from the mentor's desk

challenged

2010-06-27T09:06:00.000-07:00

I woke up this morning feeling light and bright. Nothing compares to the beautiful feeling of being kissed by the sun when you go out in the open. It feels so enchanting to be under the spell of the sun. No matter how cold I feel inside, the touch of the sun’s comforting and reassuring brightness gives me the energy to be productive, more than yesterday’s.

I have been waiting for so many things to come yesterday. A special person’s message, a call from a dear friend, a package I expected to arrive a month ago (LOL), an opportunity I hope could not refuse, my sisters’ reply to my messages, and energy to head on to my research and etcetera, etcetera but none of the above did arrive. But I was still productive though…I have successfully met with my students and had lively discussions with them. I promised that this time, I will be totally different. I will be more focused and determined to achieve something in every endeavor I take. I have realized that some other things can wait…And, well, it pays to wait. I waited; have waited and will keep on waiting for things worth waiting for. Just like last night…

When you await the bliss of the moonlight spills on your head, you would fill the light sensation of the day no matter how dark it is outside… no matter how the clouds covered the beautiful skies, and the rain poured heavily on the peaceful ground, later, somehow, yes later, you would still see a glow of light somewhere and a rainbow peeping down on you from somewhere.With bated breath, I look forward for that light at the end of the tunnel as my best friend chaesa used to say..ah, uncertainties, indeed they are myriads and uncountable and…agonizing!

Summer came and ended like a flash yet the so-many things I had in mind that I wished to do weren’t done as I have anticipated. With all the busy skeds I had during the recently concluded season, I have never realized that it has already been flying, yes, flying away from me...I could only wish that it would break one of its wings so that it stays here longer. But I couldn’t do anything about reality…time flies so fast…

Though I didn't have enough time last summer and obviously I didn't quite enjoy my time off, somehow, I had wodnerful time reflecting on things, life, my future and all of the things that I want to do. Let me tell you... it is a pretty long list and I hope that I will have enough time and energy and money to do everything. Right now, I feel like I just want to travel. I want to venture out and see the world. I talked with my colleagues, Arnold and Cesar about travelling abroad perhaps to Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia in one of our not so-busy days…avail of promo on plane tickets and accommodation.. These plans came about in one of our dinners at izzy’s..we discussed so many things regarding having fun outside work…a real fun, okay? I don’t know if this could ever come true..I have started processing my passport though so that when it happens, voila, I am ready…at the back of my mind though, something is telling me that I am just dreaming but somewhere in my head, a throbbing willfulness that is, strongly hopes that this will materialize after we’re settled with our post graduate program now at Mindanao State University – IIT. Again, at the mention of it, I am having goosebumps and to that effect it feels like I am swirling and twirling and spining round and round...the idea about having to finish my thesis ow in a matter of 3 months makes me super duper dizzy…ROLF!!! God help me, I am certified getting so paranoid now…
The other day, but thanks to Sir mcbins who called me to join him and sir petz. Mam ces and mam myrna followed after a while. He brought a half-gallon ice cream. I felt so low and down but a cup of ice cream made me feel like a little child who easily forgets his cares… We consumed the icecream and along with it, my burden also melted like heated ice cream. Perfect. See, I have quite learned that I should not fret in life…all I have to do is just give myself a break and feel like a child…Hmmmm…I could still taste the chocolate and mango flavored ice cream…and still hear the echoing laughter of these wonderful people! YAHOO!

What else, I actually allowed myself to have a break last weekend . I joined the rest of my high school batch and attended wawa’s birtdhay party. Everytime the batch meets is like a reunion. I am happy just how these things are falling into place…I love my batch, i love my friends and the camaraderie. Everyone is simply gracious and wonderful!

I don't know what I am going to do today. I think that I am just going to relax some more. But how can I relax with a million thoughts in my head? Even in my sleep I dream about what I am supposed to do. I woke up very early today, say 4am just to start writing but when I started to do so, all the words just slipped off and drowsiness took over. Today, I mean right now, I am thinking of all the things I could write about yet I can't seem to get hold of the right word to start writing. I always end up blogging around and and all these blah blahs…here I go again!!!

