BeLiFS Becoming Literate in Faith Settings Centre for Language, Culture and Learning Educational Studies Department Goldsmiths University of London Childrens.

BeLiFS Becoming Literate in Faith Settings

Centre for Language, Culture and Learning

Educational Studies DepartmentGoldsmiths

University of London

Children’s multilingualism and literacy learning in a Tamil Hindu Temple

Mrs. Arani [email protected]

04/09/2010SS18

About BeLiFS

Becoming literate in faith settings: Language and literacy learning in the lives of new Londoners (BeLiFS) is a research project funded by the

ESRC.

This is a 3-year team ethnography project on four faith groups:

Ghanaian Pentecostals

Polish Catholics

Bangladeshi Muslims

Sri Lankan Hindus

BeLiFS Research questions

What is the scope and nature of literacy practices in each faith setting?

How do teaching and learning take place during faith literacy activities across different settings?

In what ways have faith literacy activities changed over time and in the London setting and how are these changes perceived across generations?

How does participation in faith literacies contribute

to multilingual identities?

Research questions

1. What kind of linguistic (Tamil, Sanskrit and English) and multimodal resources do participants (the priest, the children and their family members)

draw upon to construct social relations and different forms of knowledge in the context of the

Education Ceremony?

2. What kind of material and symbolic boarders do participants reproduce through the faith-based

literacy practices involved?

Theoretical framework

Socio-cultural approaches to language and literacy learning where apprentice members of

social/cultural groups are initiated by those who are more experienced into the relevant literacies and

language forms necessary for membership (Heath 1983; Barton & Hamilton 1998; Gregory & Williams

2000)

Vygotskian and neo-Vygotskian theories focusing on how children actually go about learning

(Wertsch 1985; Tharp and Gallimore 1988; Cole 1996; Rogoff 2003)

Methodology

Field narratives

Photographs

Audio recorded data

Video recorded data

Sri Lankan Tamil migration to the UKDriving forces of Tamil migration worldwide and in the

UK: education

civil war in Sri Lanka

Four main migration waves to the UK:1. 1940s

2. 1960s

3. 1980 - 1990s

4. 2000s (secondary migration from Europe)

Research Site: London Sri Murugan Temple

NavarathiriThe Nine Nights Festival

Goddess Saraswathi

Wisdom

Palm leaves symbolic of knowledge

Seated upon a white lotus flower

Veena, a musical instrument

Swan, her vehicle is the embodiment of discernment that is a valued quality in education

Eduththodakkam The Education Ceremony

The ceremony involving children and their initiation into literacy is called EDUTHTHODAKKAM in Tamil.

In the Temple the Priests conduct the ceremony and guide the child in tracing their first letter in rice.

It can also be done at home by parents, grandparents and teachers too.

Eduththodakkam The Education Ceremony

At London Sri Murugan Temple

Vijayadasami Eduththodakkam

Tray of fruit: bananas and oranges, incense sticks, a split coconut and leaves: namely of two varieties - Mango and Betal.

Tray of rice: white rice, red can also be used too

Vijayadasami Eduththodakkam

Vijayadasami Eduththodakkam

Vijayadasami Eduththodakkam

Vijayadasami Eduththodakkam

Vijayadasami Eduththodakkam

Languages Used in Ceremony

Sanskrit (liturgical language)Priests chanting prayers throughout all the religious services conducted in the Temple.

Tamil (community language) Priests communicate in Tamil to the devotees who also used Tamil to communicate amongst themselves. He asks them information and to perform actions in Tamil. Tamil hymns are also used in Temple prayers and are sung by devotees too.

English (majority language)One family requested that their child be initiated in the English alphabet too therefore the child also traced the letter ‘A’ in rice

Vijayadasami EduththodakkamWhat children come to see

Statue of Goddess Saraswathi central to the ceremony

Trays of rice and fruit in a neat row

Priests performing the ceremony using oil lamps, flowers, holy water and holy ash

Parents performing actions in prayer

Priests guiding their and other children’s hand through the tray of rice writing the first letter of the Tamil alphabet

Printed handout of the Tamil alphabet given to them by the priest

Vijayadasami EduththodakkamWhat children come to hear

Priests chanting in Sanskrit:‘OM Vaani Thunai’ OM Saraswathi’s blessing

‘Matha, Pitha, Guru, Theivam’ ‘Mother, Father, Teacher, God’

Devotional music played throughout the Temple

Conversations in Tamil where the child’s name and star sign is asked by the Priest

The reciting of the Tamil alphabet

What children come to learn

Beginning to understand the connection between the written letter and its accompanying sound

Repeating sounds of the Tamil alphabet

Tactile movements to the shapes of the letters

Hand and eye coordination

Listening to and following instructions by elders

Vijayadasami Eduththodakkam

Concluding thoughtsParticipants drew on a range of linguistic and multimodal resources to construct and represent knowledge which served to socialise children into Tamil language, literacy

and culture and Hindu faith

Participants had prescribed roles which were associated with different degrees of access to different forms of

knowledge (e.g. knowledge associated with the faith, the liturgical language, Tamil literacy and cultural practices)

Material borders: faith-based literacy practices travelled from the country of origin to the UK and how they opened up spaces for potential transformation in the local context

Symbolic borders: the child is initiated into Tamil literacy- the initiation functioned as “rite of passage” from non-literate

to becoming literate mediated by faith-based literacy practices

Thank You