Should public schools teach kids Spanish?

MANILA, Philippines – Should public schools in the country be teaching Spanish on top of English, Filipino and the vernacular?

Education Secretary Br. Armin A. Luistro FSC says yes. “It is important,” he said, “to teach one of the world’s more widely-spoken languages to our students as part of their preparation for the global arena.”

In line with this, some 113 teachers from select public schools in different parts of the country will go through a summer training course this year to hone skills in learning and teaching Spanish as a second language under the Department of Education’s Special Program in Foreign Language (SPFL).

The education department is implementing the training program with support from the Spanish Ministry of Education, Instituto Cervantes and the Spanish Agency for International Cooperation for Development (AECID). It will run from April 16 to May 28 at the Instituto Cervantes, Manila at T.M. Kalaw Street in Ermita, Manila.

English competence

Luistro, in a press release, said the training is part of DepEd’s continuing thrust to equip its teaching force with additional knowledge to impart to their students.

The foreign language program is implemented in public high schools whose students have demonstrated competence in English and are capable of learning another foreign language.
 
The training program will be participated in by secondary school teachers from selected public schools nationwide. Each division is sending two participants while three new expansion schools namely Bacolod/Iloilo, Cebu, and Davao will send three each.
 
The SPFL aims to develop students’ skills in listening, reading, writing, speaking and viewing as fundamental to acquiring communicative competence in a second foreign language. The program is not limited to Spanish.

In SY 2009-2010, the program was piloted in selected public secondary schools with Spanish, French and Japanese. In SY 2010-2011, German was added to the list of foreign languages offered.
 
According to DepEd, globalization has prompted countries to level up their competitive edge in job opportunities by making its citizens learn some of the world’s most widely-used languages such as Spanish.  – Rappler.com