NewsRecord Weekly Publication

Let's speak in Cebuano

MTB-MLE from K to 3

Aside from the Kindergarten plus 12 years of Basic Education Program (K to 12), teachers, students, and parents have another issue to deal with, the Mother Tongue-Based Multi-Lingual Education (MTB-MLE).

So, what is MTB-MLE?

It is the use of the pupils' mother tongue or home language as medium for classroom instruction. However, this program now exists in two modules for Kindergarten to Grade 3. Module 1 is that one of the 12 Philippine Languages is the medium of instruction. Module 2 makes the mother tongue a subject area from first to third grade.

After being implemented in 921 pioneering schools all over the country, DepEd has already laid the format for the MTB-MLE curriculum that includes speaking (oral) in the mother tongue for Grade 1, first semester, and reading and writing for the second. English as a subject will also be introduced only in the second semester.

Reading and writing in English will only be started during the first semester of Grade 2.

However, MTB-MLE is not without skeptics. One of them is Mrs. Ofelia Layumas, operator of the Step Ahead Pre-school, retired elementary school teacher and education supervisor.

Layumas recalled that teaching using the mother tongue or vernacular was once imposed in public schools during the 1960s to 1970s and based on her observations she described pupils under the curriculum as "very dull." She maintained that many students had difficulty reading and by the time pupils were already in Grade 3, many of them were still marked as "non-readers."

The elementary school teacher who handled English for 20 years also criticized that one of the drawbacks of MTB-MLE is that there is no textbook for the curriculum and subject area.

However, Department of Education-Division of San Carlos OIC and Asst. Schools Division Superintendent  Cynthia Demavivas argues that while it is true that there is no textbook for MTB-MLE, teachers are given activity guides written in the mother tongue.

Demavivas explained that while textbooks in English will still be used, they will be alongside the mother tongue manuals. It then becomes the teachers' duty to translate the English text for pupils.

Asked if this system can possibly cause confusion, Devavivas said that, "There maybe none. I myself am a product of the native tongue instruction. Because the thinking process is already in the native tongue, there is no more translation [for the pupils]." This makes lessons easier for pupils to comprehend.

Layumas for her part said that it is only a matter of common sense. In the pre-school that she owns, teachers use English but when pupils fail to understand, teachers automatically resorts to speaking in the mother tongue to get the message across.

Demavivas agrees, too. "Actually you have been doing it," she had told many teachers in San Carlos and emphasized that MTB-MLE is only reinforcing the method through clear cut curriculum.