Philippine Basic Education

With the dismal performance of students in the Philippines in the 2019 TIMSS, it is timely to reflect on why basic education in the Philippines is failing. Surely,  there are factors  that correlate with low scores in math and science. These are parental education, number of books available at home, availability of computers and internet, and the general attitude of students toward mathematics. These factors indeed require an Herculean effort to overcome for any educational system. Developing skills in math and science requires support from home, but this cannot be used as an excuse for the failure of a school system. One must not disregard, for instance, the fact that teachers in the Philippines themselves do not do well in exams in mathematics . There is likewise a tendency to find fault in the testing itself. Language is one excuse. When reasons are too obvious, it is not really helpful to look further. When students from the Philippines took the exam in their language...

Equity in education demands no less than the complete abolition of linguistic hegemony. Unfortunately, with the bulk of scholarly and scientific work published in the recent decades, English has become an effective international medium. In the Philippines, the DepEd K-12 curriculum has embraced a mother tongue based education to help children feel at home in their schools and, at the same time, preserve and nurture the various languages of the country. The program has been in place for about seven years now so it is timely to assess its current standing. The Philippine Institute for Development Study (PIDS) reports that nearly all public schools (99.5%) claim to be implementing a mother tongue program in kindergarten through third grade. Of course, with more details, the program looks less rosier. More than half still do not have the books written for this program. PIDS uses a list of four activities as a minimum requirement to consider a school as fully implementing a mother-tongue...

In Broward County in Florida, there is a Dual Language Program that starts at kindergarten. Like other school districts in the United States, a dual language program is not offered to all students. The program is limited since it often requires teachers who are either gifted-certified or endorsed. At the least, the teachers need to attend professional development and periodic curriculum training. In Broward, classroom instruction in the target language requires a minimum of about 2 hours per day. Across the Pacific, back in 2010, the Liberal Party candidate for president, Noynoy Aquino, in providing a blueprint for basic education, stated, "We should become tri-lingual as a country. Learn English well and connect to the World. Learn Filipino well and connect to our country. Retain your dialect and connect to your heritage." In Philippine politics, unrealistic promises are really common. But, in this case, it is not only unrealistic, but also hegemonic. The idea that the Phil...

English is considered as a primary academic language. Most books and journals on almost every discipline are often written and published in English. English, however, is not the mother tongue of a significant number of children. Even in the United States, one can easily find elementary schools where a significant number of students are not native English speakers. Although one may regard this as a challenge for schools, having a mixture of non-native and native English speakers in one classroom actually provides an excellent opportunity for a genuine bilingual education. Unfortunately, most programs choose either immersion (in which students abandon their native tongue in favor of English) or transitional (in which the language spoken at home is used in the early years simply as a support for instruction). This is perhaps due to practical reasons as bilingual education requires more resources. For one, teachers need to be proficient in the native language and culture of their students ...

It is not easy to be multilingual. While it is important that young children are encouraged to maintain and develop their mother tongue, neglecting the learning of English can have serious ramifications in the future. GetRealPhilippines  has several recent posts on this topic of language, all of which are pointing to the current sad state of communication in the Philippines. Competency in English, however, is not just a matter of will. It is now becoming clear that English comprehension, if not attained on time, is extremely challenging to address even with the best interventions. Above copied from Get Real Philippines A research article scheduled to be published in the Journal of Educational Psychology reports that it is exceedingly difficult to improve English reading comprehension among students who spoke a language other than English at home and had underdeveloped vocabulary in English by the time they enter secondary school. A two-year intensive reading intervention de...

