Language schools in the Philippines
It's summer -- and I am reminded once again of how I missed those days of no school, just bumming around the house, or hanging out with friends. It was fun but doing the same things every day does get boring after a while.
One of the most productive summers I've ever had was when I decided to study Japanese. It was a fun language to learn and eventually, it became a hobby. What started out as a simple hobby soon opened up a lot of opportunities for growth, personal development and career advancement.
If you are a student thinking of taking language lessons while on summer vacation, congratulations! It will be one of the best life enriching decisions you will ever make. I can vouch for myself :)
What will you study? Well, find out what interests you most: anime, music, travel, food, history, travel. If you have lots of interests, narrow down your list until you find the one language that you are most interested in.
Where to study? Lucky for you, there are more language learning centers now than there were back in 2000. More schools, more resources, more online courses, more apps. (I will write about resources and apps on future posts. Today I will just concentrate on brick-and-mortar schools).
Here is a short directory of major language schools in the Philippines. This is by no means complete and I will add to the list as soon as I have sufficient info on particular schools.
1. Nihongo Center Foundation - Japanese
Manila school:
825 R. Papa Street, Sampaloc, Manila
Tel.: +63-2-7353179 / +63-2-7352920
Email: manila@nihongocenter.com
Makati school:
3F Dominion Bldg., 833 Arnaiz Avenue (Formerly Pasay Road), Makati City
Tel.: +63-2-8924916 to 19
Email: makati@nihongocenter.com
Website: www.nihongocenter.com
2. Alliance Francaise de Manille - French
209 Nicanor Garcia Street, Bel-Air II, Makati City
Tel.: +63-2-895 7585 / +63-2-895 7441
Email: info@alliance.ph
Website: www.alliance.ph
3. Goethe Institut - German
G/4-5/F Adamson Centre
121 Leviste St., Salcedo Village
1227 Makati City
Tel.:+63-2-8405723 / +63-2-8405724 / +63-2-8170978
Website: www.goethe.de/manila
4. Instituto Cervantes - Spanish
855 T.M. Kalaw St., Ermita, Manila
Tel.: +63-2-5261482
Email: cenmni@cervantes.es
Website: manila.cervantes.es
5. Instituto Alighieri - Italian
Unit 45/4th floor, Zeta Building, 191 Salcedo Street, Legaspi Village, Makati City
Tel: +63-2-7592016
Email: dantemanila@yahoo.com, dantemanila@dantemanila.com
Website: dantemanila.com
6. Korean Cultural Center - Korean
2F Mancor Corporate Center, 32nd Street, Bonifacio Global City, Taguig City
Tel: +63-2-5551711
Website: phil.korean-culture.org
7. Berlitz Philippines - multiple languages
Berlitz Makati
2F Peninsula Court Building, Paseo de Roxas, Makati City
Tel: +63-2-8132231 / +63-2-8179319
Mobile: +63-917-6305489
Email: cco-mk@berlitzph.com
Berlitz Connecticut, Greenhills
Designmix Center, 2F Unit 7, #59 Connecticut St., Greenhills, San Juan
Tel: +63-2-2175777 / +63-2-7231304
Mobile: +63-917-5805980
Email: cco-gh@berlitzph.com
Berlitz @ Educate Shangri-La
5th floor, Shangrila-La Plaza Mall, Mandaluyong City, Philippines
Tel: +63-2-6389116
Email: cco-sh@berlitzph.com
Website: www.berlitzph.com
8. Bridge Language Center - multiple languages
17N Burgundy Corporate Tower, Sen. Gil Puyat Ave., Makati City
Tel.: +63-2-8563585
Mobile: +63-917-6BRIDGE (274343)
Email: corp@bridgelanguagecenter.com
Website: www.bridgelanguagecenter.com
9. TESDA Language Center - English, Arabic, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, Spanish
TESDA Complex Taguig, Gate 2, TESDA Complex, East Service Road, South Superhighway, Taguig City
Tel: +63-2-8178933
Website: www.tesda.gov.ph
10. Asian Center for Foreign Languages - multiple languages
2502-B West Tower, Philippine Stock Exchange Centre (Tektite Tower), Exchange Road, Ortigas Center, Pasig City
Tel: +63-2-6877342 / +63-2-6330722
Email: acflphil@pldtdsl.net, acflqueries@pldtdsl.net
Website: www.acfl-foreignlanguages.com
Sunday, April 14, 2013
Friday, April 12, 2013
My journey through languages continues...
Hello / こんにちは/ Guten Tag / Bonjour!
My name is Cat and I am a wanna-be polyglot.
My love affair with languages began with Spanish when I was a kid. I came across my parents' old college textbooks and I thought they were fascinating. Somehow, I thought I could read the letters, but I can't understand what they meant.
