Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual Education: A fresh approach

THESE days the school is no longer a new world for new learners. In the advent of the K to 12 Basic Education Curriculum comes the Mother TongueBased Multi-Lingual Education (MTB-MLE).

Under this program, pupils are expected to be proficient in the use of both Filipino and English using their mother tongue or the dialect commonly used at home and in the locality as the foundation from which they will build up their language skills.

Hence, for instance, most of the elementary pupils in Western Visayas will learn to read and write in Hiligaynon first before they are introduced to Filipino and English. As a subject, MTB-MLE focuses on the development of reading, writing and speaking from Grades 1 to 3. As a medium of instruction, it is used in all learning areas from Kindergarten to Grade 3 except in the teaching of Filipino and English subjects.

The implementation of MTB-MLE has resulted to different reactions depending on one’s point of view. On the part of the teachers, among the very notable observations is that, using their mother tongue, pupils tend to be engaged in their classroom activities.

Without the language barrier, they participate actively in class and teachers can easily get their attention. Further, it was observed that pupils react easily to the materials presented in class. Young as they are, they can now express their feelings in their own words.

On the other hand, there are parents who are worried that the introduction of MTB-MLE will further delay their children’s acquisition of the appropriate proficiency in the use of both Filipino and English.

These groups of parents believe that it is unnecessary to teach their young children to read and write through the mother tongue or that it is totally impractical to let their children learn the mother tongue because they are already using it at home or in some instances, there are Filipino children who have been introduced to speaking in English since infancy and learning the mother tongue makes language learning more difficult because it is no longer their “mother tongue.”

Depending on which opinion one adheres to, it is important to note that what is of primary importance here is that the school children will become independent learners who are able to express

themselves both in oral and written communication. Maybe in the near future, DepEd can find a way to have varied offerings of MTB-MLE classes depending on the kind of mother tongue that a certain child is used to.

If by using their mother tongue, children l earn fast because the classroom activity becomes non-intimidating hence encouraging them to think and express themselves freely, then it should make us think and give this program a chance to prove its effectiveness. Besides, will it make our children less of a person if they know their mother tongue well and use it as a tool or a bridge to reach out and learn other languages?

Why don’t we look at our mother tongue with a new eye? Hiligaynon for instance (and other dialects as well) has a remarkable beauty of its own – the phonemes, morphemes, words, phrases, clauses, the sentences and its complexities – that can capture the understanding of a learner and make him love and own the words and culture that has shaped the lives of the people around him now and his forefathers before.

It is not a new world but it is an exciting world still. Let us allow every child to experience it. ( Paid article)