Chapter 6.7 - Language of Teaching

Swami Vivekananda in his educational ideas has given due importance on the teaching language. It has been already seen that according to Vivekananda gathering information is in no way can be called education. The most important factor in education is to understand the ideas well. Language is the vehicle of ideas. He says that it is the ideas that are of prime importance, language comes after. Vivekananda feels that the greatness of a teacher consists in the simplicity of his language. Therefore according to Vivekananda while a teacher teaches something to his students he should use simple language. Simple language means the language which is understood by the student easily. And it is well-known fact that our respective mother-tongues are the simplest for us. Therefore Vivekananda preferred mother language for imparting knowledge. He says, “Every man is capable of receiving knowledge if it is imparted in his own language. A teacher who cannot convince others should weep on account of his own language, instead of crossing them and dooming them to live in ignorance, superstitions, setting up the plea that higher knowledge are not for them.”^[1] According to Vivekananda there cannot be any fitter language than our mother tongue. He says, “No artificial language can ever have that force, and that brevity and expressiveness, or admit of being given any turn you please, as that spoken language.” ^[2]