MANILA, 9 March 2008 — A landmark bill was filed yesterday in the House of Representatives which, if passed into law, will require the use of the mother tongue as medium of instruction in the elementary grades.
House Bill 3719 entitled “An Act Establishing a Multi-Lingual Education and Literacy Program” also provides for the teaching of the first language, Filipino and English as separate subjects.
What this means is that the Ilocano language, for instance, will be used as medium of instruction in northern provinces where it is a native language, and so Cebuano in the central Visayas and parts of Mindanao where it is widely spoken, or Maranao in the Lanao provinces and other areas in Mindanao where it is used as a native language.
The bill’s proponent, Rep. Magtanggol T. Gunigundo of Valenzuela, explained: “By using the child’s first language, we start from what the learner already knows and build from this. We develop the cognitive, academic and linguistic skills of our pupils in their first language and gradually transfer this knowledge in the nationally prescribed languages, English and Filipino.”
“It is wrong to think that just because we are already conversant in our native language, we should now concentrate on English and other languages of wider communication,” he said, adding that “success in school does not depend on conversational fluency but on the mastery of the academic language which requires four to seven years of formal instruction.”
Gunigundo dispelled fears on the bill’s adverse effects on the English proficiency of Filipinos. He cited an 11-year study in the US of non-native American children who were schooled for six years in their non-English first language before being taught completely in English. These children as a group scored higher in their English, science and mathematics tests than the average native English pupil. On the other hand, non-native English learners who began education completely in English learned the least English and scored lowest in their academic subjects.
The bill also seeks to mandate the use of Filipino and English as media at the secondary level, with the mother language as auxiliary.
“It is but natural to use Filipino in the schools on account of its being the national and official language.”
When asked how teaching materials can be made available in so many Philippine tongues, Gunigundo said that implementation of his proposal does not appear so formidable, considering that more than 90 percent of the population are native speakers of around 15 major languages.
Linguists have classified 171 native languages, of which the major ones, apart from Tagalog, Cebuano, Ilocano, Bicolano and Maranao, are Kapampangan, Hiligaynon, Waray-Waray, Tausug, Maguindanaon, Pangasinan, and Kinaray-a.
Ricardo Ma. Nolasco, chairman of the Commission on Filipino Language, cited the bill as “truly revolutionary” and immediately expressed his agency’s full support to the measure.
Linguistic Society of the Philippines president Isabel Pefianco Martin said: “Finally, our congressmen are now looking at the research, and not only at the anecdotal evidence.”
