FEB.

9, 2012 DATE

NR # 2674B
REF. NO.

Solons laud mother tongue-based instruction for Grade 1 to Grade 3 pupils

Lawmakers welcomed the new policy of the Department of Education (DepEd) on the use of the young learners mother tongue as a medium of instruction from Grades 1 to 3 under the K-to-12 curriculum. Rep. Raymond Palatino (Party-list, Kabataan) saw the effectiveness of the new DepEd policy and warned not to under appreciate its pedagogic value. Mother tongue instruction is an advocacy that needs to be pursued by the government. This should have been implemented years ago, Palatino said. Palatino believed that children can grasp the lessons more effectively and easily if they are taught in their own mother-tongue. Palatino called on scholars and educators to lobby for the institutionalization of the mother tongue learning method in the countrys education system. The aggressiveness of the scholars and educators in this advocacy may convince and enlighten us more. Maybe some of us are less informed and debates during committee hearings lead to regionalism, Palatino said. Dapat sumabay ang Congress doon sa initiative ng Executive at i-expedite ang pagpasok ng ganitong measure, Palatino added, citing House Bill 162 and House Resolution 291, which are still being tackled at the House Committee on Basic Education. Reps. Magtanggol Gunigundo (2nd District, Valenzuela) and Carlos M. Padilla (Lone District, Nueva Vizcaya) filed the bill and the resolution, respectively, which both establish mother tongue-based multilingual education program. Rep. Antonio L. Tinio (Party-list, ACT Teachers) also lauded the DepEds mothertongue instruction program. This is a very positive development and it is about time to implement the program on a wider proportion. The experiences incurred by the scientific studies on pilot programs done by the DepEd have yielded positive results, Tinio said. Citing DepEds statistics, Tinio said children participate more in class, excited in new learning and experiences if teaching is done in the childrens own dialect or language. At some point, young students have to explore other languages too, such as Spanish, French, Mandarin, among others, but they can learn more and faster only after

FEB. 9, 2012 DATE

NR # 2674B
REF. NO.

learning their own dialect or language, Tinio said. The reality is, the country is a multilingual society and our regional languages/dialects should also be given a place in our educational system, Tinio said. Maybe, mother tongue instruction in the first three years of our young students is a good start. According to Tinio, ACT Teachers Party-list is for the use of mother tongue instruction in early-years education, the use of Filipino as our national language and English as second language, in that order. Some private schools may still continue to use English as the medium of instruction. But that is their loss. Its a misconception to think that if you go the root of the mother tongue education you will be weakening the learning of English and Filipino, Tinio said. (30) jsc