The Indian government has recently announced that engineering courses will commence in native Indian languages in a few universities.

In this thread, I will share a few ideas from my experience to teachers who will soon be teaching in Indian languages. https://www.msn.com/en-in/news/other/iits-nits-to-offer-engineering-courses-in-mother-tongue-iit-bhu-to-begin-with-hindi/ar-BB1bnRXL

The main problem with the new courses in Indian languages is that there are no pre-existing textbooks or course material. Some find this intimidating, like the writer in this nice thread below.

But I will argue that this can be done, and indeed is the right way to grow material. https://twitter.com/sirjambavan/status/1342855870447759369

Before I start, I have to make a few confessions. Like all Indians, I did my engineering degree in English. During my studies in India, I spent a semester in US at a top school. I later did doctoral research in France. After several research jobs, I am now a professor in Germany.

I had teaching experience in various countries, but none in Indian languages. However, I once did teach in an Indian language (Telugu) at the school level. I now teach in the German language. As a professor, I am pretty fresh. So my ideas should be taken with due skepticism.

I was never a student in German universities. I acquired my command on German primarily through my personal life. So I think my situation of teaching in German should be comparable to Professors in any university who never studied in Indian languages. It is tough but manageable.

Secondly, I teach several courses for which there still do not exist any German textbooks. So I build my course material primarily from English language sources (books, research articles, other online lectures etc.) This should be comparable to the situation in Indian languages.

But there are cases where Germany is not comparable with India, it makes my job easier.

1) The German university curriculum is very strong. Good textbooks exist for other related courses, though not for my course.

2) Research publications exist in German for various projects.

In the following, I will classify the degree of scientific culture in a language through 6 levels, starting with a trivial basic level. From my personal experience, I will give some tips on what helps in building teaching material at each level, and how to move forwards.

Level-0 वचन వాక్కు (speech): At this level, there is no written material in the language. An English textbook (or of another foreign language) is used, and even the lecture slides are in English. But the teacher and the students talk to each other in the native language.

This is already the case in several engineering colleges. The students mostly speak one language, and that is used in lectures, even though the textbooks and exams are all in English. In certain companies, this is also true, with people speaking to each other in Hindi, Tamil etc.

But this informal state of the language makes it ephemeral. Nothing is remembered or chronicled in the native language. Further, it is seen as an inferior and informal language, with ambitious people avoiding to speak the language and using full English for conveying seriousness.

It should be noted that even this most trivial and basic level-0 of speaking the language is also considered illegal and punishable in some places. Some schools in India notoriously punish students for talking in a non-English language, and sometimes impose fines and penalties.

So the first step in developing scientific culture in a native language is to get to level-0: to make it acceptable to speak the language for the students. Sometimes, the students may request to use a dictionary while taking the exam in English, which must be allowed.

In Germany, there are many universities where students have the right to demand the examination to be in German, even if the course material is in English. Especially in oral examinations, the professors will conduct the exam in English if it makes the student more comfortable.

In my experience, I have several times conducted an oral exam in German though I was teaching in English. Once I was teaching in German, but amongst my students was a gentleman from South America who asked if he can write the answers in English. I agreed. Such gestures will help.

It’s sad, but there are many places in India where students don’t even have that Level-0 comfort with their native language. So if it’s in your power to promote such basic level-0 acceptance of speaking in a language, please do. Use snippets of native language in conferences etc.

Level-1 पाठन పాఠనం (teaching): Here, there are no textbooks, but the teacher makes lecture slides in the native language. Sometimes, after translating technical terms, the corresponding English word or phrase is added in parentheses. The scientific vocabulary is still very raw.

At this level-1, there is a phenomenal development of scientific vocabulary that happens over a few semesters. The students already have their prior courses (or school education if they are freshers) in native language. So their minds adapt to this new vocabulary quickly.

I have given a few Masters courses at this level (neural networks, 3D computer vision), and a few lectures in a Bachelors course (fundamentals of multimedia), where no textbooks exist in German. I proceed by first making my lecture slides in English and then translating them.

Since I am not a native German speaker, I sometimes take the help of my wife to proofread my slides. My students also correct me if something can be expressed better. Another way to improve the breadth of scientific vocabulary is to integrate student presentations in the course.

My teaching style is that I make my courses very project oriented. A byproduct of each semester is that I gather a great cache of project reports, where I see new words, phrases or expressions for scientific and technical concepts. This will improve my lectures the next semester.

I hope that the IITs and the NITs make full use of this method in coining scientific terminology through the active participation of the students. I am amazed at how brilliantly my students translate rather new scientific concepts. English terms often also remain in use.

