Published Research Article

Generic Rhetorical
Structure Structure

Title Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual Education in the Situation

Philippines: Studying Top-Down Policy
Implementation from the Bottom Up

Overview There is a growing trend around the world to support Situation

mother tongue instruction in the early years of a
child‘s education. In Southeast Asia, this is apparent
in a rising number of educational programs that utilize
this approach. However, the Philippines is the only
country in Southeast Asia to have instituted a national
policy requiring mother tongue-based multilingual
education (MTB-MLE) in the primary school years.
While studies have long supported the use of mother
tongue as the language of instruction, they have
primarily been conducted in community rather than
national settings. As such, little is known about how a
national policy for MTB-MLE can be disseminated
into contextualized local environments.

Aim of the This study examined how teachers and parents in Problem
Study one school district in the Philippines understand and
enact MTB-MLE.

Reason of Teachers‘ and parents‘ knowledge, beliefs, and Situation

the Study practices were studied to identify how national
language policy is appropriated at the ground level.
 Methodology Utilizing a case study methodology, this research Response
used in the included focus groups, surveys, classroom
Study observations, and individual interviews. Data were
collected during a three week time period in June and
July 2012, which was one month after the beginning
of MTB-MLE implementation in the schools.

Findings of The result in the study indicated that teachers‘ and Solution/
the Study parents‘ views of MTB-MLE focused on the short- Evaluation
term benefits of the policy and the long-term
disadvantages. While both groups were
overwhelmingly satisfied with the increase in student
understanding, they expressed concern about the
future implications for learning in Bikol rather than in
English. They overtly supported the policy in terms of
complying with the requirements, yet covert
resistance was observed in their words and actions.
The implications of these findings revolve around the
way in which language policy is managed. Rather
than a top-down approach that does not consider the
local context, language policy must be implemented
through interactions between the top and the bottom.

Analysis:

There is a growing trend around the world to support mother tongue instruction in
the early years of a child‘s education. As such, little is known about how a national
policy for MTB-MLE can be disseminated into contextualized local environments that is
why teachers and parents are examined if how they understand and enact MTB-MLE.
Parents and teachers are focused on the short-term benefit and the long term
disadvantages. To solve this problem, language policy should be managed properly and
should be implemented through interactions between the top and bottom rather than
top-down approach
Generic Rhetorical
Structure Structure

Title Language Use in the University: A Clash of Policies Situation

Overview In 2010, the Mother Tongue Based Language Situation

Education (MTB-MLE) was implemented in the
Philippines basic education as a result of the
positive effect of multilingualism among learners. In
the study conducted by Besa (2010) among the
Laboratory High School (LHS) students of Rizal
Technological University (RTU), code-switching
(CS) positively affects the academic performance of
the learners.

Aim of the This study tries to further examine the issue of the Problem
Study existing language practices and policies on
classroom instruction and interactions at tertiary
level that create conflicting language polices.

Reason of However, if the LHS were to fully implement the Situation

the Study MTB-MLE policy, what would be the status of the
English Only Policy (EOP) in the University?

Methodology This study surveys the awareness of language Response

used in the policy, dominant language of instruction and
study interaction, the problems often encountered by the
teachers and students in using the prescribed
language and the preferred language of the
professors and students during class interaction
 Findings of The results of the study reveal that in terms of policy Solution/
the Study awareness, both the faculty and students are Evaluation
predominantly aware of the language policy.
However, the survey also reveals that, despite
language policy awareness, the faculty and students
frequently use code-switching which creates a
mismatch in the implementation of the EOP. Thus,
the use of the prescribed language generates
several problems to both faculty and students. In
sum, despite the difficulties experienced, there is
actually no rejection of the use of English as the
medium of communication among the respondents.

Analysis:

The Mother Tongue Based Language Education (MTB-MLE) was implemented in the
Philippines basic education as a result of the positive effect of multilingualism among
learners which led into examining the issue of the existing language practices and
policies on classroom instruction and interaction. To help with the problem, surveys on
awareness of language policy, dominant language of instruction and interaction were
conducted. Despite the difficulties experienced, there is actually no rejection of the use
of English as the medium of communication among the respondents.