Fast forward to 1995. Our school, University of Santo Tomas, played a big part during the World Youth Day that time. I was a high school student at UST Education High School and a lot of foreign delegates were going to be housed at the UST Central Seminary. Also, many activities were to be held on campus so there were lots of chances to mingle with delegates as I was also a participant.
Weeks before, I memorized all the sentences in the Spanish phrasebook I owned. I felt really confident that I'd be able to hold some basic conversations with people during WYD.
At the end of one activity, a girl came up to me and started babbling away in Spanish, pointing at my Hello Kitty bag. I thought she meant my bag is cute and she was asking where I got it.
I froze and told her in perfect English "This is not mine".
FAIL.
FAIL.
FAIL.
I promised myself I'd go to a proper school one day and really learn the language.
Fast forward again to 2000. It was my summer vacation from university. As with all my summers, I was bored to death. I thought I'd enroll in a Japanese language class at the Nihongo Center Foundation after I saw an ad in the Philippine Daily Inquirer.
It was serendipity from Day 1.
I remember that day clearly, as if it were yesterday. I remember how Alfred-sensei greeted the class when he entered the room. I remember where I sat. Who was sitting in front of me, behind me, beside me. How the book smelled. What number my Mongol pencil was. Everything.
It was the best fun I've had in a long time. I finished Elementary 1 Japanese with top marks. I was number 2 in my class. The number 1 student was Gail-san, who was also my classmate in the Japanese teacher training course (many years after Elem 1). ^_^ You can read an extremely outdated blog about that in my teaching diary.
After Elementary 1-4, I went on to Intermediate 1-4 and Advanced 1-2. I took the 2nd level of the JLPT 日本語能力試験 and thankfully, I passed. After which, the school principal asked me if I would be interested in becoming a teacher. Of course I said yes!
After finishing the course, I taught for a couple of years at Nihongo Center Manila and Makati. But my day job got in the way (haha) so I had to stop teaching for a while. I hadn't gone back, but I wanted to soon. I just need to set up a meeting with Kouchou-sensei to discuss.
I also enrolled in a basic Spanish course at Instituto Cervantes but I dropped out because I felt the class was not engaging enough. I thought we were being spoon fed most of the time and that frustrated me. I wanted to be able to formulate my own sentences, like what we did in Japanese class. Study a grammar point, then make a simple sentence using the vocabulary we learned. It wasn't for me at that time so I stopped attending classes. My sister finished it, though.
After that, I enrolled in Goethe Institut. Somehow, I have a bit of an affinity with the German language because my favorite anime at that time was "Weiss Kreuz", which used a lot of German words and names. Haha.
I loved that class! Our teacher, Sir Glenn Garfield Ang, really knew his stuff and he knew how to teach in a fun way. We had songs that were not annoying because they were not folksy types...we listened to Nena! You know, 99 Luftballoons? (He has a Nena fansite too ^_^)
My grade at the end of the first course was Sehr Gut and it pushed me to keep on enrolling. Unfortunately, I stopped at the end of the 3rd module because I had schedule conflicts with my teaching job.
In 2012, I got into a Godfather phase and decided that I wanted to learn Italian. I could not find a decent school then so I got a Living Language Platinum set and studied on my own. But that was not meant to be because early this year, I enrolled with my friend Arol in a basic French course at Alliance Francaise. I never thought I'd study French. I've always thought it would be a tough language to learn. But I was wrong. It was fun! Our teacher, Sir Amiel Mingay, is cool. I love it when he says "Go, girl" :P
Again, I could not enrol in the 2nd module after finishing the 1st module. Seeing a pattern here?
Well, I decided I'm going to take it easy with French while I study hard for my N1 JLPT exam in December. Right now, I am reviewing all my level 2 stuff (Kanji, vocabs and grammar) before I tackle the N1 materials.
I also plan to enrol in the N1 review class at Nihongo Center Foundation in Manila...Ogata-sensei, we will meet again! ^____^
I was his student in a prior N1 review class. I didn't pass on my first attempt because I lacked so many vocabs and Kanji. So now I am starting really early in my review. Hopefully, I can give an N1 certificate to Ogata-sensei to hang up in the classroom ^_~ (He collects these things, haha).
So far, here are the languages I know:
Below are the languages I want to learn in the short to medium term:
I made this blog to chronicle all my adventures, trials and tribulations in learning different languages. I will post progress logs, updates, methods, materials...basically anything related to language learning.
Though this is more of a personal log of experiences, I also hope that my blog can help another language learner in one way or another.
And so the journey goes on and on...will you travel with me? ^_^
My name is Cat and I am a wanna-be polyglot.
My love affair with languages began with Spanish when I was a kid. I came across my parents' old college textbooks and I thought they were fascinating. Somehow, I thought I could read the letters, but I can't understand what they meant.
