Immediately after college my interest in foreign/second language teaching and learning led me to teach ESL (English as a Second Language) with WRC (World Relief Corporation).  WRC is an American NGO contracted by the Overseas Refugee Training Program (ORTP) of the US Department of State from 1987 to 1993 to provide one of their instructional programs at the PRPC Camp (Philippine Refugee Processing Center) in Bataan, Philippines.  The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) established this camp to provide training for Southeast Asian refugees from Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos before their resettlement in the US.

During my 6 years of working at the Camp, teacher training and development were vital components of the ORTP Instructional programs. Trained American professionals from the Center for Applied Linguistics (CAL), Higher Education Institutions and Resource Centers in the USA regularly provided training and workshops in language methodologies and approaches.  I had several opportunities to explore these language teaching methodologies, document effective language learning and teaching, to receive training and to train teachers in different areas of language teaching and learning, and to participate and to present at several language conferences (TESOL and IRA) in Asia, USA and Canada.  In 1993, I received the LONGMAN/Robert Maple Travel Grant from TESOL and became the first Asian recipient of this award at the TESOL Convention in 1993.

My wings never ended at the Refugee Camp.  Des Moines, Iowa, USA, became an opportunity for me to see first hand the lives of Southeast Asian Refugees resettled in the US.  Iowa is truly the “Field of Dreams” in the Midwest for it is the first state in the Union to respond to the call by the federal government to resettle a group of Tai Dam refugees in 1979. For two years in Des Moines, I directed a Refugee Program funded by the Bureau of Refugees in the State of Iowa.  I coordinated ESL and family literacy programs, job development, and refugee advocacy for refugees from Southeast Asia, Africa (Sudan and Somalia), and Bosnia.  My role led me to speak in several public hearings at the state of Iowa capital in behalf of refugee families.

My graduate school experience at Ohio University expanded my knowledge in Linguistics and related areas.  Sociolinguistics became an interesting field to explore as I began to research the relationship between multilingual societies (not due to migration) and economic progress.  Language learning strategies was also an interest as a result of my exposure to the use of Multiple Intelligences in the classroom, particularly how language learners exhibit different ways of learning and how they can learn others ways to learn more effectively.  CALL (Computer Assisted Language Learning) and web-based language learning both became a new adventure as I dove into current approaches and methodologies in teaching.

I came to NIU in 1997 as the Center for Southeast Asian Studies expanded into Tagalog language teaching.  Over the past ten years, I have acted as the primary Tagalog language instructor offering beginning and intermediate Tagalog, a course in Translation, and courses in Southeast Asian Literature.  I have especially enjoyed working with the other faculty in the Center and coordinating the work of graduate assistants and Fulbright teaching assistants. 

Tagalog Language Websites:                Vita

www.seasite.niu.edu/tagalog

www.seasite.niu.edu/trans

www2.seasite.niu.edu/tagvocab