Republic of the Philippines

MINDORO STATE COLLEGE OF

AGRICULTURE AND TECHNOLOGY
Calapan City Campus
Masipit, Calapan City

College of Teacher Education

LANGUAGE POLICIES AND PROGRAMS IN
MULTILINGUAL SOCIETIES

A Narrative Report of Conducted Interview

on Daycare Workers and Grade 6 Teachers

Group 1
Eloiza Avelino
Hanna Navelgas
Rhecia Sandoval
Rashida Abdullah
Angelica Mirabete
Baby Sheila Catapat

Harieth C. Cawagdan - Cuarto, Ph.D.

Instructor
 Instructor Students are diverse learners. They came from different environment, have
different background as well as interests. For them to be a good lifelong learner, they have to be
good speaker as well as listener. Communication finds its way here, wherein teachers connect
themselves to their students. As student varies, our way of communicating to them varies. The
different levels they have must be properly combined with the appropriate approach to
learning, teaching and communicating.

With this, our grouped interviewed one of the teachers in primary level with an
important role in the stage where student already have a wide range of understanding and are
preparing to be a teenager, the 6 th grade levels. She is Ms. Donna Fe Magnait Aldaba-Pollo, a
field experience teacher in San Teodoro Central School. She started her teaching profession in
Calsapa Elementary School. She’s been teaching for 13 years. The three years were spent in
grade 6 students and she has already taught students of kindergarten, grade 1 and grade 4.
Being a teacher, you are bound to meet children who differ from each other which she believed
that they must not be compared to anyone. She considers different approaches in
communicating with her students as well as their interest, background and level of language.
She strongly believed that all children are unique individual who need guidance to develop their
fullest potential physically, emotionally, intellectually and socially. It is the job of a teacher to
give understanding and care to students for them to love the idea of learning with the aid of
teaching.

We asked Ma’am Donna if she follows a certain standard policy when it comes to
communicating with children in their grade level and her response was yes, there is a standard
and it has a big difference in communicating with her students which vary depending on their
grade level. She reasoned out that when she have to teach in Kinder, she communicate with
them in different way. Then in Grade 1, she tried to level up their communication. But more or
less, for her it is more difficult when she handled Grade 6 students because from Kinder to
Grade 1 then Grade 6 students, it was a big transition for her to take on so she stated that, “You
should practice higher communication.” In grade 6, try to be firm while in Kinder you should be
soft and soft- hearted because they are sensitive and those who are in Grade 6 they are in a
transition period of becoming teenagers and they are older so you should treat them with
discipline and needs to be stiff and loose. Furthermore, we’ve learned from her on how we will
be able to communicate and understand our student. She pointed out that when you are going
to communicate with them you should consider where they come from and different students
have varying attitudes and consider individual differences especially when we are teaching or
communicating with them. Ma’am Donna has this one simple principle and her way of showing
how to embrace diversity of students. “We shouldn't compare one student to others because
they have different origin, family background and environment so when we are teaching
children we should avoid uttering foul words”. There are children whom you can easily talk, and
others want teachers who are soft-hearted and soft-spoken while there are children who are
used to loud voices, so the tendency is they will not listen. In here, she emphasized that we
should refer to reverse psychology and social science that is very important especially
psychology because you will learn to teach different kinds of children and you will learn about
their behavior and everything. For her that is what she wants wherein before you judge the
children you should know them first.

As for those who misbehave she has her rules and numbers that signify different
meanings and things that they should do. She also avoids saying foul words. She does not direct
warning individually instead she generalized it so that they wouldn't feel embarrassed. She gave
us a tip with regards to rules and regulation. “When the school year started you have to give
them policy”. For example her policies are; when she said one: you have to sit down , when she
said two: stand, three: you have to keep quiet, four: get in line, five: She’s already mad, so you
have to keep quiet and when she said six: you have to sleep. “You have to give rules and you
should have something that you can follow as rules in school”.

“I don't always say very good,” her answer about what common feedback she give on
students’ performances. She used different words because her reason is that when you
commend a child it is not always based on performance but also consider their behavior or both.
Examples that you can say are very good, excellence, keep it up, and encourage him/her to do
things which are beneficial. If ever that a child misbehave you should get his/her attention.

Going over, she added that teachers should be a good person and approachable who
are able to do or be anything that will make students enjoys their communication. “When you
are a teacher there are personalities that you should master because a teacher is not only a
teacher”. You are a coach and a mentor, an artist and a demonstrator, a teacher and a doctor,
an engineer and an architect, a nurse and a mother. However, the most important thing is you
are a teacher at the same time a mother. Because if students didn't see you as mother they
won't love you and don't be hard to them as a treatment because it is a good thing when they
accept you because they love you and not because they are angry or afraid of you. It is also good
when children will follow because they have respect. “Fear is not a good discipline”, said by
Ma’am Donna because if they were disciplined by fear they were not be pleasant persons.

Lastly, we took the opportunity to hear her advice for aspiring and beginning teachers.
“Being a teacher you should always develop professional and personal qualities. When you are a
teacher remember not to pull down students instead you are the one to pull them upward.
When he/she is not intelligent or a slow learner you should also lower your standards and don't
set too high because it is important for a child to receive help. That is why we became teachers
to help the children. Secondly, we should know the rules of teachers about what is right or
wrong and ethics of a teacher. The etiquette of a teacher should exist in our minds and hearts.
We have the oath taking and Professional Standards for Teachers and those are the things that
we need to remember. The reality is we have a heavy duty because we are molding the future
and you can't be a molder of a fine person when you can't discipline yourself. We should always
practice being a teacher even outside the school so that people wouldn't throw words like
"teacher ka pa naman". We should be aware of what we will do and say because we are role
models of the community. You are not only teacher in school but in the whole community”,
advised Ma’am Donna Fe Aldaba Pollo.