Language Policy and

Planning_________
 Language policy and practice in the
Philippines
• 62,000 schools (primary and secondary level)
• over 21 million students enrolled in public schools alone (DepEd, 2015).
• It is also one of the more ethnically and linguistically diverse nation in South
East Asia
• over a hundred ethnic groups and over 170 different languages.
which makes language policy planning more challenging than usual.
 The Philippines has had five Constitutions
since the independence of 1896.

• The Malolos Constitution of • 1935 Constitution (Americans and

1899(required no mandate or the foundation of the Philippines
regulation of the use of the languages Commonwealth)
spoken in the country,
• Instituted the steps to adopt one of
• Spanish language shall be temporarily the languages in the country as a
used. national language, while English and
Spanish are to be used as official
languages meantime (Article XIII,
Section 3).
•
• * Executive Order 134 of 1937 • 1943 Constitution
• The Institute of National Language • which limited Western influence by
(INL) then suggested, through mandating that “The government shall
extensive study and consultation, that take steps toward the development and
Tagalog be the national language of propagation of Tagalog as the national
the country. Pronounced Tagalog as language” (Article IX, Section 2).
the national language of the
• The short-lived 1943
Philippines. But given contentions over
Constitution was soon replaced by the
the choice of Tagalog as the national
reinstated 1935 Constitution when the
language, the term was then coined to
Allied Forces liberated the country
‘Pilipino’ to appease the dispute.
(Tan, 2014).
 1973 Constitution
• under then President Ferdinand Marcos has advanced the use of ‘Filipino’ as
the national language wherein the government shall “take steps towards the
development and formal adoption of a common national language to be
known as Filipino” and until otherwise provided by law, English and Pilipino
shall be the official languages” (Article XV, Sections 2 and 3).
 Evaluating bilingual education in the
Philippines
• In 1974, the Department of Education and Culture of the Republic of the
Philippines issued a policy on bilingual education in the schools and its
implementing guidelines. The policy was in response to a need to balance the
legitimate aspiration of nationalism
• In essence, the policy stipulated two media of instruction, Pilipino and
English, according to domains, from grade 1 to fourth year highschool. The
specific domains of English in the curriculum were Mathematics and Science
and all other subjects were placed under the domain of Pilipino
 Evaluating bilingual education in the
Philippines
• Marcos’ rule, bilingualism was promoted in schools by the National Board of
Education (NBE)
• In the course of 11 years, from 1974-1985, there were on –going evaluation
on the policy and its implementation; however, were for the most part
limited in scope to individual institutions and areas and reported perceived
difficulties in implementation (GONZALES 1984) rather than objective
measures of achievements in learning with the use of two languages as
independent variables.
• In 1985, the Ministry of education, culture and sports accepted the offer of
the Linguistic Society of the Philippines to carry out a Nation-wide
evaluation based on achievement measure and funded the project,together
with the other international and national funding agencies.
 MAIN FINDINGS OF EVALUATION
• Length of exposure to the bilingual Education program (measure by the
number of years of implementation) was not a significant predictor for
student achievement
• By partialling out certain factors, It was found that the bilingual education
policy favored only in Tagalog and Manila Students.
• Socio Economic Status is the main factor.
• The finding of the evaluation have been used as the basis of discussion at
various levels on the part of the department of Education, Culture and
Sports for program review and revision; the department drafted and
approved the 1987 policy of Bilingual Education and its implementing
guidelines, in he time for the beginning of the school year 1087-1988.
• The role of Filipino was highly accorded its due from the 1987 Constitution
with the formation of the Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino (Commission on the
Filipino Language) in 1991 which was mandated to ensure the evolution and
enrichment of the Filipino language.
• ethno-linguists and other professionals, the Commission seeks to conduct
research that will improve, expand and preserve the language (KWF, 2015).
 Executive Order (EO) 335 issued by then
President Corazon Aquino in 1998
• requires the use of the language in all government agencies’ official
communications, correspondence and transactions.
• . The EO also required names of offices, buildings, public offices, and others
to be translated into Filipino.
• “importance and necessity of Filipino as an effective instrument for national
unity and progress”
• The lack of Filipino terms and books in scientific settings also disadvantages
the language over English (Geronimo, 2015) this is despite the General
Education Curriculum set by the Commission on Higher Education (CHED)
in 1996 requiring tertiary students to enlist in 9 units of Filipino courses (for
language and literature) and encouraging the Humanities and Social Sciences
courses to be taught in Filipino, in consonance with the Bilingual Education
Policy (CHED Memorandum Order 59, 1996).
•
 MTB-MLE, bilingual policy and language
preference in the Philippines
• The role of mother-tongue based multilingual education (MTB-MLE) has
been pushed in line with the desire to improve student learning, with the
perception that using the mother-tongue or first language of the child in
early education
• The MT is also to be used as the MOI from pre-primary to Grade 3 except
for subjects in Filipino (L2) and English (L3). Oral fluency, reading and
writing for L2 and L3 are to be introduced from Grade 1 (DepEd Order 16,
2012).
• Supported by empirical findings recognised by the government from both
the Lingua Franca and Lubuagan First Language projects, the MTB-MLE gains
precedence through the purported academic competencies more efficiently
gained by learners if taught in their first language (L1) as compared to their
second or third languages (L2 and L3).
 the explicit language policies and plans meant
to manage the language use and ideologies in
the country has not gained the expected effect.
• a recent order by the CHED has been heavily criticised by Filipino language
advocates when it revised the General Education Curriculum (for 2018)
without inclusion of any Filipino subjects.
• . The Tanggol Wika (Save the Language) group has projected that more than
10,000 Filipino subject professors will be affected with the policy, in addition
to the failure to instil nationalism among the students (Geronimo, 2014).
 Language In Society – Multilingualism
SOCIETAL ISSUES
• In the modern world, multilingualism is a common phenomenon. In fact, the
number of bilingual or multilingual individuals in the world is greater than
the number of monolingual individuals (Paulston and Tucker, 2003, p301).
Problems caused by multilingualism can easily be seen at both the individual
and societal level.
•
 Language In Society – Multilingualism
SOCIETAL ISSUES

