Six years of MTB MLE: Revisiting Teachers’ Language Attitude towards the Teaching of Chavacano

Abstract

To gauge the success of the mother tongue-based multilingual education (MTB-MLE) in the Philippines is tantamount to examining it in a milieu where its citizens speak a number of languages. Zamboanga City is credibly one of the cities in the country identified to be multilingual where its people speak more or less eight (8) languages, namely: Chavacano, Cebuano-Bisaya, Tausug, Sama, Yakan, Tagalog, Subanen, and Hiligaynon. This study surveys the MTB-MLE program in its sixth year of implementation. Specifically, it attempted to determine the general language attitude of the teacher-respondents in using Chavacano as a language of instruction, and the difficulties they face in the classroom using the mother tongue. The data were gathered through qualitative descriptive method using survey questionnaire and interview questions. Specifically, to identify the challenges encountered by teachers using the mother tongue for instructions, the data were taken predominantly from interviews using semi-structure interview protocol. The data were analyzed employing qualitative content analysis that could be described as a research approach used for ‘the subjective interpretation of the content of text data. The respondents all come from one big public primary school i.e. Don Gregorio Elementary Memorial School (DONGEMS), which is located at the heart of Zamboanga City where the implementation of MTB-MLE was seen to be much difficult because there are eight prevailing languages used by the people within the area. The findings revealed that teachers generally have negative attitude towards the use of Chavacano as language of instruction. Moreover, the respondents maintained that the problems in the initial implementation of the MTB-MLE policy have remained consistent with the difficulties they face at present. Specifically, these are the inadequate books/references written in mother tongue, lack or deficiency in vocabulary, and insufficient teacher training.

Keywords: MTB-MLE, Language of Instruction, Language Attitude, Ethnicity