DepEd calls for preservation of linguistic diversity
THE Department of Education (DepEd) called for increased awareness in the preservation of linguistic diversity in the 2022 International Mother Language Day celebration on February 21.
The celebration aims to start a conversation among teachers, learners, and other education stakeholders on the progress being made in mother tongue-based multilingual education and its growing understanding of its importance, particularly in early schooling, and commitments to its development in public life.
“The goal of Mother TonguedBased Multilingual Education (MTB-MLE) is to produce learners who are multi-literate, multilingual and multicultural. Learning in our mother tongue is crucial in enhancing other skills such as critical thinking, skills to learn a second language and literacy skills,” Education Secretary Leonor Briones said.
Spearheaded by the International Cooperation Office (ICO), in cooperation with the Office of the Undersecretary for Curriculum of Instructions (OUCI), the virtual celebration showcased video messages, testaments, and advocacy materials through a series of posts on DepEd Philippines and DepEdICO Facebook pages.
Undersecretary for Curriculum and Instruction Diosdado San Antonio noted the importance of increasing advancement in vernacular language teaching to understand the importance of mother tongue-based education.
“Multilingual development occurs because of various influences in the digital, volitive, uncertain complex, ambiguous, diverse world when dialects and languages are endangered. We continue to propagate MTB-MLE in the schools by creating and using instructional materials on the different languages in teaching to sustain preservation efforts and suspend them from extinction,” San Antonio said.