Filipino Curriculum Summit

On Monday, Feb. 21, from 2 to 5 p.m., I will host a Filipino Curriculum Summit at the University of the Philippines College of Education Training Center in Diliman, Quezon City. As I did in the two previous Curriculum Summits that I convened, I will be doing this in my personal capacity, this time with the generous help of the UP College of Education and the UP Sentro ng Wikang Filipino.

I have invited representatives of the professional organizations of teachers of Filipino, as well as leading scholars of Filipino and other Philippine languages, to join the curriculum experts of the Department of Education (DepEd) in formulating the framework for using and teaching Filipino from Kindergarten to Grade 12.

The issues to be tackled in the summit are typical of those raised about the K+12 curriculum in general.

For example, DepEd and President Aquino have both committed themselves to using the mother tongue from Kindergarten to Grade 3. Filipino (like English) is taught only as a language but not used as the medium of instruction. How exactly shall we teach Filipino (and English) using the mother tongue as medium of instruction? This is one of the topics to be decided upon during the summit.

Before the Aquino administration, DepEd aimed to make “Every Child a Reader by Grade 3.” President Aquino brought down the age of reading, making DepEd change its slogan to “Every Child a Reader by Grade 1.” Since reading textbooks, in practice, are available in Filipino but not in the various mother tongues, what does this mean in terms of expecting students to read by the end of Grade 1? How can reading ability (in Filipino, not to mention English) be enhanced in Grades 2 and 3?

When students reach Grade 4, they will study Filipino as a subject and also use Filipino as the medium of instruction for all subjects except English, Math, and Science. How can this be done? What upward adjustments do we need to do, since children will already have been reading for at least two or three years before they get to Grade 4?

The curriculum for Grades 7 to 10 (the current First to Fourth Year High School) also needs to be redone. Literary theory has grown by leaps and bounds in the past fifty years. That Ibong Adarna, Florante at Laura, Noli Me Tangere, and El Filibusterismo are the most important texts that all high school students should read has been questioned by literary scholars and critics. Is it time to teach literature according to what we know from literary theory? Should we change these texts with literary texts of higher quality, more significance, or more relevance to the digital age? Should we still devote a year each to these texts, or can we use the time more profitably?

The curriculum for Grades 11 and 12 does not yet exist. To create it, curriculum designers have to consider at least two major developments.

The first has to do with the reform being proposed by CHED’s Technical Panel on General Education. If the two Filipino subjects in the current General Education Curriculum (GEC) on the college level will be brought down to Senior High School, when exactly and in what form should they be taught?

The second has to do with the streaming of students into an academic or a non-academic path. Should students working for, say, a career in call centers be required to take up Filipino, or should they use the time to learn, say, American culture? Should the Filipino language requirement for students working for, say, a career in the hospitality industry be changed to a foreign language (such as Arabic, Chinese, Italian, Japanese, Spanish, or whatever is the language of the country they expect to be working in)?

Students in the academic or pre-university stream, on the other hand, might need a lot more than just two subjects of Filipino. A huge number of important scholarly texts are available only in Filipino. De La Salle University’s Malay, which publishes articles only in Filipino, is the most widely-read Philippine learned journal today, according to the two major websites featuring Philippine journals (one managed by Oxford and Asia Pacific College, the other managed by C&E Publishing). Should students going to college be better prepared to read scholarly journal articles and books in Filipino?

On Monday, a study group headed by National Artist Virgilio S. Almario, consisting of language experts from Ateneo, DLSU, Miriam, UP, and UST, will present a draft curriculum framework that should be used by DepEd to plan for K+12.

The Filipino Curriculum Summit is open to everyone, especially elementary and high school teachers of Filipino. For more details, please contact me through Facebook.

TEACHING TIP OF THE WEEK. If you are one of the numerous teachers of Filipino outside the Philippines, you should visit LearnFilipino.ph, a website run by the Commission on Filipinos Overseas (CFO). The lessons on the website consist of three modules (beginner, intermediate, advanced).

The Beginner Module includes the following (titles translated from Filipino, of course): The Filipino Alphabet and Sounds, Me and My Family, Me and My Environment, Me and Myself, Me and Other People.