Multilingual to Bilingual Practice in School contexts: A Study of Teachers’ Language Ideologies in Madhesh Province of Terai Region in Nepal

This paper explores language policy awareness and language practices in schools in Madhesh Province of the Terai region of Nepal, drawing on the perspectives of teachers working at basic and secondary level schools. In this mixed methods study, the data were collected through survey questionnaire, key informant interview (KII) and classroom observations. Based on the language management perspectives, teachers’ ideologies, beliefs and actual classroom-level practices were explored while analyzing the multimodal data. The findings reveal that multilingual landscape of the Terai-Madhesh region has gradually shifted towards English-Nepali bilingual practice, revealing an increasing orientation of multilingual speakers towards bi/monolingualism. While the community contexts of the districts within Madhesh is largely multilingual as many speakers are fluent in the languages such as Maithili, Bhojpuri, Tharu and Bajjika, the schooling system largely undermines these languages as potential resources for promoting students’ learning. This practice has crucial implications for current and future language policies in education in Nepal.