Republic of the Philippines

ISABELA STATE UNIVERSITY

Cabagan, Isabela

EEd Spec 314- Content and

Pedagogy in the Mother-
Tongue

Chapter 1

Lesson 1: Concept clarification: Mother tongue, MTB-MLE, Language policy

official and national languages, language of instruction

Lesson 2: Theories, Rationale and Evidence supporting MTB-MLE

Developmental learning theories
Lesson 1: Concept clarification: Mother tongue, MTB-MLE, Language policy
official and national languages, language of instruction

Introduction: This chapter will provide you the necessary knowledge in MTB-MLE—
especially its background and how it was implemented in the K-12 curriculum.
Moreover, this chapter of your module will equip you with additional learning on our
national languages and how these languages used in instruction.

Learning Outcomes

At the end of this chapter students will be able to:

a. Define key concepts in MTBMLE

b. Identify the national and official languages in the Philippines

c. Discuss cultural rootedness as one of the reasons behind the use of mother
tongue

Learning Content

 Mother tongue, MTB-MLE, Language policy, official and national languages,

language of instruction

Teaching and Learning Activities

BASIC TERMINOLOGIES

 Mother-Tongue- means one’s native language, the language learned by

children and passed from one generation to the next
 Language- is the expression of ideas by means of speech sounds combined
into words.
o L1 – 1st Language
o L2 – 2nd Language
 Bilingual- the use of two languages.
 Multilingual- the use of two or more languages.
  Diversity- the inclusion of different types of people in a group.
 Literacy- the ability to read and write.

K-12 curriculum is a big leap towards educative vision of the Philippine

Government— to be globally aligned with other countries when it comes to the
number of years in the Basic Education. K-12 curriculum has six (6) salient
features:

1. Strengthening Early Childhood Education (Universal Kindergarten)

2. Making the Curriculum Relevant to Learners (Contextualization and Enhancement)
3. Ensuring Integrated and Seamless Learning (Spiral Progression); Gearing Up for
the Future (Senior High School)
4. Nurturing the Holistically Developed Filipino (College and Livelihood Readiness, let
Century Skills)
5. Highlight, Building Proficiency through Language (Mother Tongue-Based

Multilingual Education).

The introduction of Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual Education (MTB-MLE) in

the Kindergarten, Grade 1, 2 and 3 made a change in the Basic Education
Curriculum, in support with the goal: “Every Child-A-Reader and A-Writer.”
First-language-first is the primary goal of MTB-MLE, it is meant to address illiteracy
of Filipinos and language plays a significant factor.

There are local and international researches that suggest that children learn to
read, write, and speak faster when they use their L1 (First language) and eventually
grasp a second and or third language easily if taught in L1. It is the same in
acquiring competencies specifically in Science and Math. Because of these, the
Department of Education (DepEd) recognized the advantages of teaching children
utilizing their first language.

DepEd instituted MTB-MLE through Department Order 94, having the following
major languages as medium of instruction in 2012-2013: Tagalog; Kapampangan;
Pangasinense; Iloko; Bikolano ; Cebuano; Hiligaynon; Waray; Tausug;
Maguinadanaoan; Maranao; Chabacano, Ivatan; Sambal; Akianon; Kinaray-a, Yakan,
and Sinurigaonon.

In region 2 Ilokano still is the dominant native language being spoken by the
majority followed by Ibanag which is known to be the Lingua Franca of Cagayan
Valley. Originally, Ibanag is excluded from the original languages as a medium of
instruction for MTB-MLE. However, because of the initiative of the former Vice
President Binay, Ibanag was included. The pilot implementation of the Mother
Tongue-Based Multi-Lingual Education (MTB-MLE) program of the Department of
Education (DepEd) using Ibanag as the medium of instruction started in around 34
public schools in Cagayan and Isabela. The said program rolled out in 15
municipalities and two cities—San Pablo, Cabagan, Tumauini, Santo Tomas, Santa
Maria, Gamu, Naguilian, Reina Mercedes and the City of Ilagan in Isabela, and
Pamplona, Abulug, Aparri, Camalaniugan, Lallo, Iguig, Solana and Tuguegarao City
in Cagayan.

