BAGUIO CITY – Grade 4 pupils who could not understand simple English such as “You put your things on the table,” who, for lack of English vocabulary, would ask permission to go out in the vernacular and stare blankly the moment they hear lectures in straight English making translation necessary.
Other than the marked weakness in oral English, many of the pupils also cannot read in English.
These were the jarring observations which compelled English teacher Noemi Balalao to conduct a research on the impact of the Mother Tongue program of the Department of Education (DepEd) on the comprehension levels of Grade 4 pupils in English and Filipino at the Camp 7 Elementary School, one of the public schools here.
Through her research “Influence of Mother Tongue to the Comprehension Level of Grade Four Pupils in Filipino and English,” she particularly wanted to know if the main objective of the Mother Tongue feature of the K-12 Curriculum which is to raise the comprehension level of pupils in English and Filipino is being achieved.
Apart from their observed deficiencies, Balalao chose the 55 Grade 4 pupils as respondents because Grade 4 is considered a transition period it being the grade level where the Mother Tongue program stops.
She conducted the study through the use of the Philippine Informal Reading Inventory (Phil-IRI), the DepEd’s standardized reading competency assessment tool “composed of graded passages designed to determine the individual student’s performance in oral reading, silent reading and listening comprehension.”
Frustration level in English comprehension
Balalao said that in Filipino, the pupils achieved a mean of 83.63 score which is equivalent to “instructional” while the average in English was 60 which corresponds to “frustration.”
Balalao wrote that the result agreed with the finding of Sheri Joy C. Namanya (2017) “that children taught in the mother tongue demonstrated a decline in English literacy level” and the claim of Adebayo Oluwole (2008) “that mother tongue influences the poor performance of students in English Language.”
Balalao, a 2007 BS Pre-school graduate of the Saint Louis University here whose laboratory elementary school she also served as teacher from 2008 to 2014, said that based on interviews, she found that the reasons for failing the test were that the pupils did not understand the text and the questions because they were poor readers.
Comparing the English comprehension levels of Grade 4 pupils in 2014, the last batch of pupils who did not undergo the Mother Tongue program, with that of the Grade 4 batch last year, there were only seven of the 90 pupils who fell under frustration level in English in 2014 but 15-20 of the 55 in 2018.
She also said the School Year 2014-2015 batch had better English vocabulary and had no problem understanding simple English.
Poor reading skills a city-wide phenomenon
Based on the results of the revised Phil-IRI pre-test administered early this school year in the city’s schools, Camp 7 Elementary School is by no means an isolated case when it comes to having a sizable number of intermediate pupils with reading difficulties.
Armie Fiangaan, division Education Program Supervisor for English, informed the ZigZag Weekly that the Group Screening Test (GST) of the Phil-IRI administered in July revealed that there are 3,162 Grade 4 pupils, 2,851 Grade 5 and 3,191 Grade 6 pupils in the city who got scores lower than 14 thereby falling under the frustration level.
According to the Baguio City DepEd Planning office, the enrolment this year for Grades 4, 5 and 6 are 5,286, 5,293 and 5,612, respectively. The office does not have the number of enrolees for these grades in private schools but stated that the total private elementary school enrolment this School Year is 11,782.
Fiangaan admitted that nearly half of the classes failed the Phil-IRI commenting that it does not necessarily follow that because Baguio is a city all the pupils could hurdle the reading test.
She said that it is possible the text had something to do with the debacle thus the teachers were instructed to use alternative Phil-IRI materials to find out the actual reading skills level of the pupils.
She said that the schools division authorities were really disappointed although they understood that since many schools in the city stopped administering the Phil-IRI around 2013, the pupils might be unfamiliar with the test thus the poor performance.
Fiangaan also cited the research of Balalao and similar studies conducted in Josefa Carino Elementary School and Fairview Elementary School which also indicated that the Mother Tongue policy has effect on reading.
She said that many of the respondents of Balalao failed the Phil-IRI and it appears that the Mother Tongue program was one of the culprits.
Fiangaan said that based on the finding of Balalao that Grade 4 students in her school struggle in English, it is possible that some schools in the city use the Mother Tongue even in English when not monitored.
