Education in the Philippines Forum

What could we learn from HK mother tongue Edu Policy?
--Akoy

The mother-tongue education policy is not helping students gain entrance to university, the author of a seven-year tracking study said yesterday.

Tsang Wing-kwong said his studies on the school careers of the first two years of students affected by the policy showed that English had become the "educationally profitable linguistic capital". He is a Chinese University professor of education and associate director of the Institute of Educational Research.


As students needed to pass the English A-level to qualify for university, those who did not study other subjects in the language were at a distinct advantage, with those who studied in Chinese up to the end of secondary school only around 30 per cent as likely to qualify.

"I wouldn't say [mother-tongue education] has failed," Professor Tsang said. "But my conclusion is that if gaining access to university education is one of the primary objectives of secondary education, then [it] has proved to be not serving the best interests of its clients."

Although Professor Tsang officially released his results from the third round of the study yesterday, the main findings had been extensively leaked and widely reported several weeks in advance.

The study followed the performance of 37,277 students who entered Form One in 1998 and 1999 until they completed A-levels in 2005 and 2006. The latest results compare the students' A-level scores, taking into account the effect of their gender, prior achievement level, socio-economic background, and the average academic performance and social background of other students in their schools.

Although students in Chinese-medium schools performed better in some areas, particularly earlier in school, it was "an uneven trade-off" that was outweighed by poorer English, Professor Tsang said. "You lose more in the use of English A-level but gain less than that in Chinese-language and culture. The trade off in performance is about half."

Students who studied in Chinese-medium schools throughout secondary almost did not display any advantage at all. The only exception was geography, in which students continued to outperform their English medium counterparts right through to the A-levels.

And although those who switched to using English during their secondary school careers fared better, the ones who did so earlier were also at an advantage. "And you can say that changing [to English] at Form Six is basically a disaster," Professor Tsang said. "The indicators are all negative."

The Education Bureau is consulting secondary schools to look at ways to "fine tune" the medium of instruction policy - apparently to blur the clear-cut distinction between English and Chinese-medium schools. The results are expected to be released before the summer break.

The bureau said it welcomed the results from Professor Tsang's study, but it was not appropriate to comment without studying the content and recommendations.

However, it added that the number of students from Chinese-medium schools gaining passes in at least five subjects, including Chinese and English, in last year's HKCEEs was 10.6 per cent higher than in 2002 and up 1.9 per cent on 2006.

http://www.scmp.com/portal/site/SCMP/

I would have voted for the fourth option right away, but the article you cited made me think twice.

But still I will support the mother language all the way to college. Every decision has its own consequences, its own pros and cons, and in my state of thinking right now the advantages of using the mother language as MOI from grade 1 to fourth year college outweigh the disadvantages.

Hopefully by discussing this, we can clarify our thoughts.

I hope Joemax would drop in, he has his own good ideas.

I'm for learning all the way till death. Dying is final lesson. Well, I would vote again for Bisaya learning as MOI all the way sa kamatayon. Voting in my first language as the 'first and foremost' or number 1 doesnt' stop me from learning a second or a third language and so on.

Learning your own gets you to know about your own. As the article shows
students got higher marks on geography (about their own land) thru the local tongue rather than a Foreign tongue.

We badly need to know our own, our own homeland and homelanguage. Angay nga duna tay kaugalingong batoganan. Kay kon duna tay batoganan, ganahan ta molupad-lupad bisan sa layong dapit, dili ta mahadlok kay naay kaulian ug kapahuwayan. Gawasnon ang tawo nga dunay baroganan nga lig-on.

Akoy

Hong Kong is not representative. I do not know the system now but
the last time I visited (which was before the turn-over to China) there
were two streams of education - a Cantonese stream which had
Cantonese as the medium of instruction from grade 1 to the university
and an English stream from grade 1 to the university. Hong Kong then,
in other words, had a dual school system.

UNESCO's findings (which Bro Andrew took to heart) are that kids
learn faster when taught in their mother tongue. In other words,
from grade 1 to grade 6, they would be taught a foreign language
like English using the mother tongue as the teaching language.

DILA Phils Foundation, Inc., is for the mlother tongue to be used as
the medium lof instruction from grade 1 to 6.

Manuel

But after the elementary years, what would be the MOI?

I appreciate the nationalistic response to this matter by voting for tagalog all the way to college BUT I vote for the 2nd choice - as a subject only and here is why.

In my opinion (IMO), I guess its a matter of what the objective is. I look at education as positioning yourself to be prepared for a competitive global economy. Are you following my line of thinking now?... one major key to success is to be able to commuicate effectively.

Would strictly being taught in Tagalog allow the Filipino to become competitive in the world? Nowadays, one does not need to leave the Philippines to be exposed to the global economy. Example: Call centers where employees are being trained not only to speak english grammatically correctly but also with little or no accent. Doesn't this tell you something already?

In fact, in many countries, learning a 2nd or 3rd or 4th language is encouraged for the very reason that we have to work with other cultures in this global economy.

If the concern is losing the language, a Filipino, IMO, will never lose their tagalog even if taught in English. That is already a proven fact. IMO, being taught strictly in Fiipino will limit the person when the time comes to deal with the real world.

Umm, Tobybul, I think you've misunderstood our stand. Well, at least, my stand.

I am not for Tagalog. In fact, I am one of those advocating for a change in the current national language policy (you might want to join us; http://dilfed.org/). When I wrote the mother tongue all the way to college, what I referred to as MY mother tongue is Cebuano.

In fact, the current national language policy had failed us. It did not produce the Filipino speakers they expected it to produce. And in the process it destroyed our global competitiveness in terms of ability to speak English.

So you see, were on the same boat here. I agree with you, strictly being taught in Tagalog (or Cebuano for that matter) won't produce globally competitive graduates.

From what you just said, I gues I do not understand anymore the point of this thread.

I'll to contact the original poster so that he can review his ideas for us.

the purpose of this thread:

What could we learn from HK mother tongue Edu Policy?
--Akoy"

At least, I learned these:
1. HK is a unique situation. It's an international hub.English is a must.
2. There's no clear cut solutions. Mother tongue MOI has advantage and disadvantage. In HK situation, mother tongue MOI gives student advantage in having deeper understanding in their own land, geography...
3. I voted for Mother Tongue as MOI all the way. I believe having a sense of our own selves, as nation, land is first the foremost. We must regain the sense of our own. To develop what is our own. Learn from others for our own.
4. Learning second language like English and other foreign languages is a must. But learn them as second language,as necessary tools to compete globally. But not to forget that, One's own language is not just a tool to communicate, it is one's dignity, pride, cultural identiy.
5. But to know one's self, develop one's own, I better ground myself in my own language and culture. I believe building on this basic ground of culture ,the ground of one's language and cultural self understanding, is basic and a necessity if we dream for better and greater days to come.
6. By the way, I'm Bisaya, and when when I speak of my own nation, land, language in this context I'm referring to the grounded reality of my own Bisaya nation,land, language. It's my basic reality. I build my dreams on this reality. I face the world grounded on this reality. (If you think of a united Philippines or Nation, that's another dream to build but must be build on our diverse peoples' realities.) We can no longer presume that we are all Tagalog, nor should we make Bisaya, Waray, Ilokano, etc become Tagalized.
7. Anyways, the simple purpose of this thread is simply 'what could we learn from HK education policy' or what could lessons or ideas we could use for our own education.

Akoy