Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual Education (MTB-MLE) ng DepEd salig sa programang K-12.

Kritikal na sanaysay na may tuon sa kalakasan at kahinaan

researches

With the demand of a high-quality education today,

challenges/issues

Some of the challenges included the lack, or absence, of relevant teaching

“Due to the lack of mechanisms in place prior to program rollout, teachers resorted
to various strategies, such as individualized instruction for children who do not
speak the school’s MOI because they are either transferees from another language
community, or the MOI of the school is not the child’s MT [mother tongue],” the
researchers said.
Multilingual education requires a number of trained teachers who are proficient in both English and
their native language, assuming that English is one of the mediums of instruction. There is a wide gap
between the demand and the supply for teachers, who are both confident and capable of handing the
intense pressure associated with managing a class of students requiring special attention.

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One of the changes in the basic curriculum of education brought about by the new K + 12 program is
the introduction of Mother Tongue – based Multilingual Education. It will be implemented
specifically to kindergarten, grades 1, 2 and 3. Mother Tongue refers to “first-language-first”
education that is, schooling which begins in the mother tongue and transitions to additional languages
particularly Filipino and English. It is meant to address the high functional illiteracy of Filipinos
where language plays a significant factor. Since the child’s own language enables her/ him to express
him/herself easily, then, there is no fear of making mistakes.

It encourages active participation by children in the learning process because they understand what is
being discussed and what is being asked of them. They can immediately use their mother tongue to
construct and explain their world, articulate their thoughts and add new concepts to what they already
know. 

A large body of evidence from different countries as well as advances in the field of cognitive
neuroscience show that children who have access to mother tongue based multilingual education
(MTB MLE) develop better language skills in their mother tongues as well as national languages.
When knowledge of a second language (L2) is added to a rich knowledge of a first language (L1), a
child forms complex knowledge networks (additive bilingualism).
There are many reasons why it is so important to support the continued learning of the home language
or mother tongue. As Clarke (2009) puts it: A strong first language supports the development of a
positive self-concept, helps to strengthen the existing relationships within the family and provides the
opportunity to continue cognitive development while learning other languages as a second language.
In supporting the first language it is needed: respecting and supporting the home language, planning
base on the development of knowledge of language, creating an environment to support natural
language learning, observing children talking, finding out what they know in using language,
establishing a supportive environment, understanding and appreciating the home literacy and helping
parents to understand the value of a strong first or home language 

Local and international studies show that the use of the learner’s mother tongue or the
language used at home is the most effective medium of learning. “It is the easiest way for
children to access the unfamiliar world of school learning. (Luistro)” If the use of mother
tongue will be discarded in favor of a new unfamiliar language upon the children’s entry into
grade school, the learners lose interest in their studies because there is a disconnection in the
language used at home and in school. It will also be a loss of confidence in them as learners
since their culture and experiences are excluded in classroom interactions.

Strong and well-planned MT-Based MLE programs help students to build a string
educational foundation when they enable and encourage students to develop oral fluency in
their first language, introduce reading and writing in their first language, help students to
become fluent and confident in first language literacy, and lastly, build their capacity to use
their mother tongue for everyday communication and for learning in school.

MTB-MLE help learners build a ‘good bridge’ when the teachers introduce other languages
in oral through a meaningful and non-threatening activities, introduce writing and reading
other language by building on what they have learned about the oral teaching of language and
their foundation in the first language literacy because reading is like a bicycle, we only need
to learn once, and lastly, build fluency and confidence in using oral and written language for
everyday communication and for academic learning.

