Voluntary group to teach mother tongue to NRI Assamese children
RAJIV KONWAR
Guwahati, Nov. 27 : Xobdo, a non-profit voluntary organisation, is providing a unique opportunity to children of NRIs hailing from Assam — a chance to learn their mother tongue.
Come December, Xobdo will launch a unique project to teach Northeast languages online as well as through classroom teaching. Children in the age group of six to 10 years will be covered in the 15-week programme. While classroom teaching will be available in Abu Dhabi (United Arab Emirates), children of other countries will be taught through a distance education programme.
Xobdo, which literally means sound or word in Assamese, is a non-profit organisation comprising a group of volunteers based in different parts of the world, with the common interest of promoting languages of the Northeast in the cyber world. It has also been developing an online dictionary covering a host of Northeast languages from March 2006 that includes 31,079 Assamese words.
Speaking about the children of NRI Assamese families, an official of Xobdo said, “These children are usually educated in English. Now, with the help of basic English, we will teach them how to read and write Assamese,” said the official.
Prominent literary personalities and academicians of the state also welcomed the effort, saying it would help these children understand Assamese better.
Nagen Saikia, former president of the Asam Sahitya Sabha, welcomed the move and added that while teaching the children, all possible care should be taken to avoid any distortion of the language.
Littérateur Atulananda Goswami said the course content should be prepared carefully and in a way to attract students.
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