Search

To address the challenges of teaching and learning among multilingual elementary students, the Philippines, a multilingual country with over 180 languages, implemented the Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual Education (MTB-MLE). Studies on the use of mother tongue have reported positive results among students who share a common language. However, in highly multilingual places, mother tongue use poses a challenge to students whose mother tongues differ from the one used in the classrooms. Using non-participatory observations, this study gathered data from a highly multilingual city in the Philippines to determine how teachers and students use languages during the teaching and learning of science. It reveals that the participants used translanguaging in accomplishing communicative functions needed in teaching and learning science. Subsequently, the study proffers the legitimization of translanguaging as it is pedagogically beneficial to both the teachers and the students in multilingual elementary classrooms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the present implementation of Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual Education (MTB-MLE) in the Philippines, this study investigated the language practices of teachers and learners (collectively 'participants') in the teaching and learning of English as a second language (ESL) in two Third Grade classrooms in a multilingual city in the Philippines. Using qualitative measures (classroom observations, semi-structured interviews), this study primarily found that the participants used language practices, which this study argues should be subsumed under translanguaging, either explicitly or implicitly, to mediate their communicative functions that are crucial in ESL classrooms. Through translanguaging, the teachers were able to present their lessons, conduct classroom discussions, enhance students' understanding, and manage student behaviour more effectively and efficiently; and the students, in turn, were able to participate in classroom discussions and substantively demonstrate their knowledge and understanding. This study posits that multilingual teachers and learners utilise their language practices in the classroom to enhance meaning amongst themselves and between them and their tasks. This study further argues that since translanguaging is demonstrated by the participants as their inherent practice as multilinguals, it can be better understood when viewed from the perspective of multilingualism.