoped that the, situation will improve considerably from the next session Besides following the training programmes, each of the centres has produced during the year quite a few teaching materials like phonetic readers, recall vocabularies, bilingual common vocabularies, courses and course lessons in the languages concerned During 1971-72 it is proposed to complete the first drafts of basic, intermediate and advanced-level courses in most of the major Indian languages. In addition, the Regional Centres will take up the work of (i) revision of basic teaching materials prepared during the previous year; (ii) preparation of laboratory lessons for basic, intermediate and advanced courses; and (iii) preparation of teaching materials to be used by the teacher-trainees when they start teaching the language in their schools.

7.31. Central Institute of English, Hyderabad: The Institute, an autonomous body managed by a governing board of 14 members, set up by the Union Ministry of Education in 1958, completed its 11 years of useful service in the cause of education in the country during the year. The Institute has been making every effort to improve the standards of teaching English in the country, both through organisation of research in this field and specialised training of teachers in modern scientific methods of language teaching based on linguistic research and experiment in the classroom. It has given, this specialised training to about 1300 teachers ;and teacher-trainers from all over India; it has carried out some significant research in applied linguistics and published its findings through its research bulletins and

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monographs; it has produced teaching materials for schools and colleges, and organised radio lessons in English for secondary schools; it has encouraged the establishment of State and Regional English Language Teaching Institutes And provided them assistance for their development; it has, through its extension services, helped institutions all over the country in the organisation of special courses and research and training programmes. It has thus been making a pioneering effort for the needed reform in the field of English teaching and now it has succeeded in convincing university departments of English which are the major source for English teachers, of the need for changes in their syllabuses and methods of teaching. Am outline of its significant activities during the year is given below:

(a) Academic Programme: Three postgraduate courses are offered by the Institute, viz., (i) postgraduate certificate in the teaching of English (July to October); (ii) postgraduate diploma in the teaching of English (July to March); and (iii) postgraduate diploma in English studies (July to March). The total number of places available for these courses is 60. Teachers in service are paid a stipend of Rs. 150 p.m. by the Institute. A few non-stipendiary are also admitted and merit scholarships of the value of Rs. 150 p.m. are available for five deserving participants. The UGC has decided to award six fellowships of Rs. 300 p.m. to the 'outstanding' participants of the UGC Summer Institutes in English Language, 1969 and 1970, to enable them to join the diploma course at the CIE. Twelve teachers have been selected for the award of UGC fellowship this year. The Institute organised a four-week intensive course in linguistics and phonetics for university and college teachers in June 1970. 37 lecturers from universities and colleges from all over India attended it, besides 8 teachers, from English- medium schools and teacher training institutions

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(b) Research Projects and Research Diploma Course: The Institute runs a one-year research diploma course for advanced training and research in English language and English language teaching. Eight research fellowships of Rs. 500 p.m. are awarded every Year. Research at the Institute is carried on by members of the staff and the research fellows. Among the important projects carried out, mention may be made of: (i) a preparatory general English course for colleges: physical sciences/social sciences; (ii) the phonology of general Indian English; (iii) the bilingual method; (iv) contrastive linguistic studies: Hindi-English (phonology and grammar), Telugu-English (grammar), Tamil-English (phonology ), Kannada-English (grammar), and Punjabi-English (grammar); (v) a course in pronunciation for use in the language laboratory; and (vi) syllabus reform at different levels.

(c) Materials Production: The Department ofMaterials Production has been engaged in the preparation of two series of textbooks-General Series for Classes VI to XI and Special Series for Classes III to XI. During the first phase of the programme that ended by April 1969, 13 books were finalised for the press and sent to the NCERT for publication. At the instance of the NCERT, a special two-year project for the preparation of programmed materials in English for Tamil and Hindi speakers was undertaken on October 10, 1969 and has been in progress.

(d) Extension, Services: The Extension Services Department, besides continuing its follow-up activities, helps in the organisation of seminars and conferences. Four seminars/conferences were held in February, 1970. To mark the completion of ten years of its existence the Institute held its Decennial