Magtira, John Michael B.

Topic: Current Issues in the Language: Retention of Bilingual Education

The use of English and Filipino as a media of instruction in the Philippine Educational
System has been very controversial since its implementation in 1974 for it only worked on the
regions where Filipino is widely used. Since the Philippines is an archipelago, it houses a wide
range of different languages that is foreign to the inhabitants. Thus, the students are not only
exposed to two languages, but in reality several languages making the Filipino youth grow in an
education environment that is full of contradiction and confusion (Durban & Durban - Catalan,
2013, p.110).
The Bilingual Education of the Philippines implements the use of the separate use of
Filipino and English as media for learning; whereas, Filipino is used in subjects like history and
social sciences and English is used in technical subjects like mathematics and science. For
teachers in the Tagalog regions, their only concerned was to teach English as a second language
since Filipino is already their first language. However, this is a challenge to teachers in the nonTagalog speaking regions of the country. The teacher experiences difficulty in teaching subjects
such as Makabayan to their non-Tagalog speaking students. Thus, students lose their sense of
nationalism since this is what the Makabayan subject is all about (Durban & Durban - Catalan,
2013).
Aside from the negative effects of bilingualism, it still brought forth advantages.
Bernardo (2005) through his study on the effect of bilingual code-switching as a resource for
learning, uncovered that code-switching should not be viewed as a problem that reflects poor
linguistic knowledge, but it is a learning resource that builds understanding in different learning
areas.
Yanilla-Aquino (2012), however, in her study on the effects of bilingualism on the
literary skills of preschoolers found that monolingual instruction in either Filipino or English had
a stronger and more effective effect than bilingual instruction. She further uncovered that
mother-tongue based learning is more effective than second language learning on preschoolers
literary skills.

References:
Bernardo, A. B. I. (2005). Bilingual code switching as a resource for learning and teaching:
alternative reflections on the language and education issue in the philippines. Manila: De
la Salle University
Durban, J. M. & Durban-Catalan, R.(2013). Bilingualism in philippine education: bane or boon?
Journal of Society and Communication, 2013, 109-121
Yanilla-Aquino, L.F. (2012). The effects of bilingual instruction on the literacy skills of young
learners. Retrieved from: http://blog.nus.edu.sg/