This weekend, I received an email from Education Week  with a link to a quiz that roughly assessed how much I knew about English language learners. There were eight questions but only the first two concerned best teaching practices derived from evidence-based research. The other six questions would require familiarity with current conditions in schools in the United States. I thought it would be useful to share this quiz especially the first two questions since these touched on some of the stubborn myths regarding learning English as a second language. For instance, I am sure there are among us who were raised with the idea that speaking in our mother tongue at home harms our learning of English. This is not true. Here is the quiz with my answers: (You may want to try the quiz by yourself first using this link: English language learners quiz )

In Fairfax county, public schools do not use textbooks in elementary. The same goes for middle school. Instead, teachers use resources that are either available on the internet, or handouts that can be easily reproduced with a copying machine. Working with this type of learning materials obviously avoids textbooks that are too expensive to correct if they are found erroneous. Mistakes can be easily addressed with materials that are digital and originals can be corrected before placing them on a Xerox machine. With the new K to 12 curriculum and mother-tongue based education in the Philippines, a need for new learning materials automatically follows. The Department of Education in the Philippines has performed very poorly in this task. First, the Department has continued with contracts on textbooks that are no longer aligned with the new curriculum. Second, the new textbooks designed for the new curriculum have been poorly written, proofread and edited. Perhaps, it is a blessing that so...

Though data on learning outcomes are not easily available, some details regarding how the new curriculum of the Department of Education in the Philippines are now being told in scholarly publications. For instance, Lartec and coworkers have published their findings regarding the pilot schools of Mother Tongue - Based Multilingual Education (MTB-MLE) in Baguio City. The paper, " Strategies and Problems Encountered by Teachers in Implementing MotherTongue - Based Instruction in a Multilingual Classroom ", provides qualitative data that suggest the following problems: the absence of books written in mother tongue, lack of vocabulary, and lack of teacher-training.  These problems especially the lack of qualified teachers should not be surprising. Even in a developed country, where multilingual education is being pursued, having an adequate number of teachers trained is a problem. The state of California this coming Tuesday is asking its citizens to vote for multilingual educat...

Corey Mitchell's article at Education Week , "English-Language-Learner Graduation Rates Are All Over the Map", starts with the following sentence: "The graduation rate for the nation's English-language learners in the class of 2014 rose to 62.6 percent, a slight increase over the previous year, according to data released by the U.S. Department of Education last month." Such graduation rate places this group at the bottom of public high school graduation rate in the United States. Above copied from Public Radio International There is, however, one issue I need to take with this type of reporting. Mitchell, as many people do in education reporting, are quick to equate students tagged with "Limited English Proficiency" to "English Language Learners". The National Center for Education Statistics probably contributes to this confusion as it defines "Limited English Proficiency" : limited English proficient (LEP).  A term used...

Most publications in the sciences are in English. There is no doubt that learning English is important in basic education. Children from homes where the adults and older siblings do not regularly talk in English learn to communicate in a different language, a mother tongue different from English. These children are therefore developing their cognitive skills in a different medium. One might be quick in suggesting that this is bad for children who are expected to learn English. For this reason, it is necessary that we make ourselves knowledgeable of what current research on language learners tells us. Learning a mother tongue other than English is obviously not a disadvantage. It should not lead to developmental delays. On the other hand, simply giving a lip service to mother tongue based education is likewise incorrect. In 2013, the State Advisory Council on Early Learning and Care in California published  California’s Best Practices for Young Dual Language Learners: Research Ov...

Results from schools in Houston suggest that bilingual education is producing better learning outcomes. What works, however, requires a thoughtful consideration. The scheme that leads apparently not just to higher scores in language tests, but also in mathematics, is a specific bilingual program called "two-way" dual language. Instruction under this program has the option of either starting with either an 80:20 or a 50:50 model. In the 80:20 model, instruction is given in the mother tongue of the English language learners (ELL) eighty percent of the time and in English, during the remaining time. The amount of instruction in English increases progressively and reaches 50:50 in third grade, which continues until fifth grade, the end of the program. In the 50:50 model, half of the instruction is in English and the other half is in the mother tongue throughout all six years, from kindergarten to fifth grade. What makes this dual language program in Houston unique is its "tw...

It is only obvious that when a child enters school for the first time, it is important that the child feels at home. Nothing can be more alienating than sitting inside a classroom for the first time and not understanding a single word a teacher is saying. Mother tongue based education is undoubtedly important. Sadly, what is often emphasized is just the "mother tongue" part, with the "education" component often neglected or not supported. To learn more about why mother tongue-based education is important, the above advocacy kit from UNESCO maybe helpful Mother tongue based education means helping students to become proficient in their native tongue. It requires both teachers and resources. Teachers need to be competent in the first language of their students. Learning resources that are not just mere translations, but actual products of the local culture or experiences are necessary. The objective of helping children learn in their mother tongue does not mir...

