by Gemma Derpo Dalayoan
The Manitoba Association of Filipino Teachers Inc. (MAFTI) has launched its Filipino Class for Adults on Tuesday, April 10, 2018 at the Technical Vocational High School on Wall St. from 6:00- 7:30 p.m. Mrs. Victoria Cabrera, who is also a Nursery teacher at Tyndall Park School, is the teacher for this class.
Present were 17 students with 3 registered missing their first day of class. To lend support to Mrs. Cabrera were Genalyn Aseron Tan, MAFTI President, and Gemma Dalayoan, MAFTI Internal Consultant and Adviser.
CBC and its personnel were also present to capture this momentous event. MAFTI thanks Mrs. Leila Aseron Castro in contacting CBC; thus, this program received wide coverage not only in the Filipino community but also throughout Manitoba. MAFTI also gives its appreciation to the 3 local newspapers namely: Ang Peryodiko, Filipino Journal, and Pilipino Express for publishing free ads for the Filipino class. Furthermore, MAFTI also thanks the Winnipeg School Division for granting the permit for the use of a centrally located school, Tech Voc.
The class started at 6:10 p.m after the registrants paid their tuition fees of $120 for 12 sessions to Mrs. Genalyn Tan. One important note Mrs. Cabrera told her students was that the national language of the Philippines is not Tagalog but Filipino.
Tagalog is just one of the major dialects in the Philippines from which many words were taken from and embedded in the national language, Filipino. The class ended with a game that gave the chance for students to say some Filipino words they had learned. A culminating activity is being planned a day after the last session which will be on June 26.
