What we know

1
What we know

• A strategy of MLE beginning with mother-tongue
  produces both better learning and makes education
  systems more efficient and effective higher
  enrolment, less repetition, lower drop-out rates,
  higher achievement and therefore SAVES MONEY!
• Education for All can only be achieved with a
  strategy of mother tongue-based MLE without it,
  too many children will not enter school, will
  fail, and will drop out or be pushed out -- of
  the education system (1,000,000 children out of
  school in 2007).

2
What we know

• Diversity is a treasure -- not only to be
  tolerated or respected but welcomed and
  celebrated.
• Diversity is preserved by literacy both in
  indigenous, minority languages and in the
  national language.
• Literacy in the mother tongue is an effective and
  efficient approach to learning to read and write
  in the national language.
• Literacy in both indigenous languages and the
  national language will help integrate and
  strengthen society -- economically, socially,
  politically, culturally not tear it apart.

3
What we know

• Through greater integration, excluded indigenous
  communities can contribute more to economic and
  social development.
• Local communities need to play an important role
  in the management of their schools and the
  selection of the content and methods of
  instruction.
• Cultural methods of transmitting knowledge to
  children (traditional pedagogy) should also be
  adapted for the classroom.

4
What we know

• But there are practical difficulties, too
• MTB-MLE requires special skills for teachers
  not only in the language (working fluency) but
  also in combining it with L2 and in bridging
  successfully to mastery of L2. ALL practicing
  teachers and teacher trainees therefore need to
  learn these skills.
• Special approaches must be developed for
  classrooms with more than one mother tongue
  (e.g., schools/grades/classrooms assigned by
  language, teaching assistants from each language,
  selecting the most used L2)

5
What we know

• The early years of primary school are the most
  important if children are not literate by the
  end of grade 2, they will likely drop out or
  learn little.
• Good teaching, in mother tongue, and intensive
  remediation for slow readers are therefore
  essential.
• But which grade has the most pupils? Which grade
  has the youngest, least experienced teacher?
  Which grade has the fewest hours of teaching each
  week? In many countries, it is grade 1.
• And in the Philippines?

6
What we know

• MLE is essential to achieve education which is
  truly inclusive but language is only one of
  many barriers to enrolment and success in school.
• A good education system and a good teacher
  include not only speakers of many languages but
  also children of the very poor, children with
  disabilities, street children and working
  children, children in remote areas, and girls AND
  boys equally.
• All teachers must therefore become inclusive
  educators, welcoming diversity and using it to
  enrich the education the provide.