Role of Mother Tongue (L1) in Developing Mental Abilities of Junior College Students Studying in Science Faculty – A Comparative Study.

Abstract

The students' mental abilities depend on various factors—like hereditary, environment, physical, psychological, mother tongue (L1), etc. Language is very important for the comprehension of any subject matter. It is found that much of the learning and thinking of the subject matter makes use of language; hence it is the need to know the relevance of language in the course of teaching and learning. Researchers have observed that perception, memory, thinking, problem-solving, and mental processes are all intertwined with language in recent studies. All of these helps in understanding scientific concepts and principles in science. Since the child's mother tongue (L1) is well developed, it is easy to understand scientific concepts and principles in his mother tongue (L1). Similarly, education becomes more valuable when the intellectual capacities are open to receiving, acting, transferring, and integrating; thus, most research findings suggest that medium instruction must be the mother tongue (L1) in the classroom. Mental abilities are mostly related to the cognitive aspects of the learners; therefore, in this research, mental abilities are considered the achievements of students.