ACTIVITY 1

DIRECTIONS: Create an infographics on how MTB-MLE helps in language acquisition of

children, you may use Canva.com or an application called Spark post or any other software you
wanted to use.
 Lesson 2: Theories, Rationale and Evidence supporting MTB-MLE
Developmental learning theories

Learning outcomes:

a. Explain theories relevant to MTB-MLE

b. Discuss journal articles providing empirical evidence for these theories

The 4 Stages of Cognitive Development

Background and Key Concepts of Piaget's Theory

Jean Piaget's theory of cognitive development suggests that children move

through four different stages of mental development. His theory focuses not only on
understanding how children acquire knowledge, but also on understanding the
nature of intelligence.

Piaget's stages are:

 Sensorimotor stage: birth to 2 years

 Preoperational stage: ages 2 to 7
 Concrete operational stage: ages 7 to 11
 Formal operational stage: ages 12 and up
Piaget believed that children take an active role in the learning process, acting much
like little scientists as they perform experiments, make observations, and learn about
the world. As kids interact with the world around them, they continually add new
knowledge, build upon existing knowledge, and adapt previously held ideas to
accommodate new information.

The Stages
Through his observations of his children, Piaget developed a stage theory of
intellectual development that included four distinct stages:

The Sensorimotor Stage

Ages: Birth to 2 Years

Major Characteristics and Developmental Changes:

 The infant knows the world through their movements and sensations
 Children learn about the world through basic actions such as sucking,
grasping, looking, and listening
 Infants learn that things continue to exist even though they cannot be seen
(object permanence)
 They are separate beings from the people and objects around them
 They realize that their actions can cause things to happen in the world around
them

During this earliest stage of cognitive development, infants and toddlers acquire
knowledge through sensory experiences and manipulating objects. A child's entire
experience at the earliest period of this stage occurs through basic reflexes, senses,
and motor responses.

It is during the sensorimotor stage that children go through a period of dramatic

growth and learning. As kids interact with their environment, they are continually
making new discoveries about how the world works.

The cognitive development that occurs during this period takes place over a
relatively short period of time and involves a great deal of growth. Children not only
learn how to perform physical actions such as crawling and walking; they also learn
a great deal about language from the people with whom they interact. Piaget also
broke this stage down into a number of different substages. It is during the final
part of the sensorimotor stage that early representational thought emerges.
Piaget believed that developing object permanence or object constancy, the
understanding that objects continue to exist even when they cannot be seen, was an
important element at this point of development.

By learning that objects are separate and distinct entities and that they have an
existence of their own outside of individual perception, children are then able to
begin to attach names and words to objects.

The Sensorimotor Stage of Cognitive Development

The Preoperational Stage

Ages: 2 to 7 Years

Major Characteristics and Developmental Changes:

 Children begin to think symbolically and learn to use words and pictures to
represent objects.
 Children at this stage tend to be egocentric and struggle to see things from
the perspective of others.
 While they are getting better with language and thinking, they still tend to
think about things in very concrete terms.

The foundations of language development may have been laid during the previous
stage, but it is the emergence of language that is one of the major hallmarks of the
preoperational stage of development.3

Children become much more skilled at pretend play during this stage of
development, yet continue to think very concretely about the world around them.

At this stage, kids learn through pretend play but still struggle with logic and taking
the point of view of other people. They also often struggle with understanding the
idea of constancy.

For example, a researcher might take a lump of clay, divide it into two equal pieces,
and then give a child the choice between two pieces of clay to play with. One piece
of clay is rolled into a compact ball while the other is smashed into a flat pancake
shape. Since the flat shape looks larger, the preoperational child will likely choose
that piece even though the two pieces are exactly the same size.

