Background of

Language Teaching
in the Philippines
Rassel Jay M. Gumboc
 American Period (1898-1946)
For almost half a century, the United States governed the Philippines. As
a colonial power, the United States pursued policies which it
rightfully believed would promote the social and material wellbeing
of the Filipino. One such policy was the introduction of the American
system of education, and so pervasive and far-reaching was its impact
and influence on the life and culture of the Filipino during and after
the colonial period that it is generally regarded as the "greatest
contribution" of American colonialism in the Philippines.

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 Thomasites
✘ Volunteer American soldiers became the first teachers of the Filipinos.
Part of their mission was to build classrooms in every place where they
were assigned. The American soldiers stopped teaching only when a
group of teachers from the U.S. came to the Philippines in June 1901.
They came aboard the ship "Sheridan." In August 1901, 600 teachers
called Thomasites arrived. Their name derived from the ship they traveled
on, the USS Thomas.

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 Thomasites
✘ The original batch of Thomasites was composed by 365 males and 165
females, who sailed from United States on July 23, 1901. The U.S.
government spent about $105,000 for the expedition. More American
teachers followed the Thomasites in 1902, making a total of about 1,074
stationed in the Philippines.

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 American Educational System
✘ Every child from age 7 was required to register in schools located in their
own town or province. The students were given free school materials.
There were three levels of education during the American period. The
"elementary" level consisted of four primary years and 3 intermediate
years. The "secondary" or high school level consisted of four years; and
the third was the "college" or tertiary level. Religion was not part of the
curriculum of the schools, as it had been during the Spanish period.

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 American Educational System
✘ In some cases those students who excelled academically were sent to the
U.S. to continue their studies and to become experts in their desired fields
or professions. They were called "scholars", and "pensionados" because
the government covered all their expenses. In return, they were to teach or
work in government offices after they finished their studies. Some
examples of these successful Filipino scholars were Judge José Abad
Santos, Francisco Benitez, Dr. Honoria Sison and Francisco Delgado.

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 English Language Teaching
✘ With the Americans came the widespread introduction of public
education, as the English language was systematically promoted through
language instruction that made heavy use of an Anglo-American canon of
literature. The goal was to “civilize” the Filipinos by exposing them to
works of literary greats such as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,
Washington Irving, Ralph Waldo Emerson, as well as Shakespeare,
George Elliot, Matthew Arnold, and the romantic poets (Martin,2008 ).

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 English Language Teaching
✘ The American colonial project assumed that a civilized citizenry was not
prone to rebellion and that the English language was the key to creating
this civilized citizenry.

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 English Language Teaching
✘ In addition, American teachers made use of language teaching approaches
that treated Filipino students as if they were native speakers of the English
language. During the first decade of the American school system, Filipino
school children had five language-building courses, namely, Reading,
Language, Spelling, Writing and Rhetoric.
✘ At the secondary level, courses included English, Reading, Spelling,
Grammar and Composition, Rhetoric and Composition, and Literature.

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 English Language Teaching
✘ Some groups criticized this heavy load on language teaching at the
expense of industrial training, to which David Barrows, Director of
Education in 1903, replied:
✘ “In pushing for the official English language, it must be borne in mind
that the government has no intention or desire to supplant the various
native dialects. These will probably be used in the home and for many
local purposes, and such use will not in the least interfere with the official
English program.”

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Monroe Commission on Philippine Education
✘ The Monroe Commission on Philippine Education was created in 1925
with the aim of reporting on the effectiveness of the education in the
Philippines during the period of U.S. annexation. It was headed by Paul
Monroe, who at the time was the Director of the International Institute of
Teachers College, Columbia University, and it was composed by a total of
23 education professionals, mostly from the U.S. and some from the
Philippines.

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Monroe Commission on Philippine Education
✘ During 1925 the Commission visited schools all throughout the
Philippines, interviewing a total of 32,000 pupils and 1,077 teachers. The
commission found that in the 24 years since the U.S. education system
had been established, 530,000 Filipinos had completed elementary school,
160,000 intermediate school, and 15,500 high school.

