COMMUNITY OUTREACH AND LANGUAGE LEARNING

Arcangel Q. Bañez, Jr.

Schools and teachers have always been strong advocates of providing programs and projects that cater to the special needs of learners with late and stunted learning level including in the area of language learning. From this advocacy, educators have been effectively moving towards implementation of the programs that are planned and executed with continuous improvement. Some of these programs are the inception of special reading classes in private and public schools, and the transformation of community outreach projects as an avenue to propagate awareness on the importance of language learning and reading.

As an illustration of this practice, schools and outreach teams can reach out to the young native or indigenous learners in the locality or near the locality of the school. Based on observations and research, many of these learners have poor concept in the value of learning to read English and therefore the skill of which they possess. In this view, teachers and organizers need to strive to instill to the participants the encompassing and eternal importance and benefits of love for reading. It must be importantly mentioned that related observations and studies lead to a substantial conclusion of strong link between economic status and reading deficiency. The families of the learners under these special sections and indigenous participants are far below the median level of income index of families in the country. True enough, these learners failed to learn to read basic Filipino words and English syllables due to reduced time allocation for home study, lack of extra budget for tutorial, or unconscious disregard for learning in order to prioritize earning for basic provisions.

Moreover, many indigenous learners and special classes learners also exhibit undernourishment, malnourishment, and sickliness. These are primarily due to their impoverished economic condition. This condition triggers a chain reaction that links itself to poor learning capacity which includes language deficiency, or more specifically, reading deficiency. In this line, with the overwhelming evidence that food and nutrition and other material practical support affect the capacity to absorb knowledge and skills and improve on the same, schools and organizers have to put its best foot forward in order to make this charity work into reality for the betterment of the lost, the last and the least. The community outreach project may aim to achieve the following objectives: Promote love for reading and the benefits of reading to the young natives of a far-flung recipient community; Instill the sense of nationalism and a concept of nation-building to the natives by incorporating noble ideas about freedom, responsibility, and traditions in the conduct of reading activities; Nurture a sense of community-sharing between the native participants and the nonnatives during the outreach; Promote the values of generosity, goodwill, and social responsibility among the stakeholders leading to enhanced learning motivation among native learners: And develop a good action model in organizing a localized civic project that can serve as reference for similar future efforts.

Community outreach program is a potent tool for the education system to create a bridge between, in one way or another, the actual needs of the learners and the scarce resources they have access to. These programs may not and should not try to supplant the pursuit of any individual and every family to gain a sustainable source of income or livelihood but reality and research lead to the conviction that temporary but meaningful physical/material intervention yields long-term effects. Furthermore, outreach projects provide natural venues for self-discovery of prevailing conditions, trends, and predicted challenges. In a way, outreach projects create a ground for social laboratory, intervention, and prevention.

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The author is Teacher III Dapdap High School