Preoperational Stage of Cognitive Development in Young Children

The Concrete Operational Stage

Ages: 7 to 11 Years

Major Characteristics and Developmental Changes

During this stage, children begin to thinking logically about concrete events

 They begin to understand the concept of conservation; that the amount of

liquid in a short, wide cup is equal to that in a tall, skinny glass, for example
 Their thinking becomes more logical and organized, but still very concrete
 Children begin using inductive logic, or reasoning from specific information to
a general principle

While children are still very concrete and literal in their thinking at this point in
development, they become much more adept at using logic.2 The egocentrism of
the previous stage begins to disappear as kids become better at thinking about how
other people might view a situation.

While thinking becomes much more logical during the concrete operational state, it
can also be very rigid. Kids at this point in development tend to struggle with
abstract and hypothetical concepts.

During this stage, children also become less egocentric and begin to think about how
other people might think and feel. Kids in the concrete operational stage also begin
to understand that their thoughts are unique to them and that not everyone else
necessarily shares their thoughts, feelings, and opinions.
The Concrete Operational Stage in Cognitive Development

The Formal Operational Stage

Ages: 12 and Up

Major Characteristics and Developmental Changes:

At this stage, the adolescent or young adult begins to think abstractly and reason
about hypothetical problems

 Abstract thought emerges

 Teens begin to think more about moral, philosophical, ethical, social, and
political issues that require theoretical and abstract reasoning
 Begin to use deductive logic, or reasoning from a general principle to specific
information

The final stage of Piaget's theory involves an increase in logic, the ability to use
deductive reasoning, and an understanding of abstract ideas.3 At this point, people
become capable of seeing multiple potential solutions to problems and think more
scientifically about the world around them.

The ability to thinking about abstract ideas and situations is the key hallmark of the
formal operational stage of cognitive development. The ability to systematically plan
for the future and reason about hypothetical situations are also critical abilities that
emerge during this stage.

It is important to note that Piaget did not view children's intellectual development as
a quantitative process; that is, kids do not just add more information and knowledge
to their existing knowledge as they get older. Instead, Piaget suggested that there is
a qualitative change in how children think as they gradually process through these
four stages.4 A child at age 7 doesn't just have more information about the world
than he did at age 2; there is a fundamental change in how he thinks about the
world.
Schema Theory

General concept of schema theory, one of the cognitivist learning theories, was
firstly introduced in 1932 through the work of British psychologist Sir Frederic
Bartlett) (some suggest it was first introduced in 1926 by Jean Piaget) and was
further developed mostly in 1970s by American educational psychologist Richard
Anderson). Schema theory describes how knowledge is acquired, processed and
organized. The starting assumption of this theory is that “very act of comprehension
involves one’s knowledge of the world”4). According to this theory, knowledge is a
network of mental frames or cognitive constructs called schema (pl. schemata).
Schemata organize knowledge stored in the long-term memory.

What is schema theory?

The term schema is nowadays often used even outside cognitive psychology and
refers to a mental framework humans use to represent and organize remembered
information. Schemata (“the building blocks of cognition”) present our personal
simplified view over reality derived from our experience and prior knowledge, they
enable us to recall, modify our behavior, concentrate attention on key information),
or try to predict most likely outcomes of events. According to David Rumelhart).

“schemata can represent knowledge at all levels - from ideologies and

cultural truths to knowledge about the meaning of a particular word, to
knowledge about what patterns of excitations are associated with what
letters of the alphabet. We have schemata to represent all levels of our
experience, at all levels of abstraction. Finally, our schemata are our
knowledge. All of our generic knowledge is embedded in schemata.

Schemata also expand and change in time, due to acquisition of new information,
but deeply installed schemata are inert and slow in changing. This could provide an
explanation to why some people live with incorrect or inconsistent beliefs rather then
changing them. When new information is retrieved, if possible, it will be assimilated
into existing schema (ta) or related schema(ta) will be changed (accommodated) in
order to integrate the new information. For example: during schooling process a
child learns about mammals and develops corresponding schema. When a child
hears that a porpoise is a mammal as well, it first tries to fit it into the mammals
schema: it's warm-blooded, air-breathing, is born with hair and gives live birth. Yet it
lives in water unlike most mammals and so the mammals schema has to be
accommodated to fit in the new information.

