Our day with knowing the significance of L1- language one or mother language. I realize so many new things… It was not new to know that a child start listening from his mother’s womb, but yes, it was amazingly realized that he not just feel the emotion and hear us, she grasps our language too. The language we use to express ourselves and to make others understand.
The language which she listen & download in her brain. That is what we observed whenever we get a chance to read or hear anything we prefers Urdu as it’s my l1 (first language) – Being a teacher, I fully aware of a struggle of students for language and expressing themselves in their own language and in the language which they ought to speak at schools…
it’s not new for teachers, they fully understand it, that kids at schools (which are less supportive, not every school has same strategy) cannot go to the toilet easily, they skip the line and cannot able to express the need. Same goes to the famalies, they put their children in real struggle… struggle to speak in English.
Our schools charge high when they focus on English & called English medium school. It is because our society makes “English” a language of proud & *Urdu* a language of shame. There are 1/1000 place / school/ college / university / workplace who appreciate Urdu as a medium of conversation. To be honest, being a teacher, I have felt for fewer students. They learn English, Arabic speaking skills with ratta of selected lines.
This zabardasti Attitude towards languages, not just make our kids a slow learner, but they also make an impact on our roots… Our relation to our real roots are less and we are just floating here and there… Rootless, uncertain and speechless. I realized that we are gradually eliminated our رسم الخط Now I decided to purchase good books for improving my Urdu, to become rich in my language and in thought process…
As the more you know your first language, they more you able to think and reflect.
Fasiha khan.