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Monroe Commission on Philippine Education
✘ The Commission declared that although Filipino students were on the
same level as their American counterparts in subjects like Math or
Science, they lagged far behind in English-language related subjects.
George Counts, a Yale professor and a member of the Commission wrote
on 1925 in The Elementary School Journal that "Half of the children were
outside the reach of schools. Pupil performance was generally low in
subjects that relied on English, although the achievement in Math and
Science was at par with the average performance of American school
children..."

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Monroe Commission on Philippine Education
✘ Counts also described the Filipino children of the 1920s as handicapped
because not only were they trying to learn new concepts in a foreign
language but they were also being forced to do so from the point of view
of a different culture, due to the fact that they were using materials
originally designed for pupils in the United States.

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Monroe Commission on Philippine Education
✘ The report also informed that teacher training was inadequate and that 82
per cent of the pupils did not go beyond grade 4. Many of the problems
identified were attributed to the attempt to impose an English-based
education system in just one generation, concluding that "Upon leaving
school, more than 99% of Filipinos will not speak English in their homes.

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Monroe Commission on Philippine Education
✘ Possibly, only 10% to 15% of the next generation will be able to use this
language in their occupations. In fact, it will only be the government
employees, and the professionals, who might make use of English."

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✘ Briefly, this was the development of the American educational system in
the Philippines. It began even before the establishment of a colonial civil
government. And, for the most part of its existence, the Americans were
the ones who "vitalized, guided, and ultimately controlled it.”
✘ Through its instrumentality, American-style education was adopted in the
Philippines, resulting in an impact which had affected Philippine life and
culture during and after the colonial days.

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Basic Education
Curriculum
 objectives
The objectives of elementary education are as follows:

✘ 1. Provide the knowledge and develop the skills, attitudes, and values
essential for personal development, a productive life, and constructive
engagement with a changing social milieu;
✘ 2. Provide learning experiences that increase the child’s awareness of and
responsiveness to the just demands of society;

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 objectives
✘ 3. Promote and intensify awareness of, identification with, and love for
our nation and the community to which the learner belongs;
✘ 4. Promote experiences that develop the learner’s orientation to the world
of work and prepare the learner to engage in honest and gainful work.

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 objectives
✘ The objectives of secondary education are threefold:
1. Continue the general education started in elementary.
2. Prepare the learners for college.
3. Prepare the learners for the world of work.

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 Learning Areas
✘ The core subjects for both the elementary and secondary levels are the
following:
•Filipino • Mathematics
• English • Science

✘ The non-core subject, called Makabayan, was designated as the “practice

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 Learning Areas
Elementary Level
✘ Sibika at Kultura (S&K) (I-III) Heograpiya, Kasaysayan, Sibika (HKS)
(IV-VI)
✘ Musika, Sining at Edukasyong Pangkatawan (MSEP) (Integrated in
Grades I-III; Separate subjects in Grades IV-VI)
✘ Edukasyong Pantahanan at Pangkabuhayan (EPP) (IV-VI)
✘ Edukasyong Pagpapakatao (EP); Separate subject from Grade I-VI

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 Learning Areas
Secondary Level

✘ Araling Panlipunan
✘ Technology and Livelihood Education (TLE)
✘ Music, Arts, Physical Education and Health/CAT
✘ Edukasyon sa Pagpapahalaga

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 Medium of instruction
✘ Medium of Instruction: Pursuant to the DepEd Bilingual Policy (DepEd
Order No. 52,s,1987), the media of instruction shall be as follows:
Elementary
✘ Filipino shall be used in the following areas:
Filipino, Makabayan
✘ English shall be used in the following learning areas:
English, Science, Mathematics

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 Medium of Instruction
Secondary
✘ English: Mathematics, Science and Technology, English, Technology and
Livelihood Education, Music, Arts, Physical Education and Health/CAT
✘ Filipino: Edukasyon sa Pagpapahalaga (Values Education), Araling
Panlipunan, Filipino

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 Bilingual Education Policy
✘ The Bilingual Education Policy (BEP), aimed to develop proficiency in
the two languages among the Filipino students (Bautista, 1996 ).
✘ The BEP was a response to a perceived need to balance the legitimate
aspirations of nationalism (symbolized by the adoption of Tagalog-based
national language, Filipino as a MOI) and an equally legitimate desire to
maintain English as a language of wider communication in order to gain
more access to the benefits of science and technology through this second
language.

