Role of Mother Tongue in

cognitive and intellectual

development

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 Done by: AYESHA

Bonafide Certificate
Certified to be the Bonafide record of work done by
Ayesha of class in the INDIAN COMMUNITY SCHOOL,
KUWAIT during the year 2022-23 dated

PGT in ENGLISH
THE INDIAN COMMUNITY SCHOOL, KUWAIT

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 SUBMITTED FOR ALL INDIA SENIOR SCHOOL CERTIFICATE
EXAMINATION IN ENGLISH AT THE INDIAN COMMUNITY SCHOOL,
KUWAIT

DATE:________________ EXAMINER

Index
Sl.no Topics Page no.

1 Action plan
4

2 introduction
5-6
3 Data collected
7-11
4 Project report
12-13
5 Student reflection
14

6 Positive Learning Experience

15

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7 Conclusion
16

8 bibliography
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Action plan

Goal Steps Time frame

1.read articles
Research 2.listen to podcasts
On topic 3.watch interviews
10/8/2022
4.case studies
-13/8/22
conducted

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 Record the data 1.brief
collected On the interviews,
case studies. 14/8/22-
2.jot down the 15/8/22
possible solutions for
issues of HWCs

Conclude 1.report on findings.

The data 2.reflection on 24/8/22
Collected project.

INTRODUCTION
THE AIM OF THIS PROJECT IS TO DEDUCE WHETHER OR
NOT MOTHER TONGUE PLAY A ROLE IN COGNITIVE AND
INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT
Our first language, the beautiful sounds of which one
hears and gets familiar while in the womb, has an
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important role in shaping our personality, thoughts,
and life. Language originates in a specific socio-cultural
milieu as the first identity marker. It plays a key role in
shaping the personality of an individual, his thought
processes and larger view of the life and world around.
The language we first learn is that used in the home.
Mother is the first to speak to the child and his/ her
interlocutor for most of the time. The language used by
her is the mother tongue. The term “Mother Tongue” is
the home language of a nation, and it reflects the
culture and identity of that nation. Importance of
mother tongue for initiation into formal education in
the context of increasing emphasis on knowledge in the
present competitive environment has gained
significance.UNESCO rightly says that language is more
than a means of communication; It is the very condition
of our humanity. Our beliefs, values and identity are
embedded in it. Language is the chief means and index
of a nation, said Swami Vivekananda. The importance
of mother tongue is studied because when children
develop their mother tongue, they are simultaneously
fostering a whole host of other essential skills, such as
critical thinking and literacy skills. The dominance of
non-mother tongue education in many developing
countries, a significant proportion of children enter

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school not speaking the language of the classroom.
Many educations systems favour using national or
‘global’ languages instead of Mothertongue teaching.
Education is often carried out in the old colonial
language, or an international language, such as English.
This is based on the belief that certain internationally
‘important’ languages give children a competitive
advantage in later life.
“If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that
goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language that
goes to his heart.”
-Nelson Mandela

Data collection report

The following data is from the interview with M.
Venkaiah Naidu where he talks about how Mother
tongue is critically important for cognitive,
psychological and personality development,
education, and learning. He states that his
campaign for preservation and promotion of

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mother languages is not based on emotions or
sentiments. There is a huge body of research
evidence warranting it, given its importance for
cognitive development, psychological and
personality development, education, and learning.
Hence, psychologists say it’s important that
expressions and vocabulary are chosen with care
when we talk to children.” Mr Naidu refers to
Professor of cognitive electrophysiology Alice
Mado Proverbio where he established how the
brain differently absorbs and recalls languages
learnt in early childhood and later life. Native
languages trigger a series of associations within
the brain that show up as increased electrical
activity.
Another observation that I would like to add to
this report would be of Mridul Ranjan Sahu were
he in interview with Financial express said
Students, particularly children, value their mother
tongue psychologically
Because it is simpler for a child to understand a
lesson in his or her mother tongue, using it as a
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teaching medium improves cognitive ability. As a
result, learning progresses more quickly.
Additionally, he also takes the example of China
and states that their initiative to prioritise their
native language for education shows the strength
of a nation towards its development. In a vast
country like that of China or our subcontinent,
India, education in the native or local language is
beneficial to reach the masses and shows
inclusivity and diversity.
The videos that I watched for this project include
that by Salman Asif Siddiqui (who is an
educational psychologist) where he states that
when a person thinks / uses his/her own native
language s/he thinks bigger, greater, better and in
depth, understand better. And that we are creating
an intellectually handicap generation by restricting
the use of mother and going with the flow of
encouraging the learning and use of international
language resulting in scarcity of creativity, ideas
etc.

