WORKTEXT FOR THE TEACHING OF MOTHER TONGUE IN KINDERGARTEN IN AKLAN, PHILIPPINES

Abstract

Nine years into the implementation of the Mother Tongue Based-Multilingual Education (MTB-MLE) in the Philippines, there is still dearth in instructional materials for the teaching of the subject, especially in the provinces. Instructional materials are mostly produced by the Department of Education (DepEd) with few private sector initiatives covering bigger language groups. Publications by non-DepEd personalities and entities to design, develop, and validate instructional materials in the mother tongue is most welcome. Using the ADDIE Model, this project aimed to develop a worktext on vocabulary development for kindergarten learners in Aklan, Philippines. Specifically, the following objectives were answered: 1) to determine the teacher-evaluators’ opinion on the alignment of worktext’s content to the learning competencies; 2) to find out teacher-evaluators’ opinion on the alignment of worktext’s content to the desired learning outcomes; 3) to generate suggestions from teacher-evaluators to further improve the quality of the worktext; 4) to list down parents’ observation on the tasks contained in the worktext when engaged to by their kindergartens. The analysis, design, and development stages were done from October-December 2018 while implementation and evaluation stages were completed in January- May 2019. Given the iterative process involved in the ADDIE model, revisions based on the evaluators’ and observers’ comments were made instantaneously across the entire process. DepEd kindergarten teacher-evaluators reported that the worktext had “fully met the expectation” and culturally relevant while parent-observers described that the worktext contained activities with varying levels of difficulty responsive to children’s ability. The evaluated worktext entitled Magtuon it Akeanon: A Worktext on Vocabulary Development for Akeanon Kindergarten Learners comes in printed book format with a downloadable digitized version.