Under the Department of Education’s (DepEd) new K-12 curriculum which will be launched in June, students from Grade 1 to Grade 3 will be taught in their mother tongue or the first language they learned since they were born.

Education officials are convinced this new policy will facilitate learning, since young children who are only fluent in their mother tongues will be less hesitant to speak up in class. There are over 70 languages, or mother tongues, in the Philippines. Those regional languages that Filipinos commonly refer to as dialects, such as Ilocano or Bisaya, are actually languages with their own syntax and vocabularies.

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I’ve got no problems with this, but the earlier we introduce our children to other languages the better. Raising little polyglots should not frighten us.