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Indians beat English at their language MUMBAI: Its long been known that Indian students outperform their global counterparts in science and math. But heres a stunning finding: even students whose mother tongue is an Indian language fare better in the Test of English as a Foreign Language (Toefl) than those whose native language is English. Thats according to a recent analysis by Educational Testing Service, or ETS, which conducts Toefl. British students applying to American universities are required to take the test too. True, Toefl is typically taken by middle-class and higher-income group students. Still, it shows Konkanis and Malayalis from around the world are much better at reading, speaking and writing English than native English speakers. Linguist Peggy Mohan explained how Indians have improved at English by drawing a distinction between bilingualism and diglossia. While the former is merely a duplication of thoughts in two languages, the latter is about one language slowly gaining more power over the other. An English-speaking Indian has native-like intuition in English, unlike a Chinese for whom English is assembled by a more academic thought process. For an Indian, English is more like an adjunct native language. We do some of our thinking in our Indian language and other things in English - that is, we have a native competence that spans two or more languages. No wonder we do so well in Toefl. Toefls internet-based test was launched in September 2005-06 and since then, while Gujaratis have bettered their average mean score from 78 to 84, most others have slid down the charts. Those speaking Hindi registered 96 then, Kannadigas had scored 97 and Maharashtrians bagged 97. Back |
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