Teachers' Language Ideologies and Early Reading Instruction Practices in Philippine Multilingual Classrooms

Abstract

Philippine linguistic diversity is recognized in the Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual Education (MTB-MLE) policy. MTB-MLE is one of the salient features of the Enhanced Basic Education Act of 2013. The mother tongue is the primary mode of instruction (MOI) from kindergarten to the third grade of elementary education. From first to third grade, Mother Tongue, Filipino (the national language), and English are taught as separate subjects. Filipino and English, the country’s official languages, are gradually introduced as MOI from fourth to sixth grade. Beginning reading is first taught in the mother tongue. Through a solid foundation in the mother tongue, stronger literacy abilities are developed, which are expected to transfer across languages. However, recent studies have shown that only one-third of schools are implementing MTB-MLE, due to factors like resistance in using the mother tongue for academic purposes and opposition thrown against it because of misconceptions favoring the dominant official languages. Against this backdrop, the present study aimed to answer the following questions: (1) What are the teachers’ language ideologies on the use of the local language alongside Filipino and English as the language of instruction in early reading classes?; (2) What are the teachers’ early reading instruction practices in the local language, Filipino, and English?; and (3) Are the teachers’ language ideologies reflected in their use of language/s in early reading instruction?

This qualitative study involved 13 public school early grades teachers in a linguistically diverse province in Northern Philippines where the local languages Bolinao, Iloko, and Pangasinan are used in MTB-MLE. Semi-structured interviews were first conducted, recorded, and transcribed. The transcriptions were manually coded first, then uploaded to Atlas.ti, a qualitative data analysis software, to further review and finalize the codes. The research themes were extracted from these codes. Data triangulation was conducted through classroom observations of early reading classes, review of relevant documents, and focus group discussions.