Informal Theme #2.2

Mother Tongue Dilemma.

                 

                Another alteration in Philippine education had been the talk of the town these previous months. Who won’t be interested with this matter, right? A lot of changes to be made and with the current economic crisis we are experiencing; only those fortunate will be able to cope up without difficulty. Public schools lack supplementary materials, classrooms and even educators. Nevertheless, these are not the only issues. The medium in instructions in preschool even in higher grades was modified to their native tongue which in return is expected to affect not only the comprehension skills of students but as well as their relationship with their communities. This crucial shift, known as “Mother Tongue-Based Multi-Lingual Education” (MTB-MLE), is part of the K+12 basic education reform program. The new scheme has yielded positive results in 921 schools across the country where it has been implemented.

            The DepEd says: “Local and international studies have shown that using the language used at home (mother tongue) inside the classroom during the learners’ early years of schooling produces better and faster learners who can easily adapt to learn a second (Filipino) and third (English) language.”

            At the other side of the coin, English is now introduced as a second or third language at the primary level in almost all these schools. Even after many years of compulsory study, a number of high school students are unable to speak, read or write simple English phrases and sentences.  For these types of students, access to higher education, employment, technical knowledge, the world of computers and the Internet will also be limited.      

            Learning English is important because 80% of the information stored in computer is in English as it is the main language in the internet. More than half the world's scientific journals are in English. It has  become the main way to  get around, the main way to get things done, the way you make friends, the way you do business with a foreign country and at last but not the least, you get information.
               Now that another adjustment was made so that our country won't be left out, I expect big differences. I infer that there will be a boost in Philippine literature considering that students,in recent time, uses their own dialects. The knowledge and vocabulary of students will also broaden up since they are to use their own language at all times. I also expect that no schools will longer fail the achievement tests that the department of education will be giving.

            As of this moment, I stand on my opinion that it is best to use our native language not only because we are used to it but because it reflects our identity as a Filipino. In fact, we don’t actually need to adopt the American way of living; it just turns out that it is a symbol of affluence among Filipinos. An example to this is that speaking straight using English as a medium may mean to us that that person is either from a prosperous family or an erudite.

            Hence, for some time, we will really need to use the english language. Now as the world continues to revolve around flurries of technology and economy, we need to cope up and join in the fight of developing nations. For that reason, english and other languages must be taught to adolescent students and native language should be spared for early learning stages.