One thing I was thinking about for sure is going for a practice driving even without a car yet, and maybe have my own cheapest vehicle one day…. It probably is expensive. Whatever!!! I still think that it would be a fun thing to learn though. Notice how you like to learn something that isn't going to be forced upon you later. You enjoy the freedom of learning and the pleasure of acquiring change. I believe so much in change…Right, things can happen overnight…beyond our imagination…so in all that I do I hope to make things right and face the challenge in life squarely and boldy… According to Cesar, my colleague and friend, what challenge there is to fight the beatable foe; to dream thepossible dream; or even reach the reachable star? With that I pause and say, life that’s the case, life could be SO MUCH BORING…so thanks GOD for allowing trials; thank you God for all the challenges that I have to face; and thank you God for making my life so beautifula nd colorful. Indeed, nothing compares to the beauty of life when it is spiced with obstacles and circumstances as these make life more worth fighting and living for!

Teaching is a Lifelong Journey

2010-06-26T06:36:00.000-07:00

To teach is to touch the lives of many
And to help us learn life’s lessons.
But to teach well is to make a difference
In all the lives you touch.

To teach is to be a parent, nurse, friend
and confidant;
To be a supporter, a leader, and the motivator.
But to teach well is to be all of these things
Yet not to lose sight of who you are.

You share a part of yourself
With all whose lives you have touched.
To teach is to be tender, loving, strog
And giving to all who rely upon you;
To encourage and praise.
But to teach well is to believe in what and
Whom you teach.

A teacher comes to master these many jobs
throughtout the years.
But those who teach well recognize that there will always
be more to learn in life’s journey,
And they never hesitate to strive
to learn it.

***Donna Bulger***

Qualities of an Outstanding Teacher

2010-04-09T01:30:00.000-07:00

“Only the brave should teach. Only those who love the young should teach. Teaching is a vocation. It is as sacred as priesthood; as innate a desire, as inescapable as the genius which compels a great artist. If he has not the concern for humanity, the love of living creatures, the vision of the priest and the artist, he must not teach.” Such statement by Pearl S. Buck suggests that a teacher possesses certain qualities that not everyone is gifted with. Teaching is a gift and that a teacher who has such gift displays remarkable love for humanity. This kind of love is especially shown through a teacher’s generosity and kindness. He also possesses visions for a life with high and esteemed morale and untainted integrity. They are of course committed, dedicated, and diligent towards the things they are inclined to do. These qualities reflect the personal qualities of an outstanding teacher.

Moreover, another saying state, “You can take the teacher out of the classroom but never the classroom from a teacher.” This saying shows that wherever a teacher may be, there is always an opportunity for every teacher to impart knowledge and mold a student’s mind for the development of the said student. This guiding principle implies that a teacher needs to have instructional competence. Basically, instructional competence pertains to the teacher’s competence in managing and handling classroom instructions as well as the manner on how he transmits learning to his students.

Teaching Strategy is one essential tool of a teacher whenever he is practicing his profession. To be an outstanding teacher, one should be better equipped in dealing with the different levels of intelligence sported by his students. A teacher who possesses instructional competence is not only intelligent but also keen and sensitive toward his student’s capabilities and learning disabilities. That way, he becomes more efficient and effective teacher inasmuch as his learners are efficient and effective learners too in their own rights.

Being a teacher is no easy task. It requires a lot of hard work in just making yourself ready for the various kinds of students that you will be dealing in a classroom. It pays to be ready with the various kinds of teaching strategies that will make teaching an easier task. Teaching strategies when implemented in a non-threatening manner enrich the learning environment making the acquisition of knowledge as well as the application of learning more likely.

Inasmuch as considerations for teachers are being given, teachers should also look at the students and ask his self, are these students learned? Are these students actively participating in whatever activities conducted? Outstanding teacher equips himself with the right strategies to address the needs of every student in every classroom setting.

