EDUCATION / PHILIPPINE LANGUAGES |
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DepEd pushes for the use of Mother Tongue to develop better
learners |
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In an elementary school in Ilocos Norte, the teacher
asked her pupils to describe
an earthen jar during a social studies class. A blank stare from across the classroom greeted her.
Sensing that she was not fully understood, she said the word burnay and the class was stirred back to life as
the pupils started to generate a lot of images about the subject matter.
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Soon,
the classroom was
alive with students wanting to take part in the
discussion about burnay. “When a child thinks, he naturally uses the language he
grew up with. That is
why the thinking process is fast and clear. But imagine
if an Ilocano child has to
first translate a Filipino or an English word, the
thinking process is not as fluid,
said Department of Education Undersecretary Vilma
Labrador.” |
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This is the reason why the Department of Education
issued Department Order
74 in July 2009 which institutionalized the mother
tongue-based multilingual
education (MTB-MLE), convinced by overwhelming evidence
which showed that
the use of mother tongue in early education develops
better and faster learners.
“Our goal here is to develop lifelong learners who are
proficient in the use of
their first language, the national language and other
languages, said Education
Secretary Mona Valisno.
The Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual Education project
is a continuation of the
Lingua Franca Education Project launched in SY 1999-2000
as mandated by
DECS Memo No. 144 s. 1999.
“We know of many teachers who translate Science lessons
in Tagalog so that
students can better understand the concepts,” Labrador
pointed out. For young
learners, it is easier for them to understand why water
boils and why it turns into
ice when subjected to varying temperature using the
language they use at
home,” she added.
DepEd said the use of mother tongue from pre-school to
grade three is called
bridge program because the mother tongue or first
language of the learner is
being used as a bridge to learn a second or third
language, like Filipino or
English.
“If a child fully understands what is being talked
about, he can make sense of
things and participate intelligently in discussions
because a familiar language is
used, thus, his thinking process is unencumbered,”
Labrador explained.
Director Paraluman Giron of DepEd Region IV-A and
another strong advocate of
MTB-MLE said mother tongue- based education should cover
both the teaching
of and the teaching through of the child’s first
language.
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