1. A new curriculum in the Philippine Educational System is now implemented.
Several revisions in the old curriculum was made and more features (which are
believed to help in the development of the quality of education in the Philippines) were
introduced and now finally implemented. One of the features offered by the newly
implemented curriculum is the Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual Education (MTB-MLE).
With the insertion of this program in the K-12 curriculum, several questions were raised
and doubts to some were formed. Such questions arouse were, “Is the mother tongue-based-
multilingual education (MTB-MLE) really needed in the teaching and learning
process?, or will it not be a waste of time having this program in our present
curriculum?’’
According to Susane Malone, SIL International, as she discussed at a seminar, “MT-based
MLE refers to the use of students’ mother tongue and two or more additional
languages as languages of instruction in school. In other contexts, the term is used to
describe bilingual education across multiple language communities.” Meaning to say,
the students’ first language will be a great help for them to begin learning oral and then
written second language. They will be instructed using the language that they consider
as the first for them or their first language. From their first to third grade level in school,
they are provided with opportunities to gain initial literacy in their first language.
Students in these grade levels have no enough knowledge about second or even
about the third language, therefore, the language in which the students are used to will
help them better understand other languages that the teacher may teach or give
them. Another thing is that, the Philippines is a multilingual country. Different languages
or should I say dialects are spoken by Filipinos in the country. This fact signifies that it is
not only Filipino which is best to use in teaching Filipino students – but with their mother
tongue. Since most researchers and practitioners agree that it takes 2-3 years to build
basic communication skills and 5-7 years to develop cognitive and academic
proficiency in a new language (Commins, 2000; Thomas and Collier, 2001) mother
tongue will be used as the students’ foundation of learning. As written in a Language
Learning Journal by Wolgang Butzkamm,he stressed out the theory saying that “using
the mother tongue, we have (1) learnt to think, (2) learnt to communicate and (3)
acquired an intuitive understanding of grammar. The mother tongue opens the door,
not only to its own grammar, but to all grammars, in as much as it awakens the
potential for universal grammar that lies within all of us. This foreknowledge is the result
of interactions between a first language and our fundamental linguistic endowment,
and is the foundation on which we build our selves. It is the greatest asset people bring
to the task of foreign language learning. For this reason, the mother tongue is the
master key to foreign languages, the tool which gives us the fastest, surest, most precise,
and most complete means of accessing a foreign language.”These are all true since
mother tongue is enough to be considered as the mother of all languages;children gain
competence with its help. In support to this, the Inter-dependence Theory (develpoed
by Cummins) explains that concepts and skills acquired in the first language is

2. transferable to the second language and affect that rate and level of development in
the second languag.The idea is that that greater the first language abilitied and the
more underlying linguistic knowledge availableto support the development of the
second language,the more rapid and complete the acquisition.Related to this is the
notion that there is a Common Underlying Proficiency where concepts and skills
acquired in the first language are transferable to or are accessible through the second
language.This widely accepted theory explains that if the Common Underlying
Proficiency is weak,this will affect the development of the second language.Now, how
are the students going to learn other subjects written in foreign language such as
English, if knowledge in their mother tongue is weak?
Aside from the aforementioned thoeries,the teaching of mother tongue in the
Philippines is supported with legel bases such as