English language teaching: an active pedagogy for learners whose mother tongue is not English

As more and more children enter schools from families in which English is not the language of the home, teachers face the daunting challenge of instructing children who have limited skills in the English Language. All teachers need to know something about how children learn a second language. Intuitive assumptions are often mistaken and children can be harmed if teachers have unrealistic expectations and an in accurate understanding of the process of second language learning and its relationship to acquiring other academic skills and knowledge. Educational disadvantage is rooted in the social and economic factors that characterize the communities and families in which children reside. In multilingual societies which are the norm in most regions of India, linguistic and cultural differences of minority groups are translated into a low level of power influencing academic achievement of minority children. And the school reflects this position when the minority children’s language is viewed as a restricted code.