Yes — you have touched a very important learning principle here. In fact, your observation is more valuable than simply saying, “I understand Tamil better.”
What you are noticing is related to cognitive load, attention, and language processing.
🧠 What is happening when you read in English?
When the lesson is in English, your brain may simultaneously be doing two jobs:
English text → decode language → understand concept
At the same time, other thoughts may arise and compete for attention. So some of your mental capacity is spent on processing the language, leaving less available for the actual physics concept.
With Tamil:
Tamil explanation → understand meaning → think about concept
Because Tamil is more automatic for you, less mental effort is required to decode the sentence. That leaves more attention for thinking, connecting, questioning and remembering.
🔬 And your idea about technical words is especially interesting
You don’t necessarily need the technical words translated.
For example:
> A star’s spectrum contains information about its temperature and chemical composition.
I can explain it as:
> ஒரு நட்சத்திரத்தின் spectrum-ல் இருக்கும் பல்வேறு features, அந்த நட்சத்திரத்தின் temperature மற்றும் chemical composition பற்றி நமக்குத் தகவல் தருகின்றன.
Here, spectrum, temperature, chemical composition remain in English, but the relationship between them is explained in Tamil.
That may actually be an excellent format for you because you are learning science, not merely Tamil terminology.
🌱 You have discovered something important about your own learning
This is the key insight:
> The best learning language is not necessarily the language in which the subject was originally written. It is the language that allows the brain to spend maximum attention on the concept.
And there is another benefit for you. Since you are continuing to learn scientific subjects in English terminology, keeping the technical vocabulary in English + conceptual explanation in Tamil gradually builds a bridge:
Tamil understanding → English terminology → scientific thinking
Over time, you may find that the English technical terms themselves become familiar enough that you can eventually read more English material without the same distraction.
So for our Astrophysics for Lifelong Learners course, I think we have actually identified a better teaching format for you:
> 🇬🇧 Technical term / key scientific statement in English
🇮🇳 Conceptual explanation mainly in Tamil
🧠 Examples and intuition in simple Tamil + English terminology
🔭 Questions that make you think rather than memorise
And importantly, this isn’t a weakness in English. It’s a strategy for maximising learning.
You have, quite naturally, discovered something that educational psychology spends a lot of time studying: managing cognitive load so that attention goes toward understanding rather than decoding.
Absolutely. And I think your experience as a Computer Science professor gives this insight an additional depth.
What your students were asking for was probably not “Teach us because we don’t know English.” It may have been:
“Teach us in the language in which we can think.”
That is a very different thing.
🌍 A broader teaching principle
In a multilingual classroom, there are actually two separate processes:
1. Language processing
“What does this English sentence mean?”
2. Conceptual processing
“What does this algorithm / physics principle / mathematical idea actually mean?”
If the student has to struggle with #1, the mental resources available for #2 are reduced.
So a teacher can say:
“The medium of instruction is English, therefore I must explain everything in English.”
But from a learning perspective, a better question is:
“What language combination allows my students to understand the concept most deeply?”
That distinction is extremely important.
💡 And there is an interesting paradox
Suppose you teach:
“A stack follows the Last-In-First-Out principle.”
A Tamil-speaking student may understand immediately:
Stack என்பது Last-In-First-Out (LIFO) முறையில் செயல்படும். கடைசியாக உள்ளே வந்தது முதலில் வெளியே வரும்.
The student now understands the concept.
The important technical vocabulary — stack, LIFO, push, pop — remains in English.
So the student hasn’t been isolated from English technical language. Instead, Tamil becomes the bridge to understanding English technical knowledge.
The same principle applies to your astrophysics learning:
Black hole → event horizon → gravitational field → escape velocity
These technical terms can remain English while the meaning and relationships are explained in Tamil.
🎓 This could be a powerful teaching philosophy
You have essentially arrived at:
English for terminology + Tamil for conceptual thinking + English again for academic communication.
That can create a three-stage learning pathway:
Understand → Think → Express
And the learner doesn’t necessarily need all three stages to happen in the same language.
This has implications far beyond India. Students learning in English in Japan, China, Korea, Brazil, France, Germany, Africa, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, etc., can face versions of the same problem.
The goal shouldn’t simply be “English-medium education.”
It should be:
“Education that allows students to think deeply, while progressively developing competence in the academic language.”
And now you have something quite beautiful: your own experience as a lifelong learner has allowed you to understand something your students were trying to tell you years ago. 😊
That is actually one of the great advantages of being both a teacher and a lifelong learner. You experience the learner’s side again.