• language is that of status. • challenge of corpus planning.

• The challenge of language status • It poses the challenge of developing a
changes the utility and working of a diversity of a language or a language,
language or a diversity of a language typically to homogenize it, that is, to
and the privileges of individuals who arrange for it with the sources for
practiced it. serving every conceivable language
task in the general public.
•
 Multilingualism SOCIETAL ISSUES
• language integration. • The challenge of the recognition of
more than one language
• It is the conviction that all and sundry,
irrespective of origin, should pick up • it also takes place in a multiple
the leading language of the society. It practices. It can be either dominated
gives us the impression of imposing by territory or individual and or may
something on individuals by force that be the mixture of the two. Its
is not ready to accept it by their own implication either in monolingual or
free will. This challenging issue of multilingual societies becomes a
language at a community level has the headache for the concerned
potential to trigger ethnic conflict at authorities.
any stage
 Multilingualism SOCIETAL ISSUES
• Individual language loss • Language loss, a society could
• the decrease in incompetence of a gradually experience the death
language less used. Holmes (1993). of a language.

• At the societal level, as it is

apparent that multilingual
communities have problems that
more nearly monolingual ones do
not, there are even more challenges
posed by multilingualism
 Multilingualism SOCIETAL ISSUES
• Multilingualism threatens • destroy nationalism.
nationalism. • As language holds importance in
• At the most practical level, the unity of a nation, and nation-
communicational challenges within states are more likely to be stable
a country can act as an impediment than multinational ones, the
to commerce and industry and development of a sense of nation
disrupt the nation. is more difficult for a multilingual
• state.
• To sum up, various challenges and issues of language use between
monolingual and multilingual societies can be overcome by drafting and
crafting proper strategies and polices by the concerned authorities while
keeping in mind the linguistic sensitivities of people. Because we must keep
that thing in mind that we cannot close our eyes to the emotional state of
mind of people about who they are, what they speak, and what privileges
and civil liberties they should have.