Tag: school

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K-12: Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual Education

The K-12 Program is a designation for the sum of primary and secondary education and covers kindergarten and 12 years of basic education. One of the features of the program is Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual Education (MTBME). From the government site:

Students are able to learn best through their first language, their Mother Tongue (MT). Twelve (12) MT languages have been introduced for SY 2012-2013: Bahasa Sug, Bikol, Cebuano, Chabacano, Hiligaynon, Iloko, Kapampangan, Maguindanaoan, Meranao, Pangasinense, Tagalog, and Waray. Other local languages will be added in succeeding school years.

Aside from the Mother Tongue, English and Filipino are taught as subjects starting Grade 1, with a focus on oral fluency. From Grades 4 to 6, English and Filipino are gradually introduced as languages of instruction. Both will become primary languages of instruction in Junior High School (JHS) and Senior High School (SHS).

Supposedly the mother tongue of the particular school district will be used as the medium of teaching. As previously there has been effort to use Tagalog Filipino as the medium of teaching, the idea is good as it benefits children whose mother tongue is not Tagalog (though these children usually speak three languages, unlike Tagalog-speakers who usually speak only two languages). But what if the child’s first language and mother tongue is English?

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Gymboree Learning Lab

In preparation for school, we enrolled Jeanne to Gymboree’s Learning Lab:

Learning Lab combines multi-sensory learning products from LeapFrog School™ and Handwriting Without Tears (HWT) with Gymboree’s interactive approach for a well-rounded learning experience for reading, writing and math.  Leapfrog activities are designed to help children build essential skills including letter and color recognition, counting, and shape identification, while HWT provides hands-on sensory-focused activities for fine motor skill development and beginning letter skills.

I woke up Jeanne and we quickly prepared. We took a cab to Gymboree. We were early so we were able to play and get some exercise at the play area while waiting for class to start.

Class is an hour long and is composed of the following activities:

  1. Greeting song
  2. Counting activity – count the letters of your name
  3. Necklace making activity – shapes, writing, and eye-hand coordination
  4. Alphabet flash cards – culminating with the selection of the letter of the day
  5. Object flash cards – objects starting with the letter of the day
  6. Project activity – painting and gluing together a paper animal
  7. Coloring activity – coloring using odd sun-shaped coloring tools
  8. Goodbye song

Overall, it’s a good school environment experience for Jeanne. Even if she knows most of the  stuff already, being in a classroom gives her opportunities to further improve her knowledge and engaging in social interaction. And developing competitiveness >:)

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Justice For Tengteng

I learned from Elwyna’s blog about a cat kitten killing UP student. The guy, Joseph Carlo Candare, said on his blog– yes, he even had the gall to blog about it– that he took the kitten by its tail and threw it to the ground, then “like a pro wrestler” jumped and stomped on it. I wonder how he would fare against a REAL pro wrestler. He’s a shame to all UP students, he’s even worse than the infamous rumbling frat men.

The UP administration should be filtering out student applicants with psychotic tendencies (Ooops! If that was the case I probably wouldn’t have gotten in :P). But worse, they’re not even taking action against someone who is ovbiously disturbed and has in fact broken the law, the Animal Welfare Act to be exact. He needs punishment or, at the very least, mental therapy.

Make UP act! Sign the petition!