MTB-MLE

What is MTB-MLE?

It refers to either formal or non-formal education where children's mother tongue is used in the classroom as a bridge in learning Filipino and English.

What is the purpose of MTB-MLE?

The purpose of MTB-MLE is to develop appropriate cognitive and reasoning skills enabling children to operate equally in different languages -- starting in the mother tongue with transition to Filipino and then English and to preserve the Philippine cultural treasure as well.

What are the advantages of MTB-MLE?

1. It stimulates learner's academic motivation.

2. It promotes family and community involvement in education.

3. It builds learner's confidence and self-esteem.

4. It increases school attendance rate.

5.It enhances academic performance.

Armin Luistro said concerning MTB-MLE, "At first, I thought it was just language but when I visited schools, I realized it was about young people speaking from the heart. It's about teachers trying to contextualize their lessons and more importantly, it's about a nation in search for its own identity..."

What is the progress of MTB-MLE Implementation?

Even though teachers try to keep an eye single to the goal, they can't deny the struggles they are now experiencing in learning the mother tongue since they were not the ones who prepared the material and the worst is that the mother tongue of students in the area they are assigned to teach is not their mother tongue. One weakness that is obvious with the MTB-MLE is that the materials used were prepared by teachers or school administrators who hail from another place where the language var from the material he prepares. The one prepares the material is vulnerable to temptation -- particularly in using his language to the material he prepares. 

Moreover, another weakness is that many learners don't use the terms they learned from the mother-tongue instruction in their houses since the learners' parents use varied terms from a combination of different local tongues. Therefore, learners become passive in learning the mother-tongue.

Finally, the language used in the different media including TV is not the mother-tongue for most learners. With this succinct description, it is apparent that MTB-MLE has not addressed every facet of anticipated problems. 

Tell me about dictionaries!

Many if not all students face the challenge in making decisions particularly on the choice of  dictionaries to use. (Really? Yes. Certainly yes.) Some students use dictionaries that are readily available in their houses as if they are trapped in a world that has left them no choice but to use them even if some of the pages are no longer in it. (Poor boy with a strong desire to escape the chains of poverty! Do it! I believe you can! If you have a lot of money, I'm sure you'll buy a new one.) But do you think it's practical to use old dictionaries? Someone once asked me: What brand of dictionary will you recommend? I'll take my time answering these frequently asked questions and add a few.

What are dictionaries?

According to one of the definitions provided in merriam-webster.com, a dictionary is "a reference source in print or electronic form containing words usually alphabetically arranged along with information about their forms, pronunciation, functions, etymologies, meanings, and syntactical and idiomatic uses." I used this definition since dictionaries can be in a hard or soft copy. (Yehey!) Gone were the days when you have to bring voluminous books just to prove to your classmates and teachers that you used the words properly and pronounced each word correctly. Thanks to modern technology, you don't have to look like a nerd or be spotted like a genius with books.

Who makes dictionaries?

Lexicographers, the people who make dictionaries don't make words. They find words and record them. They are like the entomologist who goes into the rain forest looking for new species of beetles.
(Haha! Great comparison. Do you you want to be lexicographer or an entomologist?)

Who made the first dictionary?

History reveals that the first dictionary of the Chinese language, the Shuowen Jiezi, was written around 100 CE. According to The Chronicles of Japan, Japanese dictionaries originated in 682 CE, although the first dictionary dealt with the deciphering of Chinese characters. The first dictionary ever written was done by the Babylonians in 6th Century B.C.

The earliest dictionaries were bilingual dictionaries. These were glossaries of French, Italian or Latin words, along with definitions of the foreign words in English. An early nonalphabetical list of 8000 English words was the Elementarie created by Richard Mulcaster in 1582.

The first purely English alphabetical dictionary was A Table Alphabeticall, written by English schoolteacher Robert Cawdrey in 1604.

Are old dictionaries still useful?

Absolutely, old dictionaries are still useful since most of its definitions are still true today. If However, it may not include words that are currently used by many people today. Some words change in terms of its definitions but most of the words don't. There are just few definitions added to it. Now if I do have old dictionaries, I'd rather collect them as treasure. (Haha!)

What is the best dictionary? 

For me, the best dictionary is the most expensive one -- that is the Merriam-Webster's Dictionary. I do have Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary but based on my experience as a college student, Merriam-Webster defines words in a manner that sounds more credible than the other. Consider the word behavior. Go and check how this word is defined in these two references, then you'll understand why I consider Merriam-Webster's Dictionary as the best dictionary I know. (I can stand for my argument since I still have my copy of the OALD.)

How does a word get into a Merriam-Webster dictionary?

"This is one of the questions Merriam-Webster editors are most often asked. The answer is simple: usage. To decide which words to include in the dictionary and to determine what they mean, Merriam-Webster editors study the language as it's used. They carefully monitor which words people use most often and how they use them."

"Each day most Merriam-Webster editors devote an hour or two to reading a cross section of published material, including books, newspapers, magazines, and electronic publications; in our office this activity is called "reading and marking." The editors scour the texts in search of new words, new usages of existing words, variant spellings, and inflected forms–in short, anything that might help in deciding if a word belongs in the dictionary, understanding what it means, and determining typical usage. Any word of interest is marked, along with surrounding context that offers insight into its form and use." 

That's it. Now similarly, you can't invent a word and petition to have it admitted into the dictionary. You can invent a word and use it, of course, and if your word is cited and caught on, it might end up in the dictionary one day. However, this is unlikely to happen unless you are famous and many people will use the word you want to appear in the dictionary.