Busy Streets

If like me, you were born in the mid- to late 1960’s, chances are you never had any problems speaking Filipino or what we used to call Tagalog as children. You most likely had your fill of those early afternoon LVN and Sampaguita movies, watched Piling-Piling Pelikulang Pilipino (Specially Chosen Filipino Movies), and listened with your yayas to radio programs like Sa Ilalim ng Naninikat na Araw (Under the Brightly Shining Sun), Amorseko (i.e. a kind of plant that sticks to you if you happen to walk near it), or Shimatar.

These days, it is not uncommon to hear parents complain about their grade school kids having a hard time with their Filipino subject compared to everything else. My 9-year old son, Adi, faces such a situation. With the advent of cartoon all day cable TV, my son’s English is undoubtedly much much better than his Filipino.

How do we help such kids with their Filipino homework then? Here are some things that we have tried with Adi:

1. Give your kid the chance to speak the language — practice is still the best way to learn any language. From time to time, we force Adi to speak the language to get what he wants and we also speak to him in Filipino as often as we can.

2. Buy him Filipino books — this is getting tougher and tougher. If you look at most books for children these days, most would have English and Filipino translations. Such books usually lead kids who are better with English to just read the English version and not mind the Filipino version at all. Still, anything that helps our kids understand Filipino stories better would still not be totally useless. In any case, be on the look-out for books which are completely in Filipino. I bought Adi Mga Alamat at Iba Pang Mga Kuwento (Legends and Other Stories) by Anna Adriano and Pabula at Parabula (Fables and Parables) by R.M. Custodio. These are super-cheap, they were priced at P39.95 each when I bought them. The stories are short, teach our kids Filipino, and teach good values and lessons too.

3. Ask him to look in the dictionary– as my kid Adi does his homework, I require him to search for the meanings of the words that he does not know in a Filipino dictionary. He is free to write down the meaning of the word in his book, notes, and activity sheets, for reference. We have two dictionaries on hand at home. There’s the Diksiyunaryong Ingles-Pilipino Pilipino-Ingles (English-Filipino, Filipino-English Dictionary) by Felicidad Sagalongos but from our experience, a good number of words are not included in this dictionary.

We were able to buy the UP Diksiyonaryong Filipino (The University of the Philippines Filipino Dictionary), edited by Virgilio S. Almario, and so far, all the words that my son or I, myself, don’t understand are here. It is a Filipino dictionary by the way so even the definitions are in Filipino. This makes it a little more tedious to use for non-Filipino speakers but you are sure to pick up a new word or two just by using it. It is likewise nicely and creatively written, making readers like me appreciate better the beauty of our native language. For example, the word “luha” which means tear is defined as: ” malinaw at maalat-alat na likidong lumalabas sa mata at karaniwang bunga ng matinding damdamin.” (Translation: clear and salty liquid that comes out of the eyes commonly resulting from intense emotion). The Filipino version sounds better right?

The UP dictionary is a bit pricey (P950 for the paperback edition the last I looked in National Bookstore) but it is useful and helpful. Who says education comes cheap these days?

4. Suggest Filipino TV shows or movies that he can watch — an interesting enough story, a blockbuster movie — these may help our kids learn the Filipino language faster. Of course, we also have to make sure that such shows or movies are appropriate for their age and have some redeeming value.

Good luck in teaching your kids Filipino. I have so far survived with Adi although he has yet to speak the language fluently. He gets by with his schoolwork though. More than getting by with schoolwork, however, learning the language is key to our kids relating better with Pinoys around them and understanding and appreciating the Filipino psyche.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 6th, 2006 at 10:52 pm and is filed under Teaching Our Kids Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.