Most importantly, a teacher is someone who affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops according to Henry Books Adams. The truth of the matter is that, teacher’s roles and responsibilities are not limited within the bounds of the four - cornered classroom only. It goes beyond these four corners. It extends to his community. He is not contained only within the vicinity of his classroom. He goes out and involves himself in his community, shares his expertise to those who needs it. He trains those who do not have the chance to go to school. He participates in the civic movements and activities showing the community that he is a role model citizen of his country. In other words, a teacher lives what he teaches, he walks his talks and above all, he sets himself as a role model towards his students, an example of responsible individual, loyal citizen and someone who loves his community.

Lastly, an outstanding teacher is someone who lives an exemplary life. Amidst threats of global crisis, we could still find teachers whose lives are worthy of emulation because we don’t have crisis on model teachers.

Blogging: A New Classroom Teaching Strategy

2010-03-07T07:16:00.000-08:00

The school is said to be the child’s second home and in that sense, classroom activities are expected to be within the students’ realm of experience. They have to feel comfortable and at home while in the class. But how could that be possible? The thrust of teachers is to make learning an enjoyable one. Every day, teacher seeks to come up with effective classroom strategy so as to foster the interaction in the class between the teacher and students. Teachers have gone out beyond their resources and try to find new ways to enhance the teaching – learning process in the class. Thus, with the advent of ICT and technology itself, one strategy that has become very known for classroom interaction is blogging.

What is Blogging? This sounds a new-fangled craze among traditional teachers in the teaching arena. For the new generation teachers however, blogging is not a new thing. When internet became very popular, blogging has also become one of the users’ forms of communicating and airing out their sides, ideas and opinions. There have been many descriptions for what blogging is and means. In its simplest form a weblog or blog is a web site where its content is authored by an individual or group of individuals. Commonly, a blog is a website where an individual writes about his topics of interest. So in its very fundamental form, blogging is a legroom where people can easily create topics on the web. Users need not know HTML code or any other code to post content on a blog. Blogging software is based on a server, but once it is set up people can create an account and then add their own content. One way to think of a blog is a two way street between the content creator, and their audience.

With Blogging, as with other technologies, the questions posed by those who found blogging a hard task and additional burden for teachers seem to be: “Why should we be doing this?” or “What makes blogging an effective way to teach students today?”
There are quite a few reasons why we may want to engage our students in using a blog or similar tools. Some teachers are using blogs to build learning communities, improve interest in their content areas and enhance learning.

The very nature of blogging lends itself to students becoming engaged in reading and writing. Blogging is not simply an online diary; it can be structured around activities that lend itself to using a blog. Personally, I have been using “blogging” in my Reading, Speech, Language and Literature classes for about two years now and I find it fascinating both for me and my students. I post readings or literary pieces, if not links, where questions are also provided. All they have to do is post their comments or answers then search for links that would justify, help and support their answers.

Browsing and surfing the net as the “in” thing in this generation plus the accessibility of Wi-Fi almost everywhere make school tasks, activities and assignments easier as these classroom stuffs can actually be done and catered online. Teachers nowadays have a better option of making their students write their assignments. These can also be done in other subjects like Science, Math, Filipino and other subjects as well. So basically, these situations allow students to begin connecting what they are doing in separate classrooms, thus allowing them to begin to see the interconnections between different disciplines.

Blogging can also be used for a reflecting purpose. Since blogs can be organized by date and subject students can see how their ways of thinking have changed over time. Looking out on the web we will see some people that use their blog strictly for this purpose. Sure some of them may be computer geeks, but our students are now becoming more and more comfortable with computers, so the sense of blogging being geeky may only be for the older crowd.

Student portfolios have been around for a long time. In fact, most teachers nowadays, if not all, require students to submit a portfolio that is, a collection of their work while in the class which is of course to their own advantage. By doing so, students are trained to make their own personalized portfolios where they would put all their accomplishments, achievements, experiences and learning process. This undertaking is very useful for their future. However, again, with the advent of technology companies no longer simply want a paper copy of a portfolio that they can look at during one’s interview. In today's world, employers want to have a website of an applicant’s work. So with blogging, this gives students an advantage of being able to show their work and progress as students, as well as giving them the ability to create a site of their own in the future is an indispensable skill. As a teacher imagine being able to see what a student, that is now sitting in your classroom on the first day of school, has done in prior classes. This could have a real impact on what it is we are truly teaching students.