Fast forward to 1995. Our school, University of Santo Tomas, played a big part during the World Youth Day that time. I was a high school student at UST Education High School and a lot of foreign delegates were going to be housed at the UST Central Seminary. Also, many activities were to be held on campus so there were lots of chances to mingle with delegates as I was also a participant.
Weeks before, I memorized all the sentences in the Spanish phrasebook I owned. I felt really confident that I'd be able to hold some basic conversations with people during WYD.
At the end of one activity, a girl came up to me and started babbling away in Spanish, pointing at my Hello Kitty bag. I thought she meant my bag is cute and she was asking where I got it.
I froze and told her in perfect English "This is not mine".
FAIL.
FAIL.
FAIL.
I promised myself I'd go to a proper school one day and really learn the language.
Fast forward again to 2000. It was my summer vacation from university. As with all my summers, I was bored to death. I thought I'd enroll in a Japanese language class at the Nihongo Center Foundation after I saw an ad in the Philippine Daily Inquirer.
It was serendipity from Day 1.
I remember that day clearly, as if it were yesterday. I remember how Alfred-sensei greeted the class when he entered the room. I remember where I sat. Who was sitting in front of me, behind me, beside me. How the book smelled. What number my Mongol pencil was. Everything.
It was the best fun I've had in a long time. I finished Elementary 1 Japanese with top marks. I was number 2 in my class. The number 1 student was Gail-san, who was also my classmate in the Japanese teacher training course (many years after Elem 1). ^_^ You can read an extremely outdated blog about that in my teaching diary.
After Elementary 1-4, I went on to Intermediate 1-4 and Advanced 1-2. I took the 2nd level of the JLPT 日本語能力試験 and thankfully, I passed. After which, the school principal asked me if I would be interested in becoming a teacher. Of course I said yes!
After finishing the course, I taught for a couple of years at Nihongo Center Manila and Makati. But my day job got in the way (haha) so I had to stop teaching for a while. I hadn't gone back, but I wanted to soon. I just need to set up a meeting with Kouchou-sensei to discuss.
I also enrolled in a basic Spanish course at Instituto Cervantes but I dropped out because I felt the class was not engaging enough. I thought we were being spoon fed most of the time and that frustrated me. I wanted to be able to formulate my own sentences, like what we did in Japanese class. Study a grammar point, then make a simple sentence using the vocabulary we learned. It wasn't for me at that time so I stopped attending classes. My sister finished it, though.
After that, I enrolled in Goethe Institut. Somehow, I have a bit of an affinity with the German language because my favorite anime at that time was "Weiss Kreuz", which used a lot of German words and names. Haha.
I loved that class! Our teacher, Sir Glenn Garfield Ang, really knew his stuff and he knew how to teach in a fun way. We had songs that were not annoying because they were not folksy types...we listened to Nena! You know, 99 Luftballoons? (He has a Nena fansite too ^_^)
My grade at the end of the first course was Sehr Gut and it pushed me to keep on enrolling. Unfortunately, I stopped at the end of the 3rd module because I had schedule conflicts with my teaching job.
In 2012, I got into a Godfather phase and decided that I wanted to learn Italian. I could not find a decent school then so I got a Living Language Platinum set and studied on my own. But that was not meant to be because early this year, I enrolled with my friend Arol in a basic French course at Alliance Francaise. I never thought I'd study French. I've always thought it would be a tough language to learn. But I was wrong. It was fun! Our teacher, Sir Amiel Mingay, is cool. I love it when he says "Go, girl" :P
Again, I could not enrol in the 2nd module after finishing the 1st module. Seeing a pattern here?
Well, I decided I'm going to take it easy with French while I study hard for my N1 JLPT exam in December. Right now, I am reviewing all my level 2 stuff (Kanji, vocabs and grammar) before I tackle the N1 materials.
I also plan to enrol in the N1 review class at Nihongo Center Foundation in Manila...Ogata-sensei, we will meet again! ^____^
I was his student in a prior N1 review class. I didn't pass on my first attempt because I lacked so many vocabs and Kanji. So now I am starting really early in my review. Hopefully, I can give an N1 certificate to Ogata-sensei to hang up in the classroom ^_~ (He collects these things, haha).
So far, here are the languages I know:
- Filipino - native
- English - native
- Japanese - N2 proficiency level
Below are the languages I want to learn in the short to medium term:
- French
- Italian
- German
- Spanish
And these are the languages I might study after I've become fluent in the above:
- Thai
- Hindi
I made this blog to chronicle all my adventures, trials and tribulations in learning different languages. I will post progress logs, updates, methods, materials...basically anything related to language learning.
Though this is more of a personal log of experiences, I also hope that my blog can help another language learner in one way or another.
And so the journey goes on and on...will you travel with me? ^_^
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