Sixteenth International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities

Abstract

This study presents a brief analysis of the language of instruction situation in Pakistan from a historical perspective. Many educational policies prepared under different government regimes have tried to resolve the issue of medium of instruction at primary level to make the process of teaching and learning more effective. Pakistan is a country with more than 70 living languages and its government is confused in the selection of a single language as MI (medium of instruction) amongst English i.e. the international lingua franca, Urdu i.e. the national language and local languages. The aim of the paper is to shed light upon the controversy of MI from the pre-partition time (1835-1947) in order to understand the causes of disagreement on a single MI in education. The study also to explores possibilities and effectiveness of using English versus Urdu as a medium of instruction in the teaching of Mathematics in primary schools in Pakistan. A practical teaching experiment was conducted to compare the use of English as a medium of instruction with Urdu as medium of instruction in the teaching and learning of Mathematics to grade 4 class. Major findings of the research indicated that the use of Urdu as a medium of instruction in the teaching of Mathematics to primary school students is more reasonable and its use had a more positive impact upon learning Mathematics