DepEd's K to 12 has something for everyone. Two additional years in high school with various tracks and strands are coming soon yet the huge education reform has already been taking place for over three years. The spiral progression has been in place such that current fourth year high school students have yet to see chemistry taught continuously for an entire year. And, of course, the mother tongue based multilingual education is on its fourth year of implementation. DepEd's K to 12 reminds me in so many ways of how a politician usually caters to so many interests that in the end, nothing really gets accomplished. Mother Jones magazine  (Nov-Dec 1993 issue) had a great cartoon that depicted how Bill Clinton, for instance, had so many promises, yet at the end, delivered nothing. There were a lot of interests on Capitol Hill, and along the way, the pizza got hijacked. DepEd's K to 12 may also end up delivering nothing but for a different reason. There are no pow...

Is there really a cognitive advantage in being a bilingual? A recent review of published papers by Angela de Bruin, Barbara Treccani, and Sergio Della Sala in the journal Psychological Science   reveals a publication bias favoring only those that report a positive correlation between bilingualism and executive control. In the review, de Bruin and coauthors write, " Our overview shows that there is a distorted image of the actual study outcomes on bilingualism, with researchers (and media) believing that the positive effect of bilingualism on nonlinguistic cognitive processes is strong and unchallenged. " I am a bilingual and I think it is a worthwhile endeavor to become one. Becoming proficient and conversant with two languages is truly a rewarding accomplishment. Becoming a bilingual, unfortunately, is not just a matter of wanting to become one. Cognitive abilities in one language are expected to influence progress in a second language. Not taking into account the quality ...

How stress affects a learner's performance is a factor worth considering since teachers can sometimes intimidate a student. For example, a teacher simply standing behind a student during an exam can induce stress.  Stress occupies part of one's attention. Therefore, it is expected that the effects of stress on a student's performance are likely to depend on the difficulty of the task and the student's working memory capacity. By focusing on reading comprehension, researchers at Kansas State University are able to decipher the effects of stress, anxiety, difficulty of task, and working memory on a student's performance. The paper published in the Journal of Educational Psychology , " The Effects of Stress on Reading: A Comparison of First-Language Versus Intermediate Second-Language Reading Comprehension ", manages to untangle these various factors, providing a picture of how each affects a student's efficiency (speed) and effectiveness (accuracy). ...

In addition to priding itself as a professional learning community, Mason Crest Elementary School is also home to an international mix of children. Mason Crest Elementary School webpage with my son on the cover These students are not just children of immigrants. These children were born in other countries. Flags representing the countries of origin of students at Mason Crest can decorate its entire gym.

Apparently in Chinese, a single word can be used to convey either "heat" or hot": This obviously could be confusing to a high school student who is trying to learn fundamental physics in Chinese. Science learning does require much more than just grasping concepts. Science requires a certain precision in academic language. Even in English, force and power may seem interchangeable in everyday conversations, but in physics, these two correspond to two distinct quantities. Hence, the question of how the medium of instruction affects science learning is an important issue to address especially now that most learning resources for the sciences are in English. A paper scheduled to be published in the Journal of Research in Science Teaching  tackles this question by performing a quasi-experimental study in a secondary school in Hong Kong. Participants (about 200 students) come from working class families. For about half of the students, the highest educational attainment...

Among immigrants in the United States, several studies have shown that children who have proficiency in both English and their mother tongue tend to be more successful in school compared to their ethnic peers. (See, for example,  Social Capital and the Adaptation of the Second Generation: The Case of Vietnamese Youth in New Orleans.  Min Zhou and Carl L. Bankston III. International Migration Review, Vol. 28, No. 4, Special Issue: The New Second Generation (Winter, 1994), pp. 821-845) This, perhaps, can be attributed in part to closer family ties and parental cultural maintenance that emphasizes beliefs and practices that are socially constructive. These two strongly correlate with a child's retention of his or her parents' native tongue since this language is expected to be the major means of communication between immigrants and their children. Mother tongue education, however, goes far beyond just benefiting society. It is about preserving one's ethnic identity and cul...