HSSD Technical Seminar by Benigno V. Faral (January, 2006)

Finding that the English forum at Ateneo de Manila effective and worth the attendance of all language professors, the Chair of the Humanities and Social Sciences Department brought the Ateneo speaker to TIP Manila to discuss topic on English in the classroom. Dr. Ma. Luz Vilches whose graduate studies were taken in England and presently the chair of the Ateneo de Manila English Department, talked before the faculty members Department of the Humanities and Social Sciences of TIP Manila last January 12, 2006.

The speaker discussed learning principles and teaching methodology. There is a teaching methodology for English that combines learning the language at the same time integrating values. More importantly, in the pedagogical method, students are given a chance to master the four language areas namely; listening, speaking, writing and reading.

A more elemental component of the presentation was concerned with the "content" of a teacher's instruction material. She underscored the exigency that every instructional material must square with the context of the learner, that is, it should be related to one's life and situation so as the learners would be able to relate and situate themselves within the context with which they are familiar. This feature of the instructional material also demands that the educators should constantly reinvent themselves as well as to continiously revise the content of the teaching material to cope with the present situation of the learners.

Asked what is her opinion to the English of the local celebrities, Dr. Vilches said that "I let the students speak the kind of English of the local celebrities but never in my class." She further added "that kind of English (that of the celebrities) should never be the model of the students.