Part 1: Purposes, benefits and essential features of MTB MLE
When students have solid knowledge developed in their mother tongue, they can learn Vietnamese faster and better. The MOET has assigned its best and most experienced specialists to work on the Action Research on MTBBE in cooperation with UNICEF, and we recognize that this approach is an effective solution for ethnic minority education( Le Tien Thanh, Director, Primary Education Department, MOET, in UNICEF 2012. p. 6).
Q1
What is the educational situation for children in many minority language communities?
Children from minority language communities often face significant educational challenges:
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If they have access to a school— many do not— their teachers use a language they do not understand and they are not allowed to use their home language or mother tongue( MT) in the classroom or on the school grounds.
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If their school has textbooks— many do not— they are written in the official school language and focus on the dominant culture. The students’ own knowledge and experience, gained at home and in their community, are excluded from the classroom.
•• They are expected to learn to read and write in a language they do not yet understand.
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They are expected to learn new math, science and other concepts in a language they do not understand or are in the process of learning.
For these students, school is an unfamiliar place teaching unfamiliar concepts in an unfamiliar language. Teachers who do not speak the students’ home language may think their students are“ slow” because they have trouble understanding the lessons. Without support from their teachers, many students become frustrated and discouraged. The fact that more than 50 percent of the world’ s out-of-school children come from minority language communities is not surprising when we consider the difficulties that those children encounter in schools that use only a dominant language.
Booklet for Policy Makers
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