Measuring the multilingual reality: lessons from classrooms in Delhi and Hyderabad

India’s linguistic diversity is reflected in classrooms across the country, where multiple languages are used by teachers and learners to negotiate meaning instruction – a multilingual, multicultural student body norm, whether urban or rural contexts. This study documents teaching practices English language maths lessons Delhi Hyderabad, with specific focus on use. The findings from 104 classroom observations allow us profile multilingual schools different official mediums of instruction. Results reveal predominant use ‘language mixing’ classroom, both English- regional language-medium contexts especially subject lessons. Maths regional-medium did not involve as much mixing but this was still strong feature for learners. data also shows differences between particularly when comparing English-medium each city. Specifically, were characterised absolutely no occurrences its own (as recorded during five-minute intervals), compared significantly greater alone Hyderabad Telugu-medium schools. appear amount lesson.