Raju , a 6 year old boy, looks intensely at a picture of an elephant shown to him by his teacher.
“What is this picture?”, asks the teacher in Kannada.
“Aane” (elephant), responds Raju, a native speaker of Kannada.
The teacher looks puzzled for a minute when she realizes that he is right; but the word “aane” doesn’t fit into the sequence of letters she
is supposed to be teaching!
“Yes, you’re right”, she says, “but there is another word for it – Salaga (tusker). What is the word?”
Raju does not respond.
“Salaga”, emphasizes the teacher, making Raju repeat it after her, before moving on to the next picture. After going over three more
pictures, the teacher returns to the first card.
“What is this?”, she asks.
“Aane” (elephant), says Raju.
“Yes, correct, but remember I taught you another word – Salaga – for it? Say Salaga.”
Raju repeats obediently.
Three more picture cards later, Raju sticks to “aane” when prompted.
The teacher is getting increasingly impatient.
In the final round of questioning, Raju responds to the picture card with, “I don’t know.”
2 Vignette drawn from field work done on the LiRIL project, Feb 201