Fiangaan said that there are some schools which use Iloko as a medium of instruction even in Math and Science and even in English but that she and other supervisors are advocating that English and Filipino should be exempted and be delivered in English and Filipino.
She said there is nothing wrong in translating words pupils could not understand but it should not be to the extent of using the Mother Tongue for the whole period.
She said they are not blaming the Mother Tongue for the poor performance in the Phil-IRI but that based on Balalao’s study, it seems that the Mother Tongue is a factor in reading progress.
Problems in implementation of the policy
On the seventh year of the implementation of the Mother Tongue policy, apart from the confusion on Mother Tongue being a subject or a medium of instruction, doubts on the validity of Iloko as Mother Tongue of the city linger and even gather strength.
Claiming that the choice of Iloko was a result of consultations, Fiangaan informed that they recently conducted a symposium to plan the conduct of a new survey on what should be the Mother Tongue of Baguio City because it is beginning to appear that the dominant Mother Tongue in the city is Filipino.
Fiangaan also said that the data of their Planning Division office seem to support this contention.
She said that in surveys conducted by some schools, the trend is that in the Science classes, Filipino proficiency is low in contrast with the regular classes where it is high.
But what challenges the wisdom of the choice of Iloko is the fact it differs from the Ilocano language used by most people in Baguio and the rest of the Cordillera.
Balalao said that the Iloko of the lowlands is harder to understand and to learn than the Ilocano Cordillerans use because not all the vocabulary of the former are carried into the latter.
“The difficult Iloko words are included in their lessons so that the Mother Tongue now is practically a foreign language the pupils have to learn,” Balalao said.
New language
The family of Ralph Altiyen who resides in the Ifugao-dominated barangay Asin Road is experiencing the inconveniences of the precipitate implementation of the Mother Tongue program.
Altiyen, a member of the Kankana-ey tribe of Benguet, and wife Romily, an Ifugao, are trying to help their two sons who are studying in the Pacday Quinio Elementary School, a public school, acquire a working knowledge of Iloko.
At times they have to refer to the Internet, books and other people because the Iloko they know does not have all the answers being asked of their kids.
“With the Mother Tongue in school being Iloko, they practically have to learn a new language,” Ralph, a government employee, said. Their sons are English speaking.
Ralph said that it is much worse for the children of a neighbour from Quezon province because although born in Baguio City, they have never been exposed to Iloko because they speak in Tagalog and English in their house.
“May be DepEd assumed that Baguio is Ilocano-speaking but it is actually multi-lingual. It’s not only the non-Iloko speaking pupils but also the teachers who have to learn a totally different language in order to study and work in elementary schools in the city these days,” Ralph said.
That there are only 18 identified Mother Tongues to be used as medium of instruction out of the 170 dialects in the country, this chaotic situation in Baguio City was bound to happen.
Lack of materials
Balalao said that one other factor hobbling the implementation of the Mother Tongue program in the city is the dearth of localized materials for teaching in Iloko.
She explained that lack of learning materials in other subjects is cured by borrowing from others but in the case of Iloko, this is not even possible because the existent material is for the Iloko of the lowlands.
“We have severe lack of appropriate materials. Even if there are, they are not being used since they are in lowland Iloko,” Balalao said.
Need to face the issue
Balalao urged fellow teachers to be honest about their observations and experiences regarding the Mother Tongue policy “because if they say it is working, what is there to review and how can we improve the program?”
She said that she is puzzled when some teachers in the city praise the policy claiming it makes their pupils understand their cultures better asking how could that be for Baguio City when the Mother Tongue is the dialect of the lowlands.
She cannot see any connection between the Iloko of the lowlands with the cultures of the people in the city.
She declared that she agrees with the K-12 if it does not include the Mother Tongue program commenting that Mother Tongue has not been used in school until now but the level of the English of older Filipinos is better.
Stating that based on her study, contrary to its intent, the Mother Tongue policy is failing to make pupils better in English, Balalao expressed the hope more studies will be done on the subject so that the whole truth about the impact of the policy on the education of children will eventually be determined. ((Note: This article was also published in the December 20, 2018 issue of the Manila Times). ** By Estanislao Albano, Jr.
