NCERT says the mother tongue in an English class should be:

1. NCERT reviews how the mother tongue enters the English class. 2. It says that, given inputs in English and a genuine attempt to understand them, the mother tongue need not be an interloper. 3. It can be a resource that makes the English input comprehensible. 4. So the mother tongue is used as a resource, neither banned nor used for everything. **Why not the others:** Banning the mother tongue is the view NCERT argues against. Keeping it to the first week or using it for all lessons both ignore that English input should dominate while the mother tongue only helps understanding. _Source: NCERT, Position Paper of the National Focus Group on Teaching of English (2006), section "3.4.1 Multilingualism in the English class or school", PDF p. 21 (ncert.nic.in/pdf/focus-group/english.pdf)_