Schema theory was partly influenced by unsuccessful attempts in the area of

artificial intelligence. Teaching a computer to read natural text or display other
human-like behavior was rather unsuccessful since it has shown that it is impossible
without quite an amount of information that was not directly included, but was
inherently present in humans. Research has shown that this inherent information
stored in form of schemata, for example:

 content schema - prior knowledge about the topic of the text

 formal schema - awareness of the structure of the text, and
 language schema - knowledge of the vocabulary and relationships of the
words in text can cause easier or more difficult text comprehension,
depending on how developed the mentioned schemata are, and whether they
are successfully activated.

According to Brown, when reading a text, it alone does not carry the meaning a
reader attribute to it. The meaning is formed by the information and cultural and
emotional context the reader brings through his schemata more than by the text
itself. Text comprehension and retention therefore depend mostly on the schemata
the reader possesses, among which the content schema should be one of most
important, as suggested by Al-Issa).

What is the practical meaning of schema theory?

Schema theory emphasizes importance of general knowledge and concepts that will
help forming schemata. In educational process the task of teachers would be to help
learners to develop new schemata and establish connections between them. Also,
due to the importance of prior knowledge, teachers should make sure that students
have it.
“The schemata a person already possesses are a principal determiner of what will be
learned from a new text.”

Schema theory has been applied in various areas like:

 Motor learning - schema theory was extended to schema theory of discrete

motor learning in 1975 by Richard Schmidt13). Wulf14) has shown that
developing a motor schema has resulted in better performance in children
when learning a motor task.
 Reading comprehension - schema theory is often used to assist second
language learning since it often contains reading a lot of texts in the target
language. Failure to activate adequate schema when reading a text has
shown to result in bad comprehension15). Various methods have been
proposed for dealing with this issue16) including giving students texts in their
first language on certain topic about which they will later read in target
language.
 Mathematical problem solving - Jitendra et al. conducted a research showing
that 3rd-graders taught to using schemata to solve mathematical problems
formulated in words performed better than their peers who were taught to
solve them in four steps (read and understand/plan to solve/solve/look back
and check)

Social Learning Theory (Bandura)

Social Learning Theory, theorized by Albert Bandura, posits that people learn from
one another, via observation, imitation, and modeling. The theory has often been
called a bridge between behaviorist and cognitive learning theories because it
encompasses attention, memory, and motivation.

Key Concepts

People learn through observing others’ behavior, attitudes, and outcomes of those
behaviors. “Most human behavior is learned observationally through modeling: from
observing others, one forms an idea of how new behaviors are performed, and on
later occasions this coded information serves as a guide for action.” (Bandura).Social
learning theory explains human behavior in terms of continuous reciprocal
interaction between cognitive, behavioral, and environmental influences.

Necessary conditions for effective modeling

 Attention — various factors increase or decrease the amount of attention

paid. Includes distinctiveness, affective valence, prevalence, complexity,
functional value. One’s characteristics (e.g. sensory capacities, arousal level,
perceptual set, past reinforcement) affect attention.
 Retention — remembering what you paid attention to. Includes symbolic
coding, mental images, cognitive organization, symbolic rehearsal, motor
rehearsal
 Reproduction — reproducing the image. Including physical capabilities, and
self-observation of reproduction.
 Motivation — having a good reason to imitate. Includes motives such as past
(i.e. traditional behaviorism), promised (imagined incentives) and vicarious
(seeing and recalling the reinforced model)

Reciprocal Determinism

Bandura believed in “reciprocal determinism”, that is, the world and a person’s
behavior cause each other, while behaviorism essentially states that one’s
environment causes one’s behavior[2], Bandura, who was studying adolescent
aggression, found this too simplistic, and so in addition he suggested that behavior
causes environment as well[3]. Later, Bandura soon considered personality as an
interaction between three components: the environment, behavior, and one’s
psychological processes (one’s ability to entertain images in minds and language).

Social learning theory has sometimes been called a bridge between behaviorist and
cognitive learning theories because it encompasses attention, memory, and
motivation. The theory is related to Vygotsky’s Social Development Theory and
Lave’s Situated Learning, which also emphasize the importance of social learning.

