Instructional Materials for West Miraya Dialectal Instruction

Abstract

INTRODUCTION

The advent of the Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual Education (MTBMLE), an added feature to the K to 12 curriculum of the Department of Education (Department of Education), has brought sudden changes in the educational arena which posed challenges especially on the part of teachers and learners. One of which is the dearth in the materials in teaching MTBMLE. To address this issue, the researcher of this study produced educational materials by measuring first the mutual intelligibility of the West Miraya dialects, namely: Bikol-Polangui, Bikol-Oas, Bikol-Ligao and Bikol-Pioduran which are one of the Bikol languages. Specifically, the lexical counterparts of the basic core vocabulary in the West Miraya dialects were identified. Afterwards, the degree of mutual intelligibility of these dialects was measured and an instructional and a reference material were produced to enhance the teaching of the dialects and to bridge the learning of mother tongue to the learning of English.

METHODS

Basic interpretative research design was employed to answer the specific problems. There were 20 respondents in this study: 5 speakers of Bikol-Polangui, 5 Bikol-Oas speakers, 5 Bikol-Ligao speakers and 5 speakers of Bikol-Pioduran who were chosen using the following criteria: (a) must be native speakers; (b) must have stayed in the locale for at least 10 consecutive years since birth; (c) must have reached at least sixth grade; and (d) of reputable character.

RESULTS

The words in the basic core vocabulary have only one or the same lexical counterpart in the West Miraya dialects, while others have English or Filipino adaptations, have the same lexical equivalent but differ in vowel sounds, or have different translations; 116 out of the 200 words in Swadesh list are mutually intelligible, that is, having only one or the same lexical equivalent in all four places using West Miraya dialects; andthe instructional and reference materials produced are a picture dictionary and a reading material.

DISCUSSIONS

The variation that exists in the lexical counterparts of the basic core vocabulary in the West Miraya dialects are caused by context, geographical location or proximity, legal, and political considerations; there is an average mutual intelligibility; hence, the need to come up with an instructional and a reference material; and these materials produced are a picture dictionary and a reading material both titled "An Bibisarun Ta" or "Our Way of Speaking" which are intended for Grade 3 pupils and teachers.