No Baby Talk
By Georgene Rhena P. Quilaton-Tambiga
Conversations with Gab
A take on MTB-MLE
Motherhood is an experiment. And, language is the
experiment I love best.
My two-year old son started expressing himself at a year and
six months in the language that all members of the household speak best:
Cebuano. His godmothers, that he now calls his "barkada" (bosom
friends), complains that he is too "Bisdak" (Bisayang Dako) or one
who cannot speak in any other tongue than Cebuano. Instead of sulking though, I
often smile and raise my head in pride of my little achievement.
You see, unlike most modern Filipino mothers I do not speak to
my son in any other language but Cebuano. I teach him in Cebuano and he does
not watch Dora the Explorer or Blues Clues but spend the whole morning playing
while his great grandfather's radio is tuned to GMA Radyo Cebu. As of press
time, he starts and carries a conversation, makes observations, and expresses
himself fluently and critically in Cebuano.
Okay, I know, I sound like one proud, stage Mama but this seems
to be the only way I know for driving home a point: Kids learn easiest, fastest
and best in their mother tongue.
I got this idea from my college language and literature
professor, Dr. Leoncio P. Deriada, a Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for
Literature Hall of Fame recipient and an English teacher his whole life.
Deriada once told our class when I was a freshman that when someday we will be
raising our own kids we should not commit a crime by teaching them what he
refers to as 'Yaya English' (no offense to caring nannies). This language is
neither English, Tagalog, nor Cebuano. It is simply broken like, "Bibi,
o, inom na yor milk."
He maintains that teaching Filipino children English first is
to "mangle" their cultural foundation and the result is that they
have "no cultural roots because they have mastered neither their first
(mother) language nor English." And being an avid reader of his books and
an avid listener to his poignant, humorous and valuable lectures, I am now
adopting this principle and I am not looking back.
Well, why should I when I now have the entire Department of
Education backing the Mother Tongue-Based Multi-Lingual Education (MTB-MLE)?
Yes, you read it right and DepEd is implementing the program this June!
MTB-MLE is contained in DepEd Order No. 16, series of 2012 and
it is based on two modules. First, that the mother tongue is the medium of
instruction for Kindergarten to Grade 3. Second, that the mother tongue is
considered one of the subjects in Grades 1 to 3. The mother tongue can be one
of the 12 major Philippine languages namely, Tagalog, Kapampangan,
Pangasinense, Iloko, Bikol, Cebuano, Hiligaynon, Waray, Tausug, Maguindanaonon,
Maranao, and Chabacano.
Teaching the mother tongue is not to further diminish the
already eroded English language proficiency of our youth. On the contrary, this
approach will build the foundation for foreign language proficiency because it
aids learning aside from the fact that it means preservation of our language
and culture.
Deriada, in his book Little Lessons, Little Lectures
succinctly puts this way, "Every respectable expert in linguistics will
tell us that learning a foreign language like English is faster if the student
has some mastery of his/her home language."
How?
Let us take myself as an example. When I was a kid, I was not
taught English as a first language. I learned Cebuano instead. Although my
grandmother who raised me with my grandfather was a staunch English language
fanatic, it was basically recognized that all members of the household
communicated in Cebuano and that if I had to grasp the intricacies of daily
living I needed to be able to understand the concepts through the language that
my elders used. So when I first went to school, a day care center in
Pinamungajan, Cebu, I spoke no English at all. My teacher, using her
initiative, told us stories from English and Tagalog books by translating what
she'd read.
So, when I was in elementary, I learned English and other
subjects through translation, a rather long and arduous process that not many
kids are able to perform. Now, I am a community journalist, sometimes, English
teacher, who uses this foreign language at my finger tips.
No, there was no MTB-MLE back then but mother tongue learning
was implemented at home and it's where I got my advantage.
Thus, kids are able to comprehend what is going on around them
once they speak the language that the people around them speak. Kids also learn
better if they can communicate to those that surround them without barrier.
Imagine when a supposedly 'English speaking' kid buys manggang
hilaw from a street vendor and tells her, "I want green mangoes with
lots of salt, soy sauce and vinegar." And the kid hands in a P 50-bill for
an item that only costs five pesos and the vendor says, "Dong, walay
sinsilyo." What is the kid going to make of that? 'Sinsilyo' to
him is Mars language. We could only hope he could at least translate it to
'coins.' But when you hand in an amount and the cost of the item you buy is
less than that, you are to be given not coins but change. See? This is a lesson
in daily living that one can only learn if he/she speaks the language of
his/her home and its people.
There is a big difference; it is the intricacy and beauty of a
language that cannot unfold to a learner unless he/she achieves mastery.
In the academe, it has been predicted that the results of
MTB-MLE will not be seen by the Aquino administration. Ricardo Ma. Nolasco,
PhD, an associate professor at the Department of Linguistics in UP Diliman,
wrote in an article published by the Inquirer that it will take three to five
years before the program can really get going and that its long-term effects
will not be seen until the pioneering pupils have grown.
To an education system with a deeply engrained colonial
mentality, that English is the key to the world, this is turning the oven
upside down. For old school educators who have always rammed English and
Tagalog down the throats of Visayan students, MTB-MLE spells disaster. But for
the Philippine Languages it is the start of the long road to victory. For the
Filipino pupils, it is a revolution that is bound to help them interpret and
comprehend their lessons faster and better. It is the magic wand that we hope
will catapult our education system up the modern international standards.
As
for a young mother, I simply relish that my son never says, "Ma, milk,"
but "Timpla gatas, Ma." He never says, "Eat na ko,"
but "Kaon ko ana," as he points to the food he wants to munch.
And I love it that our conversation usually starts with me asking him, "Kinsay
palangga ni Mama?" He'd always reply, confidence in his voice, "Si
Dong-dong!"Illustration By Jazer Jude Jakosalem
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