I was so surprised to read the news that Philippine public school students are flunking Filipino. Why is this happening?
While grade school students in Philippine public schools are averaging 75% in their Filipino subject, high school students are averaging 58%.
That goes to show you that just because people can speak in Tagalog or Filipino, it does not mean they will get high grades in their Filipino subject in school.
Sure, you can converse in Filipino at home with your parents, but what happens when your teacher asks you the meaning of bumalisbis when you discuss Florante at Laura?
Perhaps students are not reading enough materials in Filipino.
We just speak with our relatives, or spend more time with our peers. And if we speak mostly with our teen peers, how can we expect to expand our vocabulary?
How can students who average only 58% in Filipino improve their grades, if they speak mostly with one another only?
I challenge English and Filipino educators to help address the problem of “lack of books” by blogging.
Please go online and share your English and Filipino lessons in free websites such as Blogger/Blogspot or WordPress. Provide your lessons as downloadable MP3 files, so that students can store these in their MP3 players and (hopefully) learn more words.
I used to think that students struggling with Filipino in private schools will perform better if they get transferred to public schools, because they will be exposed to people who speak mostly in Filipino rather than in English.
Sadly, that is not the case. But fortunately, all is not lost.
Kung talagang gusto, maraming paraan. Kung talagang ayaw, maraming dahilan.
So, to English and Filipino educators out there, are you up to the challenge?
