The Hindu : Karnataka News : Learning Kannada by the bagful

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jul 04, 2007
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Karnataka

Karnataka

Learning Kannada by the bagful

Bageshree S.

Chili Pili Cheela hopes to ensure better access to reading material

LEARNING CARD: This was the result of a survey in 18 schools.

Bangalore: If a community’s concern for language is best reflected in the way it is taught in schools, the Kannada learning scene is not a positive one. Scientifically designed supplementary Kannada reading material for children is scarce, particularly in rural areas.

Chili Pili Cheela is an unusual project that hopes to fill this gap by ensuring better access to reading material and making the process of Kannada learning creative, enjoyable and informal. It is visualised by the Language Development Programme team from

The Promise Foundation and National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS) as part of the District Quality Education Programme in Chamarajnagar district. It is the latest component of a larger language project called Kannada Kalika Kosha.

The team has developed “cheela”s (bags) of 100 colourful language cards each for classes III, IV and V that are graded to span reading levels typically expected in a class. Each card has text on the one side and a series of activities connected to that on the other.

While the text uses a variety of genres such as poems, essays, comic strips and short stories, the activities range from painting to play-acting. A “cheela” is treated as the library of the classroom and each child or groups of children pick up cards of their choice and work with them. Adult supervision is kept to the minimum.

The idea of learning cards was the result of a survey in 18 schools in Chamarajnagar district which revealed that most government schoolchildren have no access to reading material beyond textbooks. Only five out of 100 children surveyed said that they read story books.

“The crisis of Kannada-medium children is having nothing to read,” says project coordinator Sonali Nag. With reading reduced to a mechanical activity in classrooms, there is also the “crisis of reading comprehension” where children do not necessarily understand what they read.

As Ms. Nag puts it, an important criterion for designing the cards was “pedagogy with pleasure” with a scientific understanding of learning levels but meant to make learning an enjoyable activity which is not tested through an examination. “It is not an evaluation tool, it is a stimulation kit,” says Ms. Nag.

More importantly the material fights the common propensity to moralise when children are the target readers. “Adults constantly want to look over the child’s shoulder to ensure that something more than fun is happening,” says Ms. Nag. An equally stubborn adult mindset that had to be fought was the belief that children cannot handle complex texts which are not taught but expect a child to deduce and interpret. “Children are often not factored in as complex thinkers while designing reading material in Kannada,” adds Ms. Nag.

The enthusiasm shown by children of 28 schools in Chamarajnagar district, who are using this material in the year-long pilot study, has been encouraging, particularly children from tribal communities in Ashram Shala schools run by the Tribal Welfare Department. What, perhaps, makes the material particularly appealing is the fact that it uses elements familiar to them such as local stories, situations, flora and fauna.

Ms. Nag says that even as the material is localised, it provides a prototype that can be replicated in other districts by making a few changes to reflect the native vocabulary and culture.

She hopes that Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, which has supported the project in the State, will take the idea to other regions.

The package is being formally launched on July 9 at NIAS by K. Kasturi Rangan, NIAS director.

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