Issue 5: Increasing the Usage of Tamil by Students Outside Classroom
Issue 5: Increasing the Usage of Tamil by Students Outside Classroom
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Post-Panel Discussion
Recommendation 1: Re-Strategizing Tamil Language Campaigns for young adults
• Tamil Language Festival campaign done via TV and Media does not interest the Tamil youths much as they do not watch TV often. The campaign videos and collaterals can be made more attractive and youth centric. They can be made available on online platforms, such as YouTube or Netflix, which are readily accessible to Youths.
• Tamil language Council could organise a multi-faceted campaign that targets young couples and parents to increase Tamil language usage and to teach them strategies to effectively be bilingual in their families.
• This will be organised by parenting organisations in conjunction with Tamil language organisations. The parents will be engaged in discussions, workshops and seminars to teach them strategies. There can also be media tie-ups to complement the hands-on teaching.
• Media focused self-learning tools would be effective when targeting youths. For example an application that helps you learn the correct spelling of Tamil words etc.
• Some of these parenting workshops or seminars can have a nominal payment fee. They can be partly sponsored by the government or Tamil Indian organisations. Subsidies can be made available for young parents.
• Volunteering opportunities that target lower income families can be created for Tamil speaking youths and volunteers to encourage interactions in Tamil.
• The campaigns can encourage parents to borrow Tamil language books and read them as bed-time stories; play audio-video cassettes and Tamil language related videos on YouTube.
• The Tamil Language Festival can have more app developing competitions to encourage developers to create apps that aid with Tamil language learning especially for younger children.
• TV or Radio shows can have Tamil word play gameshows to raise interest.
• Celebrities that are role models can endorse these and have direct interactions to inspire more people to speak Tamil. Popular personalities will definitely have a bigger impact on theyounger population.