CULP as a professional group research component is an integral part of all its interventions which helps to understand the ground reality of education and development in various socio-geographical situations, developing plans for new interventions, revising existing plans based on identified issues and new learning and sharing on larger platform for advocacy. Therefore, the staff members are encouraged to conduct both Action and Responsive researches to keep on improving various activities of the organization as well as addition to conventional body of knowledge.

Action Research Project

‘Transition from Home Language (Bagadi dialect) to School Language (Hindi) in small tribal schools’

This action research project is an integral part of Technical Support to TAD for teachers’ education and being piloted in 30 Maa-bari centres in three blocks of two districts[ Initially program was planned for 3 districts (Udaipur, Dungarpur and Banswada), after situational analysis dropped Udaipur district, restricted the intervention in wagdi speaking areas. but after situational analysis, it was found that children’s home language is wagdi-mewari mix in Udaipur district.] viz. Bagidora in Banswara district and Aspur and Sagwara in Dungarpur district since January 2017. The project intervention has been undertaken in collaboration with UNICEF, TAD and LLF (a Delhi-based NGO)

The project entails the following objectives

• To understand language teaching and use of home language of children during classroom transaction.
• To understand teachers understanding about language teaching and importance of home language of children in learning.
• To understand children exposure of Hindi when they enter in class 1 and what is the level of expression and listening comprehension of Hindi in class 1 to 3 children.
• To understand home environment of children in terms of print exposure and use of Hindi.
• To assess children’s learning level in Reading and writing of Hindi in class 1 to 3.

The pilot phase of the project intends to develop a strong language learning approach by using local dialect as first language in early grades classrooms, subsequently follow a systematic second language teaching pedagogy to help children to learn oral fluency / literacy in school language (Hindi) by the end of grade 3.

Under this project, instructional material in the form of story books, poem posters instructional material (cards, grids, workbooks), activity handbook, teacher guide book in children’s local language and Hindi. After tried out the material, teachers will start using the material in the centers.

After situational study, a 3-day workshop (16-18 Feb. 2017) with experts was organized at Udaipur for sharing key findings of the study, approaches to early language and literacy, with the reference of multi lingual education, and detail discussion on program design which can be used for material development and to implement in pilot centers.

Second 2-day consultation with Maabaari teachers was organized at Udaipur on 3-4th March 2017 and shared the key findings of study and project design for future intervention.

It was decided in the programme design for developing the following material by end of August 2017:

• 10 story books in wagdi and equivalent 10 books in Hindi
• Poem posters
• Activity booklet for teachers
• Teacher guide book along with Story and Hindi poem
• Workbooks for children
• Picture chart for oral language development
• Flash cards, grids.

The poems / rhymes and stories in Bagari language were collected from different sources and local people and teachers. For analyzing the collected material a 5-day workshop was organized with writers and language experts at Udaipur from 25 to 29th March 2017.

The bilingual teaching material is ready in draft form which is being tried-out in 30 experimental Maa-bari centres. The teachers of the centres (2 teachers in each centre) have been oriented for use of the draft material. The teachers of these centres are supported by 6 block level field facilitators; each of them is responsible for a cluster of five centres. These facilitators are being provided by mentoring support by one teacher educator and one linguistic expert.

A Case Study of Innovative Interventions

Recently, CULP has conducted a research study entitled ‘Contextualization of Primary Education in Small Remote Schools of Rajasthan’ (The Case of Feminist Pedagogy linked small schools with transition from home language to school language and multi-level non-graded education) The involvement of CULP had been in designing the research methodology, developing tools, collection of data and reporting writing (May to October 2016)

This case study has been published by Harvard University South Asia Institute and Tata Trusts and released on 22nd December 2016 at New Delhi. Three senior management officials joined the event, made presentation and participated in panel discussions.