Name: Hazelle O.

Napoles Course/Year: BEED 2-A

Analiza D. Nagera

Part I. Interview Essay

Mother tongue- based multilingual education also known as MTB-MLE education can be
classified formal or non-formal education in which children’s mother tongue is used in the
classroom as bridge in learning Filipino and English language. On this subject we’ve been
assigned to interview one teacher who teaches mother tongue as subject to gather information’s
assigned for us to get so in order to accomplish our task, we interview Mrs. Merly Abetsuela a
Grade 3 teacher in Claudio Villagen Elementary School who has an experience on teaching this
matter.
On the interview we conducted they've said that some of the problem encountered in
teaching mother tongue-based instruction are the absence of books written in mother tongue, lack
of teacher training in updating the techniques and approaches used in teaching with the pupils
who don't know how to speak vernacular. Teaching Mathematics in mother tongue makes hard to
understand of what the teacher is trying to explain in the lesson because some term in
mathematics like sum, difference, place value and etc. Most of pupils nowadays are familiar in
English term rather than mother tongue, so the teacher forced to teach English term for them to
be easily understand by the learner's because the process of teaching of it is in the form of
English. On the other hand the way that we can adhere or solution this according to the teacher
we have interview is by resolving the problem they’ve encountered just like providing enough
books and having some seminar on teaching mother-tongue-based instruction for them to be
more capable and flexible in this type of learning, it will not just also help the children but it will
also benefit and help them too in enhancing more their skills and knowledge. We all know that
mother tongue is the first language that taught since birth, so with regards on the advantages of
teaching mother tongue the teacher we’ve interviewed said that it makes it essay for her to teach
and explain while on the learners it makes it easier for the children to pack-up and learn other
language too. Also, by using this language it helps the child to develop more critical thinking and
literacy skills which can help them to expand more ideas of what the teacher are teaching and the
pupil will understand more about the specific topics that they are learning about, plus teaching
mother-tongue as a subject improves reading and learning outcomes too and improves children’s
self-concept and identity.
For us to be able to reach the goal of teaching MTB-MLE which is to produce student
who will become fully bilingual, biliterate and bicultural and achieve a quality education. The
recommendation that Mrs. Merly Abetsuela suggested that we can do to achieve this is by simply
as embracing more our mother-tongue, used it and widen it so that both party’s teachers and
learners can benefit and make use of it fruitfully. She also recommended to study and focused on
what you are teaching because the lessons that will be teach on the children will be their forever.
They will acquire what you taught when they grow up so if you're teaching mother tongue it is
better to be more patient to the students because teaching mother-tongue is not that easy
specially to those children who grow up without any idea of what our first language is. To sum it
up teaching mother tongue as a subject is not simple as they be for it takes responsibility, effort
and courage to make it work and be understood easily by the learners and let us always
remember like what Rita Mae Brown and Frank Smith said that " One language sets you in a
corridor for life. Two languages open every door along the way. For language is the road map of
a culture. It tells you where its people come from and where they are going."

Part II – Lesson Synthesis

If ever we will be given a chance in the future to teach mother tongue as a learning area,
we foresee that the challenges and difficulties that we will encounter here is on how we will be
able to handle kids who grow up speaking English fluently but doesn’t even know how to speak
their mother tongue. We can considered this as a challenge for us because for sure it will take a
lot of time to teach those children’s who grew up with their second language and it this can be a
problem too in the point that it can be hard for them to adopt and adjust to what they are
accustomed to. On the other hand, the other challenges or problem that we may encounter too
here in teaching mother tongue as a subject is the differences of each and every one of the
learner’s because some of them can have a hard time on understanding of what we taught or
talking because they are kids and possibly they may have different cultures and language too that
can result as a hindrance on communication. Lastly are the difficulties experienced by our
interviewee too, because at some point if the problem she has shared with us may not resolve
early then maybe we might also experience this problem.