Cebuano eyed as bridge in teaching of English

The Cebu Provincial Board has passed a resolution urging the Department of Education to prescribe the Cebuano as the indispensable “bridge language” in teaching English and Filipino in the elementary and secondary education.

The PB likewise is urging the committee on education to conduct a public forum on this matter.  Recent results of National Achievement Tests showed students lack understanding of their lessons, pointing to a deteriorating educational quality in the Philippines.

Studies revealed that the medium of instruction plays a very critical part in the learning process of students since it may predetermine a lack of understanding of the lessons.

The use of English and Filipino as the mandate languages of instruction in the Philippines is blamed for the poor performance of students the NAT since these languages may be foreign to the majority of the students.

“This is true especially in the case of students in non-Tagalog speaking regions who have difficulty understanding the so-called Filipino language,” the resolution reads.

“The studies suggested that we use the children’s first language or mother tongue in our medium of instruction in the elementary level in order to facilitate easy learning since using the language the child understands not only affirms the value of the child to immediately master the lessons while facilitating the learning of Filipino and English languages,” it added.

“Thus, when the mother tongue is used in the classrooms, the critical thinking skills that are developed transfer to other languages when those languages become functional,” said the resolution, which is sponsored by PB member Victor Maambong.  — Mitchelle L. Palaubsanon/BRP