The Pressing Problems of Aklanon Teachers in the Teaching of Mother Tongue Subjects and their Implications to Aklanon Writers

The Pressing Problems of Aklanon Teachers in the Teaching of Mother Tongue Subjects  and their Implications to Aklanon Writers

Melchor F. Cichon

September 28, 2015

 

Let me begin with these words which I gathered from the internet:

The importance of the mother tongue

 “There is a lot of advice to parents of English as a Second Language (ESL) children. However, the most important message can be summarized in one sentence:

ESL students in international schools learn English more quickly and effectively if they maintain and develop their proficiency in the mother tongue.

How does the mother tongue help the learning of English? Research has shown that many skills acquired in the first language can be transferred to the second language. So, for example, if your child has developed good reading skills in Korean, she is likely to be able to apply these skills when reading English. (One useful reading skill is the ability to guess the meaning of unfamiliar words from context. Another one is the ability to decide which new words in a text are important to look up in the dictionary and which words can safely be ignored.) For this reason it helps if you can encourage your child to read good fiction and non-fiction in her own language. Similarly, the skills of being able to plan out a piece of writing or develop an argument in a persuasive essay can be applied in the second language once they have been learned in the first.

What are the other reasons for maintaining and developing mother tongue proficiency? Firstly, many children in international schools plan to return to their home country at some point to continue their education there. This is a strong reason to make sure they do not have gaps in mother tongue language or cognitive development. And secondly, ESL students who turn against or otherwise neglect their mother tongue can often suffer from problems of identity loss or alienation from their parents, and from their grandparents or other family members in their home country.

How can ESL students best develop their mother tongue proficiency? For some students, developing mother tongue proficiency is easier because they have lessons each week in their native language. For students who are not in this fortunate position, there is still much that can be done to maintain the mother tongue. For example, parents can make sure that they have good reference books or textbooks at home - in the native language. Students should be encouraged to read good literature and to discuss school work. Some of the long summer vacation could be devoted to mother-tongue learning and reading.

Your children will learn English much more effectively if they continue to develop their first language at the same time. ”1

His research further says that:

 “It would seem imminently commonsensical to assert that, in the context of formal educational settings, children are going to be most effectively taught when both children and teachers speak well the language of instruction. That, after all, is the prevailing model in most developed countries where one generally finds effective educational systems producing solid results” 2.

In a nutshell, the insights gleaned from the data examined can be approximately stated as follows:

1. Patterns of language usage in any given country or region are NOT monolithic. Consequently, some sociolinguistic settings are much better candidates for mother tongue education than others.

2. The research data is uniform in supporting the claim that mother tongue education programs are capable of producing capable readers in 2 - 3 medium programs. years rather than the 5 reported for many second language

3. The use of the mother tongue as a medium of instruction raises the level of educational outcomes across the board but does not convert poor teachers into good teachers.

4. The research evidence consistently contradicts the claim that heavy reliance upon the mother tongue for instructional purposes in early grades will compromise ability to learn and use the second language. It appears that the gains in mastery of basic educational skills coming from mother tongue instruction more than compensate for reduced exposure to the second language in a classroom context.

5. The research data suggests that the impacts of mother tongue instruction are substantial and are measurable both in the short term -- specific measures of educational outcomes—and in the long term via more global measures such as access to higher education and to more advanced career opportunities.

6. The research evidence suggests that the greatest beneficiaries of mother tongue education are those of average ability and potential.

Now going to the Philippine setting, more specially on the K-12 program of DepEd.

K-12 program and the Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual Education (MTB MLE)

DepEd launched in 2011 the K-12 program, which became law only in 2013. Along with other curricular and policy reforms introduced, the K-12 program sought to build proficiency through language via MTB MLE, introduced in 2012. The mother tongue or first language refers to languages or dialects first learned by a child and with which the child identifies with.

MTB-MLE aims to develop Filipino and English proficiency by starting basic education with the first language of learners. Starting in kindergarten up to Grade 3, the medium of instruction shall be in the mother tongue of the students. Beginning in Grade 1, Filipino and English will be taught as subject areas.

Come Grades 4 to 6, DepEd shall formulate a mother tongue transition program in which English and Filipino are introduced as media of instruction so that by Junior High School and Senior High School, the two can become the primary languages of instruction.

Initially, there were 12 regional languages under the MTB MLE program: Tagalog, Cebuano, Hiligaynon, Iloko, Bikol, Kapampangan, Maguindanaoan, Meranao, Pangasinense, Bahasa Sug (Tausug), Chabacano and Waray. In July 2013, Ybanag, Ivatan, Sambal, Aklanon, Kinaray-a, Yakan, and Surigaonon were added to the program. – Rappler.com

One of the best ways to impart knowledge is through books. Books hasten our learning. But the problem, at times, is the absence of the up-to-date, and appropriate learning materials and teaching guides so that both the learners and the teachers will make the teaching and the learning process become easy and effective.

With the implentation of the Mother Tongue Curriculum in the Philippines, it is but imperative that our school adminitrators should provide appropriate reading materials as part of their teaching aids, at the same time as reading materials for the pupils. As stated above: Students should be encouraged to read good literature and to discuss school work. At the same time, it is best that both the teachers and their pupils speak and understand the same language in their classrooms.

