Effectiveness of Multilingual Teaching of Mathematics in a Tertiary Level State University in Bicol Region, Philippines

Multilingual instruction is essential in alleviating students’ performance. Hence, this study recognizes its importance in the teaching-learning process in Mathematics especially in plane and solid Geometry among college students. Its focus is on the use of English, Filipino, Bikol and other local dialects within the Bicol region as media of instruction. Quasi- experimental method was employed using the two- group post designs. The teacher-made pre-and-post- tests were utilized to assess the students’ performance in the two mathematics classes which are handled by the researcher and became the subject of the study. One class was the control group using English alone as medium of instruction, while in the experimental class it employs multi-lingual instruction. Said classes were comparable because of an almost equal mean scores obtained in the pre-test. Convenient non- random sampling technique was used to determine the sample classes and simple average to determine the scores of both pre- and post-tests. T-test analysis was used to determine the significant difference between students’ performance in the two classes. Result of the study revealed significant difference in the students’ performance between the two groups. A homogeneous students’ performance in the experimental group was observed as evidenced by a practically the same high scores obtained by the students in the post test. It therefore implies that the use of multilingual instruction in mathematics significantly contributed to the performance of the students.

Keywords: Multilingual instruction, language, dialects, quasi-experimental method, students‟ performance