Level-2 ग्रन्थ గ్రంథం (books): The first scientific books to appear in a native language are usually not text books, but government funded scientific project reports. In Germany, the BMBF and other research agencies typically expect the project reports to be in German.

These project reports summarize research which is freshly published in international conferences and journals, into concise reports in the native language, typically with a scientific glossary. In my research experience, I have written such reports in both French and in German.

In fact, in France, it is obligatory for doctoral students to have a summary chapter in French, even though the dissertation is in English (as in my case). The native French students are arm-twisted further to write the dissertation in French, though they can get an exception.

Such rules don’t exist in Germany. The doctoral dissertations can be in German or in English. However, if the student is funded by a national research agency, he or she typically also has to contribute to project reports in German. It is not a fun job, but everyone does it.

In my experience, this task of writing project reports is shared by all lab members, with people with greater language skills doing a final pass on the text, sometimes rewriting entire sections. Project presentations are also in German. The reports can be downloaded by everyone.

The grant applications are not public, but there are also many grants where the text needs to be in German. All these activities are coordinated by the national research agencies, which will accumulate a valuable scientific corpus in German for new ideas and technical inventions.

As the native language technical literature in a scientific field grows, text books start appearing in the language. They are usually written by professors with a few years of experience teaching the course material, but sometimes also written by young researchers.

The scientific textbooks in the native language are considered as academic publications, which help in establishing the academic profile of a professor or researcher. So textbooks appear as a bottoms-up process, and not from a top-down dictate from the government.

We should understand that Indian language textbooks in novel scientific or engineering topics will take a few years to come. A few adventurers will publish first and inspire others. But what we need to do is to first set up the entire academic infrastructure. That will take time.

Level-3 विज्ञता విజ్ఞత (learned society): This is the level when a community of scholars and practitioners grows who have taught or been trained in native languages. In the academic circle, these communities will organize their own native language conferences and journals.

The greater impact of the learned society will be by people who reach out to the broader public: by newspaper articles, popular books, blogs, and various cultural artifacts. The societal discussion about ethical aspects of a technology will start happening in the native language.

In Germany, the book publishing industry is healthy and vigorous. The bookstores have primarily books in German, or translations in German, although a few foreign language books also exist. Two annual book fairs providing marketing opportunities for new books, or new commissions.

In Germany, the societal discussion on cutting edge technologies and scientific research is also primarily in German. For example, during this year’s Covid-19 crisis, several top scientists and medical practitioners engaged with the society through TV programs, podcasts etc.

This learned society unfortunately barely exists in India, even in the English language. This is shocking for a country with such a large technical manpower. The fundamental reason why science is divorced from society is the language barrier. It will take a long time to fix this.

In my courses, I encourage my students to write on ethical and societal aspects of technologies. For example, first year Bachelor students wrote reports on face recognition, bots on social media, alternative reality games and so on. Such material will augment societal discussion.

Level-4 सृजन సృజన (Creativity): When the society at large is informed with the scientific and technical knowledge in the native languages, then the creativity will percolate into artistic culture as well as industrial culture. People from different disciplines will come together.

In my field, which is artificial intelligence and virtual reality, industrial artifacts will be new machines, organizational improvements in factories, medical diagnostics etc. Similarly, new cultural artifacts will happen when novice artists can use the tools and collaborate.

India has been extraordinarily bad in promoting cross-discipline collaboration in academia. The collaboration between industry and academia is also very bad. An important reason is the language barrier. With native language education, these barriers can be broken from get go.

In my experience, I have students doing industrial projects at the local companies and then bringing the technical know-how across the places. I also try to collaborate with faculty from other disciplines, and other universities. There are also ideas to collaborate with schools.

In this internet era, it should be possible to collaborate across the geographic regions and across disciplines. The native language technical education in India must treat this as an important impact area, and build necessary infrastructure and support systems for this.

Level-5 प्रज्ञा ప్రజ్ఞ (wisdom): This is when a deeply imbibed scientific culture helps us pose new questions about ourselves, our role in this world, our future, our aspirations as society, our connections with nature.. Our value systems will be reshaped by this investigation.

The fact is this: nobody is prepared to have somebody else ask such questions on their behalf. These are connected to our religious, spiritual and even existential core.

The catch is this: if we don’t build a scientific culture, those questions will be answered by somebody else.

I am optimistic about India’s role in shaping the evolution of human society by asking & answering these questions. But I am 100% convinced that this will not happen until all the stages of the scientific culture are reached, in our own Indian languages. It will take a long time.

I am not sure if that will be achieved in our generation, or even several generations from now. I don’t know is we as humans will even survive until then. But is it worth trying? Absolutely. (End of the thread)