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Next entry that I would like to add is that of
Researchers from McGill University and the
Montreal Neurological Institute who carried out
an experiment on three groups of children aged
between 10 and 17 with varying linguistic
backgrounds.
One group was made up of born-and-raised
monolingual French-speakers.
Children in the second group were bilingual in
French and Chinese, while the third group
comprised Chinese children who had been
adopted by French families before they had turned
three and had not spoken Chinese since. All the
subjects were asked to perform the identical task
of identifying French-sounding words that did not
actually mean anything, such as 'vapagne' or
'chansette.'
During the test, the researchers used functional
magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to monitor
which areas of their brains were involved.

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Monolingual French-speakers only used - two
areas thought to be involved with processing
language-associated sounds.
But the subjects of the other two groups - the
French Chinese bilingual children and the adopted
children who had been exposed to Chinese as
infants - activated other sections of the brain
The adopted children we tested have an
interesting background because they were
exposed to one language from birth, but
completely discontinued that language at a young
age when they were adopted into families who
speak a different language,' said author Lara
Pierce, a doctoral student at McGill.
'This is very interesting from a language
development perspective because it allows us to
look at the influence of just that very early period
of language development on later language
processing, separately from the effects of ongoing
exposure to one or more languages.'

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 Project Report
When we speak in first language, a direct
connection is established between the heart,
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brain, and tongue. Which is nothing but truth
indeed It aids in the development of perspective
since language and cognition are so intimately
connected, and it is impossible to think without
knowing how to communicate. The importance of
mother tongue education is a matter of cognitive
development. To achieve literacy, students must
understand the words that they are being asked to
read and write. In a classroom where students are
asked to learn to read at the same time as they are
asked to learn a new language, they face the
immense challenge of associating written
representations of letters with words that they do
not yet associate with any real meaning.
UNESCO has found that students express
themselves with a greater degree of confidence
and creativity when their mother tongues are
recognized as a legitimate means of
communication in the classroom. As a result,
students emerge from school much more likely to
establish themselves as both leaders in their own
community as well as their country at large. They

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are even more likely to achieve a higher level of
socioeconomic status than their peers educated in
submersion programs, all without being asked to
reject or set aside the cultural identities of their
families or home. Using mother tongue helps a
child develop their critical thinking and increases
their thinking capacity, creativity , imagination etc.
cognitive development as well as intellectual
improvement is relatively faster in those who are
fluent in their mother tongue. It has also been
noted that if a student is educated in his/her
mother tongue, the proportion of his or her
educational achievement is greater than someone
who is taught in a different medium other than
their mother tongue. The first language we learn
will always influence how we process sounds.Even
'forgotten' languages keep playing a role in how a
person speaks.c anadian researchers have
discovered that being exposed to a language early
in life influences how an person's brain deals with
another language many years later.

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 Student Reflection
What I gathered after collecting information is that
mother tongue is essential for learning as a part of
intellectual ability. It is the language
human beings acquire from birth that helps the
child in his/her mental, moral, and emotional
development. Helps give a definite shape to our
feelings and thoughts. Learning the mother
tongue is also crucial for improving other critical
thinking skills, second language learning, help us
to think about mental abilities, behaviour's and is
the building block for all higher cognitive
processes including steer attention,
memorization, recall categorization, , concrete
reasoning and self-reflection.
Our mother tongue is the language we use to
think, dream, and feel emotions

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 Conclusion
This project was indeed a pretty
challenging one to do due to the
scarce information but one that was
very interesting to do. This topic stood
out to me being unique among others
and something that reminded me of
how I learnt my mother tongue and
how I can understand and explain
much better in my mother tongue
than English. I would like to thank my
parents without whose help this project
would not have seen the light of day.

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 Bibliography

• https://www.dailymail.co.uk/
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPhoEEh
NISI
• https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/
• https://www.parentcircle.com/
• https://www.semanticscholar.org/

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