It Is Right to Teach Spanish Again to Filipino Students

President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo recently visited Spain and I am proud of her for speaking Spanish very fluently. In a news article the other day, it says that there is a proposal to include again Spanish as part of the college curriculum. If I were to be asked, I would say that Spanish should also be part of the high school curriculum. Knowing how to speak Spanish has advantages specially if you like to travel a lot.

I first learned Spanish when I was in third year high school as an elective and again in fourth year high. It was fun learning the language. I remember our teacher, Senora Cruz very well because she was so patient with us. We learned how to conjugate and then later on, we were given assignments to write short essays in Spanish. She also made us read news reports in Spanish. There was a newspaper in Spanish and we were to buy that newspaper and report to class the news. It was scary at first, but she made the exercise everyweek that we got used to it and enjoyed it. It was fun because we were just learners and we commit mistakes that she always corrected with the class laughing out loud because the mistakes (usually in the pronounciation) were really funny. These two years had helped a lot when I entered the University of Santo Tomas. WE had four semesters of Spanish, from first year to second year college. The method of teaching was very much like that of Senora Cruz's. However, it was harder and more comprehensive than in high school. I attended the class three times a week for two years. The complete Spanish grammar was taken up. Later on, we were also given assignments to write essays and memorize poems in Spanish. I can still recite some portions of Jose Rizal's "Me Ultimo Adios". Everyone of us had to recite that poem from memory as part of the final exams for the semester. There were other poems that we had to memorize, one was "Mi Choza de Nipa". Every meeting, we would start the class by reciting the Spanish version of the "Our Father". We were also taught the Spanish version of our National Anthem and sing it in class as part of the final exams.....It was really hard but fun. At the end of the four semesters, I can at least read and understand Spanish and speak a little.

However, it was almost thirty years that I have finished college and I didn't speak the language everyday. I have almost forgotten how to write or speak the language. But I can still review and go back to re-learn it. My children didn't have any lessons in Spanish in high school or in college, that's why they couldn't understand some of the words in Spanish that I used in everyday lingo. In counting, I use uno, dos, tres, cuatro, cinco, etc and if it goes beyond diez, they couldn't understand it anymore. Unlike French that was taught to my daughter at Assumption, Spanish is much easier to pronounce and more widely used than French.

I am keeping my fingers crossed that our educators will finalize the inclusion of Spanish in our children's curriculum. It is a very good move in enhancing the capabilities of the youth enabling them to speak at least two languages fluently, that is, English and Spanish. After all, we were under Spain for hundreds of years, we might as well be proud to speak their language.