English language teaching and bridging in mother tongue-based multilingual education

This paper shall describe the bridging strategies used by Grades 3 and 4 English teachers from schools in two regions in the Philippines to help their multilingual students transition from using the mother tongue as medium of instruction in the different subject areas to using English in the English classroom. Data were obtained through interviews, classroom observations and stimulated recall. Findings revealed that the teachers utilised different translanguaging strategies like direct translation, code-switching, metalinguistic comparison-contrast and metalinguistic explanation. These strategies used the various linguistic and semiotic resources of both students and teachers as mediating tools to allow more efficient teaching and learning and more active participation from students in the language learning activities.