LET’S GO BEYOND WALLS

WATCH THIS: https://youtu.be/zerCK0lRjp8

Three Theories on Bilingualism

Cummins’ Approaches

GOALS

Review theories on bilingualism

Apply theories to classroom

Theories

• Common Underlying Proficiency

• Threshold Theory

• Developmental Interdependence Theory

Common Underlying Proficiency

• Refers to what is commonly known as balance proficiencies, but takes it one

step further (Baker, 1997)

• Language attributes are not apart in the cognitive system, but transfer readily
and are interactive.

• Lessons learned in one language can readily transfer into the other language.

• The Iceberg Analogy

  Separate Underlying Proficiency (SUP) vs. Common Underlying Proficiency
(CUP)

Parts

• The thoughts that accompany talking, reading, writing and listening come
from the same central engine. There is on integrated source of thought.

• People have the capacity to store easily many languages, and can also
function in many languages with ease.

• Information processing skills and educational attainment may be developed

through two languages. Cognitive functioning and school achievement may
be fed through any channel, they feed from the same central processor

• The language used in the classroom needs to be sufficiently well developed to

be able to process the cognitive challenges in the classroom.

• Speaking, listening, reading or writing any of the languages helps the whole
cognitive system to develop. However, if made to operate in an insufficiently
developed language, the system will not function at its best. Operating in a
poorly developed L2, will result in poor quality and quantity of what they learn
in complex curriculum materials. Oral and written form may appear weak and
impoverished.

• When one or both languages are not functioning fully cognitive functioning
and academic performance may be negatively affected.
Thresholds Theory

• First threshold is level to reach to avoid negative consequences of

bilingualism.

• Second threshold is a level required to experience the possible benefits of

bilingualism.

• Balanced Bilinguals

• Age-appropriate competence in both languages

• Positive cognitive advantages

• Less Balanced Bilinguals

• Age-appropriate competence in one language

• Unlikely positive or negative advantages

• Limited Bilinguals

• Low levels of competence in both languages

• Likely negative cognitive consequences

What are cognitive consequences?

 Coping with curriculum materials

 Processing information
 Deductive reasoning
 Metalinguistic awareness (analysis of linguistic knowledge and control of
linguistic processing)

Problems with theory

• Defining level of language proficiency necessary to

• avoid negative effects

• obtain positive advantages

Developmental Interdependence Hypothesis

 Suggests that child’s second language competence is partly dependent on the

level of competence already achieved in the first language
 The more developed the first language, the easier it will be to develop a
second language.
 When the first language is at a low stage of evolution, the more difficult the
achievement of bilingualism will be.

Language skills required for education

Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills (BICS)

 Context embedded
 Comprehension
 Speaking
 Pronunciation
 Vocabulary
 Grammar
Cognitive/Academic Language Proficiency (CALP)

 Context reduced
 Analysis
 Synthesis
 Meanings
 Creative Compositions

BICS/CALP

Limitations

 Different dimensions to language

 Moving from one dimension requires evolving, dynamic, interacting and
intricate, not a dichotomy
 Lack of empirical support, difficult to operationalize
 Terms BICS and CALP may oversimplify
 Relationship between language development and cognitive development is
not simple. Other factors affect them.

BICS/CALP

• Helps explain child failure in the schools.

Two Dimensions

1. Amount of contextual support available to a student

• Context embedded Communication

• Pointing to objects

• Using the eyes

• Head nods

• Hand gestures

• Intonation

• Context reduced communication

• Few cues to meaning transmitted

2. Level of cognitive demands required in communication

• Cognitive demanding communication

• Much information at a challenging level needs processing quickly

• Cognitive undemanding communication

• Person has the mastery of languages skills sufficient to enable

easy communication.

Quadrants

Q1

• Surface fluency or basic interpersonal communication skills – BICS

• L2 Develops independently from L1 surface fluency

Q4

• Language that is cognitive and academically more advanced – CALP

• Develops interdependent and can be promoted by either or both
languages.