Mother Tongue-Based Education to Indigenous People's Knowledge and Personality Development

Abstract

INTRODUCTION

Language is an integral feature of educational practice in the classroom where educators link content and instructions via language where both children and teachers express well. Revealingly, the ethno-linguistic minorities' language skills do not serve them well because their language has no place in the classroom for the textbooks and teachings are in a language they neither speak nor understand for the curriculum and instruction is that of the dominant society. The study aimed to determine the impact of mother tongue-based education to indigenous people's knowledge and personality development.

METHODS

This dissertation study employed the descriptive-ethnographic research using a self-made questionnaire and a standardized test in gathering data from 43 teachers and 393 pupils from the Agta/Remontado indigenous group in General Nakar, Quezon also, an unconstructed ethnographic interview during a two-week immersion were made by the researcher to gather the data needed and to triangulate their responses for qualitative output. The statistical treatment used for data analyses were Chi-Square and Spearman-Rho Tests.

RESULTS

The findings revealed that all of the aspects (social, ecological, economic and cultural) investigated under the Mother Tongue-Based Education bear significance to personality development while, curriculum and instruction were significant to indigenous people's knowledge except for learning materials. Prior to the extent of mother-tongue, the curriculum primarily develops relevant skills, knowledge and values that will equip the learner and help them contribute to society and take pride in their indigenous identity instead of being uncomfortable about it. Also, with respect to their personality development the pupil-respondents were ecologically strengthened through learning how to protect their cultural sanctuary and even protect its biodiversity. While in relation to the result of the standardized test it showed that they bore competence on communication skills and analogy -that widens their point of view as an indigenous individual.

DISCUSSIONS

The Indigenous learners learn best when the educational program where designed based on their culture and world views hence, in communicating the contents it is more essential that it will be delivered to their native language. For the future researchers, they may conduct studies of similar nature specifically, experimental or performance test is recommended for future evaluation.