Learning in 'mother tongues'

Three weeks ago, Education Secretary Jesli Lapus signed DepEd Order No. 74 which directs the gradual institutionalization of Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual Education (MLE) in the country’s public and private schools. This fundamental education policy shift mandates the use of the mother tongue of learners from the Grades 1-6 as the medium of instruction in all subjects, including mathematics and science. 

In this MLE methodology the students are taught to read, write, think and communicate in their mother tongue. For example Cebuano is the language of instruction in schools in areas where Cebuano is the language used and spoken; Hiligaynon Iloilo and Bacolod, Tagalog in Manila and Laguna, and Ilocano in the Ilocos provinces.

Teachers attending an MLE-teacher-training workshop at the University of the Philippines last summer told me that their pupils just stare into space when concepts are taught in English, which is foreign to them. But when these are explained in their local language, their eyes light up — an indication they know what the teacher is talking about.

The multi-lingual education policy move is a drastic move away from the decades-old bilingual policy that used English and Filipino in teaching subjects in the schools.

There are those who think this system is not wise in this day and age, when proficiency in English is supposed to be the stepping stone to global competitiveness. In fact, they say, a good many college graduates who have been taught with English as the medium of instruction, cannot speak grammatical, much less think, in English, so there is need to give more time to teaching English and using it as the language of instruction.

According to Greg Dekker of the Summer Institute of Linguistics, “This mother tongue education — the first step in the multi-lingual education methodology — teaches all Grades 1-6 curriculum content first in the student’s mother tongue. Students learn to reason, think critically, read, write, and most important, they learn how to use language to learn, a skill not formerly possible for 70 percent of the Philippines’ population who speak neither Filipino or English when entering Grade I classrooms across the Philippine archipelago where 170 languages are spoken.”

“After students learn critical learning skills in a familiar medium, their mother tongue,” says Greg, “they are then taught Filipino and English as subjects along with their mother tongue up through Grade 6.” 

But MLE is not, says Greg, a vernacular program. “The purpose of MLE is not to teach only the child’s first language or home language. Rather it is to strengthen English and Filipino by developing and using the child’s first language or home language as the medium of instruction in Grades 1-6.’”

Research done in Lubuagan, a municipality in Kalinga, according to Greg, statistically showed that Grades 1-3 students taught in this method outperform in all subject areas (including in math and English) students taught using English and Filipino as media of instruction.

Greg and his wife Diane initiated in 1998 the Lubuagan Kalinga First Language Component (FLC) multilingual education program that prepares students from minority language communities to successfully retain their home language and culture while achieving well in national education programs. The couple are volunteer linguists with the Summer Institute of Linguistics, a resource organization that facilitates training for the DepEd and others who want to implement the multi-lingual education system. Greg has a master’s degree in linguistics from the University of Texas at Arlington and Dianne earned hers at Charles Darwin University in Australia.

The Lubuagan MLE program is currently used in nine primary classrooms. In early 2007, Lubuagan District Grade 3 students ranked No. 1 in the Kalinga Division in the 2006 NAT Grade 3 Reading Test, scoring in the English and Filipino reading tests 15-25 percent higher than all other Kalinga Division districts.

On the effectiveness of local languages used as languages of instruction, Greg brings up the three-year study launched by Division Superintendent Dr. Jose Aguilar on the use of Hiligaynon as medium of instruction in 1948. After the first year, it became evident that pupils who were taught reading, arithmetic and social studies in Hiligaynon were far more superior to their counterparts who studied in English. After three years, it was reported that the experimental group had caught up with the control group in knowledge of English after six months of exposure to the language as the medium of instruction. Greg says, “The Lubuagan study also bears this out. Children in Lubuagan who are taught English and math using Lubuagan as a medium of instruction outperform children who are taught these subjects using English.”

Greg mentions another educator, former Education Undersecretary Miguel Luz, who said that the consensus among employers is that a high school diploma with its current coverage is inadequate for its purposes because Filipino high school graduates are weak in their ability to communicate, to think logically, and to solve problems. First language education establishes a strong foundation for learning in learners. With this, students are better able to learn/acquire other languages of learning like English and Filipino, and can use these languages also to think logically, solve problems, and communicate effectively, and thus they will be better prepared for English-based and other foreign-language-based employment.

Greg says some parents want their children to learn English to be more competitive nationally and globally. They wonder if increasing the time for English or making it the exclusive medium of instruction might improve their English. Greg’s answer: “No. this popular belief is increasingly being proven untrue. Large scale research during the last 30 years has provided compelling evidence that the critical variables in English development in children is not the amount of exposure, but the timing and the manner of exposure to a second language that is important. It is crucially important that children gain a foundation for learning first in their mother tongue/first language. They can then transfer these crucial learning skills to the learning of a foreign language like English.

(To be continued)

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