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 Bilingual Education Policy
✘ This BEP has given rise to heated debates regarding the MOI until this
day. This is because first, the Philippines is a multilingual country with
more than 170 languages (Nolasco, Datar, & Azurin, 2010 ), but only
English and Filipino are chosen as MOI.
✘ Gonzalez ( 1990 ) reports impact studies of the BEP and concludes that
“this policy favored only Tagalog and Manila students… and widens the
gap between Manilans and non-Manilans on the one hand and between
Tagalogs and non-Tagalogs on the other hand.” (p. 155) in terms of
academic achievement.

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 Bilingual Education Policy
✘ Second, Filipino is heavily based on Tagalog, a language mostly spoken
in the National Capital Region and Region 4. Those from non-Tagalog
speaking regions question the choice of this national language.
✘ Third, studies show that using the mother tongue as MOI in early grades
helps students to learn better (Bautista, Bernardo, & Ocampo, 2009 ;
Bernardo, 1998 ; Walter & Decker, 2008 ).

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 Bilingual Education Policy
✘ Moreover, the language war continues for several reasons. First, the
privileging of Tagalog-based Filipino is perceived to cause the
marginalization of the literature of other regions and the contributions of
these regions to the history of the country (Guinigundo 2013 ).
✘ Second, the privileging of English by top government officials likewise
marginalizes Filipino and other Philippine languages, thus hindering the
development of nationalism among the citizens.

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 Bilingual Education Policy
✘ Clearly, there is a lack of unity and coherence in language education
policies, which only hampers efforts to introduce a systemic reform in
English Language Education (ELE) in the Philippines.
✘ Systemic reform “is a process of aligning the vision, content standards,
assessment, instruction, and materials development” (Clune in Plata, 2013
).

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 Basic education curriculum
✘ DepEd MO 43 s. 2002 entitled “The Basic Education Curriculum” states
that:
“English as a subject is concerned with developing competencies in listening,
speaking, reading and writing among the learners. Pupils achieve the desired
level of competence when they are motivated to learn and use the language.
The specific skills constituting these competencies shall be developed to the
point of mastery in communication situations using varied materials (p. 2).

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 Features of basic education curriculum
✘ 1. Greater emphasis on helping every learner to become more successful
reader.
✘ 2. Emphasis on interactive/collaborative learning approaches.
 Between teachers and students
 Between students and self-instructional materials
 Between students (collaborative learning)
 Between students and multimedia assisted instruction

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 Features of basic education curriculum
✘ 3. Emphasis on use of integrative learning approaches.
The learner brings together prior knowledge and experiences to support new
knowledge and experiences. Learners draw on their skills and apply them to
new experiences at a more complex level.
Integrative learning works best in the BEC. It is so because, the curriculum is
treated in a holistic manner. The process is interactive, collaborative and
innovative.

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 Features of basic education curriculum
✘ 4. Greater focus on values formation in all the subject areas. Every
teacher is a values education teacher.
✘ 5. Emphasis on the development of self- reliant and patriotic citizens.
✘ 6. Emphasis on the use of effective strategies for the development of
critical and creative thinking skills.

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 Philosophy of Basic education Curriculum

✘ The ideal Filipino learners are empowered learners; who are competent
in learning how to learn and have life skills so that they become self-
developed persons who are makabayan (patriotic), maka-tao (mindful of
humanity), Maka-kalikasan (respect of nature), and Maka-Diyos (Godly).
Functional literacy is the essential ability for lifelong learning in our
dynamically changing world.

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 Philosophy of Basic education Curriculum

✘ The ideal teacher of the curriculum is not the authoritarian instructor but
the trustworthy facilitator or manager of the learning process. He/She
enables the learners to become active constructors of meaning and not
passive recipients of information
✘ The ideal teaching learning process is interactive where the learners, the
teachers, instructional materials and information technology interact with
one another reciprocally.

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 thanks!
Any questions?

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