Unit 2

LESSON 1: UNDERSTANDING
LANGUAGE-IN-EDUCATION
POLICY
REPORTER:

Karen Marata
LEARNING GOALS
At the end of the lesson, you should be able to:
identify the problems that arise from multilingualism
and its impact to instruction;
define language-in-education policy;
differentiate overt from covert language policies; and
reflect on the existing local language policies and
practices.
Pre-activity
How would you describe
How thethe language diversity of your
would you describe

language diversity? class based on the chart?

What do you think are the advantages

and disadvantages of a linguistically
diverse or multilingual class?

What do you think are the main

challenges in dealing with a
multilingual class?

What do teachers do to overcome

them?
 LANGUAGE IN
EDUCATION POLICY
Language-in-education policies are created to proactively
ddress these problems.
Kosonen and Young (2009) define language-in-education
policy (LEP) as the "legislation on and practices pertaining
to language or media of instruction and languages of
literary used in basic education."

LEP's primary concern is to decide on the medium of

instruction that will be used in schools.
Specifically, LEP addresses these issues:
1. What languages should be used in schools?
2. When do we start teaching these languages to
children?
3. How long should these languages be taught? How
many years?
4. How many hours? Who are qualified to teach? Who
should learn these languages? How will it be taught?
Language education policy and assessment Language
policy in general an all-important decision of
language education policy concerns the choice of
medium of instruction (Tollefson 2008. 3) which
determines the language(s) to be learn, for how much
time, etc
Language Education Policy (LEP) is the process
through which the ideas, goals, and content of a
language policy can be realized in education
practices.
OVERT AND COVERT
LANGUAGE POLICY
Schiffman (1996, in Shoham, 2006) classifies languages
policies (LP) into two: covert and overt LPs.

Overt LP- refer to those language policies that are

explicit, formalized, de jure, codified, and manifest." It
is sometimes called as top-down or explicit policy.

Covert LP- refer to language policies that are implicit,

informal, unstated, de facto, grass-roots, and latent;
these covert policies are also known as bottom-up or
implicit language policy.
REFLECT ON THE EXISTING LOCAL LANGUAGE POLICIES
AND PRACTICES
Bikol, Cebuano, Hiligayanon, Ilokano. Pampango,
pangasinense, Tagalog, and waray are just eight of the
twelve regional languages spoken by more than a million
people in the Philippines, despite the fact that the
government of the country formally recognizes them all.

These existing local languages have been adopted in

education which are being used as their medium of
teaching and delivering the curriculum to the students.
THANK YOU
 Activity time!
Reflective essay
Read the article of Shohamy (2006).
Based on your personal observations and readings,
reflect on the questions provided.
Write a 500 to 700-word reflective essay about
your observations and realizations.
 Activity time!
1. How is the language policy in the Philippines received
by teachers, students, and parents?
2. How is it practiced in public schools? In private
schools?
3. What do you think are the implementation challenges?
4. What are the social, political, and economic
implications of the existing language policy?
Criteria for Grading the Reflective Essay:

Depth of Reflection 15

Organization of Ideas 5

Language Use 5

Adherence to Good Writing Conventions

5
Total: 30