1. Mother Tongue based multilingual Education in the Philippines
Thomas E. Payne
University of Oregon and SIL International
My work has been conducting workshops for teachers in four very different parts of the Philippines to help them understand the grammar and communicative resources of the mother tongues of their students. My primary affiliations are with the University of the Philippines and Leyte Normal University. Additional workshops are conducted under the auspices of the Department of Education of the Philippines and the Translation Association of the Philippines.

2. What is the “Mother tongue”?
A person’s “mother tongue”, or “L1”, is the language learned in the home. It is the language that the child knows best, and in which most cognitive, and sociocultural development occurs; it is the matrix within which the human personality is formed and learns to thrive.
MLE aims to continue the development of the child’s first language before adding other languages. Children know - speak fluently - their mother tongue when they begin school. Using their first language allows students to continue to develop that language and use that language to develop critical thinking skills needed for school, and to learn reading with comprehension from grade one. Children also easily master concepts in math, science, social studies and other subjects when they are taught in a language they understand. If we bypass usage of the child’s language in teaching early learning skills, we immediately delay comprehension of curriculum content, and ultimately delay the strong acquisition of Filipino and English.
The current educational system submerges learners in not just one, but two foreign languages, postponing strong achievement in school until those languages are well enough developed to support learning. Int’l. research has shown that the amount of exposure to a second language is not enough for learning that language, rather it is how the language is taught: the manner of acquisition is more important than the amount of exposure to the language.

3. Language Diversity in the Philippines
Official languages (languages of school): Filipino and English.
Number of Philippine Languages spoken in the Philippines: 170 (Ethnologue.com)
Percentage of Filipino children who speak Filipino or English as their Mother Tongue when entering school: <30%

4. What is Mother-tongue based Multilingual Education?
It involves the use of two or more languages of instruction in the classroom;
MTB-MLE is grounded in a large and respectable body of research in cognitive and socio-cultural development (research summarized in Thomas and Collier 2018).
It represents the best language setting for ALL students to fully realize their intellectual, social, and economic potential.
MTB-MLE is not an idealistic “We are the world” kind of utopian vision. It is hard. It is long. It involves challenging deeply held convictions and power centers. Language is at the core of what it means to be human, and language is one major means for enforcing educational and social deprivation on minority communities.

5. MTB-MLE In the philippines:
Builds on the L1 for teaching of Filipino and English.
Aims to produce deep levels of mastery in all three languages, and all subject areas.
Promotes learners’ integration into the national society without forcing them to “subtract” their linguistic and cultural identity and heritage.
MLE aims to continue the development of the child’s first language before adding other languages. Using their first language allows students to continue to develop that language and use that language to develop critical thinking skills needed for school, and to learn reading with comprehension from grade one. Children also easily master concepts in math, science, social studies and other subjects when they are taught in a language they understand. If we bypass the child’s language in teaching early learning skills, we delay comprehension of curriculum content, and ultimately delay the strong acquisition of Filipino and English. Education by immersion in a foreign language is really education by submersion of what is core to minority students’ sense of identity and self-worth. Learning in school becomes a matter of learning by rote and repetition of meaningless words. rather than a process of developing critical thinking skills – learning how to learn.
The current educational system submerges learners in not just one, but two foreign languages, postponing strong achievement in school until those languages are well enough developed to support learning. Int’l. research has shown that the amount of exposure to a second language is not enough for learning that language, rather it is how the language is taught: the manner of acquisition is more important than the amount of exposure to the language.

6. MTB-MLE In the philippines:
“UNESCO supports mother tongue instruction as a means of improving educational quality by building upon the knowledge and experience of the learners and teachers.”
“UNESCO supports bilingual and/or multilingual education at all levels of education as a means of promoting both social and gender equality and as a key element of linguistically diverse societies.”
UNESCO (2003)
The United Nations has consistently emphasized the importance of mother tongue instruction as the best way to attain education for all. MTB-MLE makes Education For All (EFA) attainable, in the Philippines, and elsewhere.

7. The Lubuagan Mother Tongue First, MLE Program
Walter & Dekker 2011
Three experimental class schools implementing the Mother Tongue based MLE approach were compared with three control class schools implementing the traditional method of immersion in two new languages.
One school had two sections where students were randomly placed in experimental or control classes.
All schools served students of the same socio economic status, and same L1 (Kalinga).

8. The Lubuagan Mother Tongue First, MLE Program, Comparison of English and Filipino Scores:

9. The Lubuagan Mother Tongue First, MLE Program, Comparison of Math and Reading Scores:

10. The Lubuagan Mother Tongue First, MLE Program, Overall Comparison of Scores:

11. MLE is not reprinting textbooks in the mother tongue.
What MLE is NOT:
MLE is not simply changing the language that comes out of the mouth of teachers.
MLE is not translating into the L1 what the teacher says in the LOI or visa versa.
MLE is not reprinting textbooks in the mother tongue.
MLE is not fast and easy.
MLE is not a quick fix.
MLE is not simply changing the language that comes out of the mouth of teachers. That already happens. It means putting the L1 on a par with the official languages.
MLE is not translating into the L1 what the teacher says in the LOI or visa versa. It means basing early education on the mother tongue.
MLE is not reprinting textbooks in the mother tongue. It means creating entirely new primers and other primary reading materials for students in the early grades, and providing students the ability to read and truly understand higher level material in the official languages.
MLE is not fast and easy.
MLE is not a quick fix.

12. Conclusion:
Does making a foreign language the exclusive medium of instruction improve students’ skills in that foreign language?
No. This popular belief is increasingly being proven untrue. Large scale research over the last 30 years provides compelling evidence that the critical variable in L2 development in children is not the amount of exposure, but the context in which exposure occurs.

13. Conclusion:
An L1 foundation is a much more effective context for L2 learning than is “submersion" in a foreign language.
MTB-MLE is the best option for achieving educational equality in a linguistically and culturally diverse society.
See:

14. References:
Thomas, Wayne P. & Virginia P. Collier Why dual language schooling? Albuquerque: Fuente Press (References therein refer to research articles and monographs).
UNESCO Education in a Multilingual World.
Walter, Steve, & Diane E. Dekker Mother tongue instruction in Lubuagan: A case study from the Philippines. International Review of Education 57(5–6):667–683.