‘Mother tongue’ education finds methods in teaching

By Gina Dizon

NAGTIPUNAN, Quirino – Minda Bayangan  who hails from Ifugao and  Mountain Province  uses Ilocano and Tagalog in teaching  Agta kinder with  the aid of her pupils.  

Half of  the 20  Kinder 1 Agta  pupils enrolled in Djoryong  Elementary School who  speak Ilocano and Tagalog translate words in  the Agta  language to their classmates who only speak their  native  Agta dialect.      The newly opened Grade 6 level for school year 2012  adds up to 82 pupils from Kinder 1 to Grade 6 since the school was  established 10 years ago.

Asking  the  help of  pupils  who know the  native  dialect is  one among the techniques of implementing the mother tongue approach of the  Department of  Education  under its K to 12 program, was  identified in a multilingual education training held recently at the  Lyceum of the Philippines University.

Another method identified is with the aid of community teachers who help  Dep-Ed  teachers in  isolated  IP areas where there  lacks  education services.  With the aid of the regular teacher, they do translations from Ilocano and Tagalog and English to the native dialect to make learning better understood by the children.

Fielding community  teachers  is especially supported by  the Community Outreach and  Service Learning (COSEL) of the Luceum of the Philippines in 15 elementary schools  in indigenous peoples places  located in isolated areas of the country aided by the  program Philippine’s Response to Indigenous and Muslim Education (PRIME). 

The PRIME program is funded by Australian Aid  and  implemented with the  cooperation of  the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) and the  Dep-Ed.

Dr. Marilyn Ngales, Director of LPU’s  COSEL program  said  the mother tongue  shall be taught as a separate subject for  Grades 1,11 and 111.  Aside from making learning easier to IP children through the use of their mother tongue,  the vernacular  is taught to IP children who don’t speak their native language anymore.

Community teachers bring about local application in COSEL’s  Pamana’y Ugatin, Hasain at Arugain  (PUGAHAN) project,  a village-based learning  program with a three year learning and four-tiered geared to comprehensive  functional  indigenous peoples education.   

They shall enrich curriculum development “built around the venue and timeliness of learning.  The foundations of learning are generated from the familiar to the strange in the same way that the tool for communication emanates from the comprehensive to the more complex.  Curriculum thus provides the core of learning evolving from what the children can grasp and gradually expanding to what they can comprehend as they learn more”, Ngales said.  

Djoryong  Elementary School is one among  identified  PRIME-PUGAHAN’s  school- partners  where  children  of  indigenous communities   attend  kindergarten and Grade 1 classes in primary schools of  Quirino, Aurora,  Quezon,  Rizal and Palawan.

Bayangan is  supported by  the provincial government of  Quirino  through the Local School Board.

Other K1  pupils  supported by  PRIME-PUGAHAN  are in San Martin of  Quirino;  Matuwe,  Umiray, SingawanCaragsakan, Dikapanikian of Dingalan, Aurora;  Militunglan, Uma, Bumbanan, and Madaraki of General Nakar, Quezon;  Paglitao of  Antipolo,  Rizal beginning this school year June 2012.

For this school year, some  80 school children from five sitios shall receive primary education in General Nakar, Quezon Province and Paglitao, Calawis, Rizal.  Indigenous Batak shall also be reached in remote TinitianRoxas, Kalakwasa, Tanabag, and Puerto Prinsesa in Palawan.

Appreciating one’s culture among indigenous children who don’t know how to  speak their native dialect and those fluent with their native language  is equally a major  intent of  the mother tongue approach of Dep-Ed.

There are only 12 identified  lingua franca to be used this school year in the Dep-Ed’s  mother tongue medium of instruction  namely  Tagalog, Kapampangangan, Pangasinense, Iloko, Bikol, Cebuano, Hiligaynon Waray, Tausug, Maguindanaoan,  Maranao,  Chabakano.

The rest of  indigenous languages not identified  is now up to the  teacher to innovate.