Mother Tongue

The International School of Phnom Penh believes that it is vital that all students have the opportunity to maintain and develop their mother tongue (the main language that the student uses at home), where feasible.

The research relating to mother-tongue maintenance and development (Cummins and Danesi, in Baker and Prys Jones, 1988) is particularly significant. This research indicates that students following a mother-tongue maintenance and development programme receive the following benefits:

• They avoid language loss and the resultant negative effects, for example, subtractive bilingualism (where the development of a second language is detrimental to the first language).
• They perform at least as well (often better) in mainstream subjects (science, humanities, etc) as monolingual students.
• They perform at least as well (often better) as second-language students who don’t maintain their mother tongue and are schooled wholly in the second language.
  They retain a positive attitude toward their mother tongue and cultural background when the school shows acceptance of the mother tongue language, accounting for increased self-esteem and its resultant benefits.