Harvard University’s Asia Center Hires Filipino Instructor
Lady Aileen Orsal, a Fullbright Teaching Assistant and teacher from Cavite State University, will be the instructor for the Filipino language at Harvard University.
The Filipino subject gets its spotlight as Harvard University’s Asia Center announced they’ve hired a Filipino instructor who will teach the language at the university. It will start during the first semester of 2023-2024.
According to the announcement, Lady Aileen Orsal, a Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant at the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at Northern Illinois University, will teach the subject. Aside from Northern Illinois University, Lady Aileen also taught at Cavite State University.
In the bio provided, Lady Aileen obtained her Mass Communication degree from Cavite State University in 2012 and her MA in Philippine Studies from the same university in 2017. She will finish her MA in Communication from Northern Illinois University and her Ph.D. degree from De La Salle University in 2024.
Aside from her academic achievements, Lady Aileen has also conducted research on Philippine culture. These include traditional tattoo art, the coffee culture of the Philippines, and the use of music in political campaign jingles.
History in the making at Harvard
Lady Aileen’s hiring follows the Harvard Crimson, the university’s newspaper, reporting earlier this year that the Filipino language will be introduced for the school year 2023-2004. This is the first time students from the institute will learn the language.
Filipino is considered the fourth most-spoken language in the US right after English, Spanish, and Chinese.
Aside from Lady Aileen, an Indonesian, Sakti Suryani, will be an instructor for Bahasa Indonesia.
The news is also a welcoming one to teachers in the country who are commemorating Teacher’s Month.
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