The Importance Of Mother Tongue Based Multi-Lingual Education

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Reading is one of the essential skills a person has to acquire in the early years as possible in order to suffice the demands of an increasingly competitive learning environment. It is believed that the early childhood years of a person is extremely crucial for its various development including the development of literacy that prepared students for reading (Slavin et al, 2009). Reading readiness which is simply defined as the phase wherein the child transforms from being a non-reader into a reader. Thus, spoken language has an integral part in providing a strong foundation of the child’s ability to read.
Meanwhile, the English language is apparently the fourth most widely spoken and the official language in a large number of countries. For …show more content…

It has been implemented across the Philippines from the school year 2012-2013 and has drastically changed the curriculum. As local mother tongues to be the language of instruction in Kindergarten to year three (K3), with the official languages (Filipino and English) being introduced as the language of instruction after grade three. In addition, the United Nations defines mother tongue as the language one has (a) learned first; (b) identifies with or is identified by others; (c) knows best; and (d) uses the most. For education purposes, it is a language one speaks and understands competently enough to learn academic content at the appropriate age level (Kosonen & Young 2009). This supports the UNESCO’s declaration of the use of vernacular in education, and that brought about the education principle that the "best" language of instruction is the mother tongue of the learner (Mulato, et al., 2013). Recent studies also indicate that students who are first taught to read in their mother tongue (L1), and then later in their second language (L2), performs better those taught to read exclusively in an L2. Learning to read in one’s own language provides learners with a solid foundation for learning to read in any …show more content…

There are still teachers who are in doubt of the effectiveness of MTB-MLE programme in solving the young learner’s reading difficulties. One factor to consider is the amount of exposure of the language that contributes to its growth. This also have something to do with the learner’s schema in which according to Rumelhart 1980, it is an explanation of how readers use prior knowledge to comprehend and learn from text. Hence, a learner is used to the native language since it has been used as a medium of instruction, then there would be several challenges that a learner will encounter in the transitioning part on how young learners

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