Learning In One’s Native Tongue Yields Better School Scores Than Learning In A Medium Language | Band 8 IELTS Essay Sample
Learning in one’s native tongue yields better school scores than learning in a medium language. Do you agree or disagree?
Here is a band 8 IELTS essay on this topic written by one of our students. Need help with IELTS writing? Get your IELTS essays, letters and reports corrected by me.
Band 8 IELTS essay sample
It is often argued by some that studying in a person’s mother tongue helps to score more marks than learning in a non-native language. I agree with this view to a great extent.
Everybody is proficient in their mother tongue and hence learning in it will enable students to grasp knowledge more easily. One of the main problems that students face when they learn in a foreign language is that their lack of proficiency in that language often hurts their ability to grasp information. This can hurt not only their score but also their knowledge. For example, many students in India now go to English medium schools where they learn subjects in the English language. Needless to say, children often complain about their inability to understand what is taught in English. In addition, communicating in the native language makes the classroom more interactive.
On the other hand, if students in their mother tongue at school, they may face problems at university where courses are usually taught in a foreign language like English. Scores are important but they are not the only thing that matters in life. Even if universities are willing to teach subjects in the mother tongue, learning professional courses in local languages probably is not a good idea because it will put one in too much difficulty when one has to communicate with professionals in other countries. For example, if medicine is taught in Tamil, a doctor from Tamil Nadu will have a tough time following the latest developments in medicine simply because s/he does not understand the medical terms in English. Another downside is that much of the scientific research is in English and no one has bothered to translate the whole of it to regional languages. This will also put a learner in difficulty if they insist that they will only learn in their mother tongue. In my opinion, it is all right to learn history or politics in one’s mother tongue, but it is always better to learn science subjects in English. Of course, teachers can explain things in the native tongue, but the textbook should be in a global language like English.
To recapitulate, learning in one’s own language will certainly help students to score more marks; however, this can lead to problems later on especially if scientific subjects are taught in the mother tongue.
