The Language problem in Philippine schools

Title

Creator

Roces, Alejandro R.

Language

English

Year

1969

Subject

Education -- Philippines.

Language and education.

Native language and education.

Pilipino.

Tagalog language.

Rights

In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted

Fulltext

THE LANGUAGE PROBLEM TN PHILIPPINE SCHOOLS Three days ago, a front page item in the Bulletin said. “The Department of Edu cation’s policy-making body is having serious doubts aver the use of the vernacular as the medium of instruction in the lower grades of the public elementary schools.” On this score we wish to reiterate our observations on this problem last year. Be fore discussing any future plans for our national lan guage, it would be wise to check first on the actual sta tus of that idiom tocjay. What is the status of Filipi no today? To begin with, it must be made clear that Pilipino which is what the hatronal language is called and Tagalog are not one and the same. Tagalog is merely the basis of our na tional language. Too, con trary to what most people believe, Tagalog is not the official medium of instruc tion in the first tvjp grades in the primary school. This is true only in the Tagalog speaking provinces. In the non-Tagalog provinces, the vernacular of the particular province is used. And this holds true only in public schools. Almost ail private institutions employ English as the medium of all levels. In short as of now, Pilipino is not used as the medium of instruction in any level of our school system. To have guides in the so lution of the language prob lem in the Philippines the Philippine Center for Lan guage Study, in cooperation with the Bureau of Public Schools, conducted a careful ly controlled experiment from 1960 in the elementary schools of Rizal province. The test was conducted on three representative groups of children entering Grade 1 in 1960. Each group con sisted of 300 children. 30 Panorama Group I began using English from the very first day at school. Group II started with Tagalog as their me dium of instruction in Grades 1 and 2 and shifted to En glish in Grade 3-6. Group III employed Tagalog in Grades 1-4 then changed to English iu Grades 5-6. The teaching was exactly the same — except for the difference in medium of instruction. After six years, the average scores on a test of English proficiency were the follow ing: Group I — 114 points; Group 11 — 94 points; Group III — 90 points. In reading comprehension in English given by the Bureau of Pub lic Schools, these were the results: Group I — 68; Group II — 48; Group III — 45. The differences be tween the pupils in the first group and the third group is so great that the average student in Group III would find that 85 per cent of the Group I pupils were better trained then to study the English textbooks that he would have to use in high school. These three groups were also tested for reading com prehension and sentence writing in Tagalog. These were the results: Group I — 86; Group II — 84; Group III — 85. The difference among the three is negligible, which means that the profi ciency of the pupils in Taga log was about the same whe ther Tagalog had been used as the medium of instruc tion or not. Judging from the Rizal Ex periment it is very clear that the policy of changing me diums of instruction is not a sound educational policy and that the higher the grade where this change takes place, the greater the dam age. The third question in volves the publication of the needed textbooks in Pilipino. Here we have to cope with both the population explo sion and the information ex plosion. Can we afford to finance the publication of Pilipino books in the secon dary and collegiate level? Any one who is familiar with the state of develop mental book activity in our republic will tell you that this just isn’t possible. Since the war, we have never pro duced enough books for our schoolchildren. We have one March 1969 31 tattered book for every five or ten pupils. If we were to translate the medical and technological books into Pilipino, the cost of the books would be way beyond the reach of our students. Translation is a tedious and expensive process, and the small market volume for technical books in Pilipino would automatically raise the price for such books beyond any reasonable proportion. To make matters worse, new knowledge is going to come in at an ever accelerating rate. Books may be obsolete even before our translators have begun. Collegiate books are going to be so ex pensive that only the very, very rich will be able to af ford a secondary and colle giate education. Let us be realistic. We can't even pro duce enough rice — let alone books. We want to make it a mat ter of record that we are not against the development of our national language. It was our daily column that first suggested that Pilipino be used in our postage stamps. As Secretary of Edu cation, we ordered that all diplomas be worded in Pili pino. We were also the first to recommend that the word ings in our monetary system be in Pilipii o. These are functions that Pilipino can fill. But we are convinced that Pilipino cannot be used as the medium of instruc tion in our educational sys tem without greatly damag ing the educational process* Chauvinism is a very poor substitute for knowledge. What is the future of Pili pino? It will be like Gaelic in Ireland. The Irish hate the English. They tried ve ry hard to eradicate English from Ireland. They even had signs that read, "speak Gaelic. Don’t Use English.” But the signs were in En glish! And today the Irish reputedly are the best Eng lish writers. This does not mean that the Irish have not preserved Gaelic. But En glish had succeeded where Gaelic had failed. The thoughts and ideas contained in this column may on the surface run counter to the spirit of the nation alism of our time. But in the ultimate analysis the true nationalist is the man who points to the right road. — By Alejandro R. Roces 82 Panorama

Media