Bilingual English teaching in colonial India: the case of John Murdoch’s work in Madras Presidency, 1855–1875

Abstract

There is a prevalent conception about colonial Indian educationin the absence of much empirical research into specific contextsthat it was carried out only in English with the aim of anglicising the masses. While it is true that there were colonial motives of acculturation embedded in English language teaching and English-medium instruction, the idea that English language learning was exclusively monolingual is historically inaccurate. Indeed, the survival of bilingual teaching materials prepared in the nineteenth century for use in colonial schools suggests that, outside elite English-medium instruction, the use of Indian languages was common in English teaching. To explore this possibility further, this article focuses on the work and ideas of a prominent colonial educationalist, John Murdoch (1818-1904), with a focus on the schoolbooks he was associated with and on his recommendations for bilingual English teaching in the colonial schools of Madras Presidency. Murdoch's ideas on the use of local languages in teaching reveal complexities and intricacies which have been underexplored in previous histories of colonial Indian education.

Languages for learning: a framework for implementing India’s multilingual language-in-education policy

“…Please refer to published article for page references: https://doi.org/10.1080/14664208.2022.2037292 10 as media of instruction (Zastoupil & Moir, 1999). Much before Macaulay presented his Minute, in the early 19th century, multiple languages were reported as being used as media of instruction in Indian classrooms (Hunter et al, 1890;Vennela & Smith, 2019).…”

Translation as pedagogy in colonial south India

“…While languages were not traditionally acquired through translation in south India, it became the dominant mechanism for language instruction, examination and systems of rewards from this period. There has been some recent scholarly interest in bilingual education introduced in the colonial period (Sridhar and Mishra 2017;Sengupta 2018;Vennela and Smith 2019) but none take the role of translation into account in their analyses.…”