Teachers’ Attitudes on the Efficacy of Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual Education Curriculum

Abstract

Despite appearing to be a well-established topic of research, language of instruction policy has continued to be the locus of attention for language teachers and linguists. In the Philippines, Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual Education (MTB-MLE) Curriculum was recently adopted by their educational system. Thus, this paper examines the teachers’ attitudes on the efficacy of the implementation of MTB-MLE and their implications to local and national community. This study follows a qualitative research design and is carried out using a phenomenological approach. The participants were 15 teachers from two different locales – Apalit-Pulilan and Apalit-Baliwag borders. Data were gathered through interviews and observations and were analyzed using a thematic content analysis. The researchers found out 4 main attitudes of teachers (extent of involvement, consistent use of mother tongue/degree of application of mother tongue, actions taken in improving one’s mother tongue, and teachers’ role) and 4 main difficulties in the implementation (mother tongue differences of learners, difficulty in translation, inadequacy of instructional materials, and similar treatment for Mother Tongue subject and Filipino subject). These findings imply that they were just forms of adjustments made by the teachers which mainly root from what the language policy is giving. With this, recommendations were discussed in the end.