MTB-MLE programs ensure that students achieve educational competencies or standards

Language is one of the valuable gifts which have been passed to children. The first language is
significant and builds the basis for all later language progresses. Parents, family members and
early childhood professionals have very important role on the development and maintenance of the
first language. Studies shows that knowing one language can assist the child to comprehend how other
languages work. First or home language is particularly important for the child‘s development of a
positive self-concept and well-being.
Children who have the chance to maintain their first language can extend their cognitive development,
while learning English [this also can be correct with other languages including Turkish] as a second
language. Their level of competence in the second language has relationship to the level of
competence they have achieved in their first language. Children with a sound knowledge of their first
language will be able to transfer skills from one language to another. Early childhood professionals
can play a vital role in the maintenance of children‘s first languages.
They can provide opportunities for children to use their mother tongue in early childhood settings and
at school and encourage the parents to use the mother tongue at home in order to provide a good
foundation for learning English. It is important to reassure parents that children will learn English as a
second language from English speakers (Clarke). The mother tongue opens the door, including its
own grammar, to all grammars, in which it awakens the potential for universal grammar that lies
within all of us. It is the valuable asset people bring to the task of language learning. For this reason,
the mother tongue is the master key to foreign languages, the tool which gives us the fastest, surest,
most precise, and most complete means of accessing a foreign language.

Successful learners capitalize on the vast amount of linguistic skills and world knowledge they have
accumulated via the mother tongue. For the beginner, becoming aware of meanings automatically
involves connecting them with the mother tongue – until the FL has established an ever-more
complex network for itself. The foreign language learner must build upon existing skills and
knowledge acquired in and through the mother tongue. Monolingual lessons without the help of the
mother tongue are extrinsically possible; however, monolingual learning is an intrinsic impossibility.
MTB-MLE aims to produce learners who are multi-literate, multi-lingual, and multi-cultural.
 MTB-MLE is a very helpful program to those students who use their first language in everyday life.
It is used to also be a bridge or a mediator to learn other languages as well. Although it has some
disadvantage in our money, it will ensure us that our children, future children and relatives will
understand and learn very well the lesson being taught in school. Thus, Mother Tongue-based
education is challenging in terms of planning, implementing and sustaining MTB-MLE programs in
multiple language communities especially in multi-lingual countries lacking extensive financial
resources.

Mother Tongue – Based Multilingual Education. (2016, Aug 11). Retrieved

Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual Education (MTB-MLE) is a form of education that emphasizes the
use of the language of the home as a medium of instruction.

The movement to MTB-MLE is an effort to establish equitable educational opportunities for speakers
of indigenous languages. The Mother Tongue framework seeks to achieve increased access to
education and increased quality of education through providing instruction in the first language
before transitioning to other languages

In many nations worldwide, students enter into educational contexts that teach almost exclusively in
the national, regional, and increasingly English language. Often, speakers of indigenous languages do
not have the ability to engage in learning contexts that rely only on the national language, thus they
fall behind or are otherwise excluded from education. In an attempt to make education more
equitable, multilingual education provides the opportunity for more than one language to be used
both as the target of instruction, as well as the medium of instruction. However, simply using
multiple languages does not ensure that students have access to the material in their own language.
MTB-MLE differentiates itself by utilizing the first language first as the language of instruction,
followed by a regional or national language, and then often followed by English. In this way, MTB-
MLE serves as a form of transitional language education with varying degrees of emphasis on the
preservation of the mother tongue
Some models of MTB-MLE include the development of teaching materials and print literature
through the use of mother-tongue translators. Others require a more

contextual approach that includes the development of materials through a close analysis

of the local culture, such as stories or anthologies being written from oral histories or

folklore. Some programs use the mother tongue as a means to teach content until a time

in which students can use a second language and transfer academic knowledge into that

language, or a “weak form” of bilingual or multilingual education. Others approach the

task as teaching the language as well as teaching through the language, thus focusing

more on sociolinguistic identity. This would include a much longer time to use the

mother tongue in the schools setting, or a “strong form” (Baker, 2006)

MTB-MLE often comes as a part of a larger language preservation or

revitalization agenda. In this way, the mother tongue may be preserved rather than lost in

favor of the regional or national language. This dual focus has lead to MTB-MLE being

taken up in a variety of language groups with multiple purposes.