INFLUENCE OF MOTHER-TONGUE-BASED INSTRUCTION ON ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT


            Language is the prime factor for effective communication in the classroom. The term “submersion” applies to the language used in a classroom setting, usually a foreign language, that students do not speak.


            According to the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organizations (UNESCO), submersion is [i]analogous to holding learners under water without teaching them how to swim. Submersion is at times made even more complex by common difficulties in the educational system when teachers are also not familiar with the foreign language, imperfect curricula, and inadequate teaching facilities and equipment which compounds both communicating and understanding in the classroom. 


            In a mother tongue-based instruction, the student’s original language is first used to teach beginner’s skills as reading and writing  in the mother tongue-based program, identified as L1.  If the students know already the basics, the foreign language, identified as L2, is then progressively used in the classroom. The students can then shift their skills to the foreign language.


            If a familiar language is used in the early years of literacy acquisition,  it smooths the progress of comprehending meaning-symbol and sound-symbol communication. However, if submersion is used, the teachers might teach students to  decipher and interpret words in L2 but it sometimes take time for the students to know the meaning of the L2 words and sentences.


            In L1, learning novel ideas and thoughts are continuous since it lets both teachers and students to work and look for meanings simultaneously. It fosters and promotes an educational environment that is participatory which are favorable to language and cognitive progress. On the other hand, the submersion approach is often typified by an instruction-type lecture where teachings are memorized by the students.


            Bilingual language programs  agree to a methodical form of teaching L2. It starts with skills that permit students to be familiar with the foreign language through dialogue rather than the rote form of studying.  Once the students have mastered their basic academic skills in L1, and skills in communicating in L2, they can then start conveying the skills they learned in L1 to efficiently start reading and writing using L2. This is based on Cummins “interdependence theory” wherein it states that [ii]the knowledge of language, literacy and concepts learned in the L1 can be accessed and used in the second language once oral L2 skills are developed, and no re-learning is required.


            In a bilingual program, the rate and the degree of a student’s learning are accurately evaluated. The reason behind this is that  students  can better express their thoughts and ideas and consequently, the teachers can assess if learning has taken place, what is lacking and which students need more help. In submersion, the teachers find it difficult to know if the students have integrated and understood the lesson, the instruction, and/or the test. 


            If students are able to express themselves well, it builds up self-confidence and self-respect as well as developing self-identify as it lets them be themselves while enhancing their cognitive abilities and personalities. Self-confidence leads to initiative, motivation, and creativity. In submersion, students are compelled to listen to instructions and repeat words after the teacher which often leads to boredom, frustration, and failure.


            Bilingual programs teaches the students to become proficient in more than one language while submersion tries to promote a new, usually a foreign language,  by doing away with a known, usually local, language.


            The mother tongue-based schooling’s postulations are that since the basic need of students are actualized, learning can take place; and bilingual form of education  is possible to be efficiently established and applied. It can even influence students that were not able to cope by L2 type of schooling.


            Some beliefs that are used to dispute the benefits and advantages of a mother tongue-based education are the following: the myth of the one nation therefore one language to be used myth, the belief that modern concepts cannot be expressed by local languages, the idea of either – or,  the teaching of L2 as a form of global language,  and the presumption that L2 form of educational approach is the only preferred method of schooling by parents.


            The analyses on cost benefit are being studied by scholars of World Bank that compares the expense of schooling with regards to dropouts and repetitions  to the expense that will be incurred by applying bilingual schooling in the belief that student wastage is minimized by a bilingual schooling approach.



 

[i] Unesdoc.unesco.org


[ii] Unesdoc.unesco.org



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