Let us also remember this, parents should have good reference books or textbooks at home - in the native language to hasten the proficiency in learning the native language.

The question is: Do we have the necessary materials for our pupils? Are these reading materials readily available to both the teachers and the students, and are these learning materials really understandable to the teachers and most especially to the targetted pupils?

In Metro Manila, I have a feeling that teachers’ guides and the learning materials are readily available to both the teachers and the students, but in the provinces like Aklan, I do not want to believe that these things are not readily available. If these materials are available, these are not in their mother tongue as required. So how can these materials become effective instruments in teaching the mother tongue subjects when they are not in Aklanon? The best remedy therefore is to translate these materials into Aklanon. I also understand that the present available learning materials and the teachers’ guides in Aklan are in Hiligaynon. So these materials have to be contextualized into Aklanon.

In July, 2015, I was privileged to be invited as a language reviewer in a seminar-workshop in Cavite City where the original Filipino reading materials were contextualized by selected Aklanon teachers and it was there where I knew the problems being faced by Grade One teachers in teaching mother tongue to Grade One pupils. One of the problems they are facing is the absence of Aklanon version of the reading materials for Grade One pupils and the absence of Hiligaynon-Aklanon dictionary to help them translate the Hiligaynon reading materials that have been provided by them by DepEd Aklan.

This brings us to the problem of translation.  Many Grade One teachers in Aklan are not well equipped in translating these materials. Many of them have not undergone training in translation. Another big problem that is being encountered by the teachers is that they do not have Hiligaynon-Aklanon dictionary so they cannot capture much of the essence of the materials and hence they cannot effectively translate their needed materials into Aklanon. And there are not enough available Hiligaynon speakers in Aklan for them to consult with. It might be true that many Aklanons can understand Hiligaynon, because some of them have gone or lived in Iloilo City and they often hear Hiligaynon masses in their repsective towns. Except for the homily, masses in Aklan are in Hiligaynon.

 Another big problem that is being faced by many teachers in Aklan in translating the Hiligaynon reading materials into Aklanon is the absence of the Aklanon-English dictionary by Salas, et al, or the five-language dictionary of Mr. Roman de la Cruz.

Without these dictionaries, another problem arises, the spelling of the Aklanon words especially when they are spelled with o or u.  How do you write tagipusuon? Or is it tagiposoon? Or is it tagiposuon? Some educators would tell us that we should write the words the way we pronoucne them. This is possible, but in Aklan, not every Aklanon can understand the same word.

As a result, many Aklanon teachers/translators/writers are at the lost. The Aklanon intonation or sound, like that in Kalibo, Lezo, Numancia, and Banga have almost the same vowel sound, but then when you reach Libacao, and Balete, there is again a different sound. Likewise, the sound in Ibajay and in Buruanga is also different from that of Kalibo. This is because Buruanga is near Antique, so their intonation is like that of the Kinaray-a speakers. Besides, they have different words for a certain item. This becomes a problem to the writers especially so when the writers are from Lezo, Kalibo, and Numancia. They might not be understood when the materials are used in Ibajay or in Altavas.

This situation becomes a challenge to all Aklanon writers.  There are of course contextualizers, but then again, these people find it challenging to translate the original Hiligaynon, and lately the original Filipino learning materials and the teachers’ guides. The products of these people will surely affect the delivery of these materials from the teachers to the pupils.

Problems being encountered by Aklanon writers

Unlike the English and Filipino writers, Aklanon writers encounter a lot of problems.

1.      There is not enough copies of Aklanon dictionaries. At the moment, there are three Aklanon dictionaries. These are the following:

Braulio, Eleanor Perucho. Akean-Filipino leksikon. Macar Enterprises,1999. 177p.
De la Cruz, Roman A. Five-language dictionary (Panay Island): English, Tagalog, Hiligaynon, Kinaray-a, Aklanon. Kalibo: Rock Publishing, 2003. 919p.
Reyes, Vicente Salas, Nicolas L. Prado, R. David Paul Zorc. A Study of the Aklanon Dialect. Vol. 2: Dictionary. Kalibo, Aklan: Public Domain, 1969. 396p.

2.      The second problem is the lack of financial support from school administrators, hence they cannot create fresh reading materials for DepEd.

3.      There is a lack of book illustrators since books for Grades 1 to 3 require illustrations for easy comprehnesion.

4.      There are Aklanon writers who are not teaching in the grade schools so they cannot really focus on the needed reading materials.

5.      There are some published poems, proverbs, riddles, short stories, plays in Aklan but these materials have not been anthologized into one reference book. The book, Sa Atong Dila, edited by Merlie Alunan, features some Kinaray-a, Hiligaynon, and Aklanon materials that can be used by K 12 teachers in literature, but the book is very expensive. I do not know if many of our teachers here are aware of this book.

Fortunately, we have the Kasingkasing Press that is willing to publish our literary outputs. In August 2015, 15 book titles were published by this press, under the leadership of Mr. Noel de Leon of Guimaras.

Unfortunately, these materials are for Grades 4 and above, hence there is a need for more readings materials in Kinaray-a, Hiligaynon and Aklanon.

Recently, the Department of Education, Division of Aklan, conducted a Division Training Workshop on Beginning Reading wherein the participants produced big books. 3