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.