ABSTRACT
This chapter highlights how the tribal linguistic knowledge base available with a mixed group, first-generation tribal learners of English was used as an educational strategy to introduce English to the students. It was a mixed group comprising mainly of children speaking local tribal languages like Kurukh, Munda and Sadri. Some students had some knowledge of the state language Odia and very few students had any knowledge of the national language Hindi. The idea was to build the English vocabulary of the students using the available knowledge base of various languages. Five hundred words were selected in English and a picture-wordlist using all the six languages (English, Hindi, Odia, Sadri, Kurukh and Munda) was prepared. It was intended as a teaching aid for the teachers as they were all non-tribals without any understating of the tribal languages. The methodology adopted for this study is totally different from what is followed in English medium schools, where the stress is on the use of only English. It aimed at making use of “additive-multilingualism” as a strategy towards preventing the well-intended state supported English medium educational scheme for poor tribal children from becoming a model for submersion education.