Accordingly, blogs which people create for communication and journaling can be used effectively as a teaching tool to reach and react with a target audience. They are changing teaching and allowing different learning practices. Here are pointers taken from a blog site which suggests 5 ways a blog can be used as an effective teaching tool in everyday classes.

The first advantage of teaching using blog is that its location and timing of learning itself. When using a blog to post links to resources, assignments and communications to students, students will not be tied to location or a time schedule for learning. This advantage allows students who are busy with work, sports and other commitments to read and understand content that they respond to outside of the physical classroom. This is a new way of thinking for teachers who are used to time and course restraints. The learner becomes much more independent. Teachers are also not dependent on technology that might malfunction during a set time period. If a computer or audio system is down, learning or posting can be done at a different time.

Another advantage of blogging is that learners become content suppliers or input providers. Learners become participants in deciding the content. Teachers are used to being the suppliers of content. By using a blog, students can direct what they want to learn. If peers are blogging with each other and experts, they may find links or information that they are interested in learning about, that goes beyond what the curriculum defines as the requirements. Learning will be more demand-oriented.

Instead of the teacher being the only presenter of content, the teacher can use experts or people who are closer to a situation to deliver content. Since there are millions of blogs for gaining information, there can be many views provided. There may be a new or personal perspective that you can't gain from history books. Students might want to know how people feel presently about the past wars.

Thirdly, blogging increases learning motivation. Blogging allows for students to be more motivated learners. On the pyramid of effective teaching styles, lecturing or talking is the least effective method of student learning. People learn by engaging in a topic, reviewing a topic, or teaching about a topic. If teachers want to show a video, demonstrate a hands-on experiment or show a virtual field trip, they can do this on a blog that a student can view at their own time. Students can teach others. A student will have a chance to reflect on the presentation before they respond. The reflection time may produce a more complete understanding of content.

Next, blogging increases communication competencies. Students will learn to communicate clearly because of the medium for posting responses. By practicing phrasing questions and comments clearly, the students will develop effective styles of communication. Students will need to post questions such as "what keywords would I use to search about..." rather than "what does that mean?" Journal writing is one form of writing. Expressing yourself without face to face contact means you must have good grammar and punctuation to make your message clear. Students will get practice using skills they'll use regularly in our world of text communication.

Teachers who want to teach effective communication and achieve clarity can direct students to resources. They could provide links to sites such as how to write bibliographies, and sites with clear definitions or effective podcasts. Teachers will have to demonstrate effective communication themselves to be role models. Clarifying what is required, posing clear questions, and responding quickly will be necessary for teachers and students.

And fifth, blogging promotes collaborative learning. Collaboration will become more common. Teachers will rely on others to present accurate content and links. Experts such as professional artists, writers, scientists, journalists will have different perspectives on a topic and could provide a more complete lesson than the teacher alone. Peers will rely on each other for advice and information. "Where did you get that?" or "send me that link" would be common messages posted.

Teachers will be able to collaborate with other teachers in education who can provide current, better or more unique materials for teaching and learning. They can add lists of blogs that they are following to their blog. Collaborative content is exemplified in sites like Wikipedia where definitions are provided by many and updated as more information is obtained. Students will see that insights and information change over time and does not remain static.
This and other teaching strategies would foster dynamic interaction between teacher and students, as well as live up to the expectations of the new trend of teaching in the 21st century classroom, a more learner-centered, interactive and dynamic teaching – learning process.
So, let’s blog!

Source: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1644306/blogging_five_advantages_of_teaching_pg3.html?cat=4

critical analysis on essays read

2010-03-07T06:22:00.000-08:00

Tradition and Individual Talent
By T.S. Eliot

T.S. Eliot in this Essay presents his conception of tradition and the meaning of both poet and poetry and the relationship between the two concepts. He contends that although we do not refer to any particular tradition or to the tradition of whatever, we have the tendency to give a remark on one’s poetry as something traditional. What he is trying to say is that, such remark should not be given to refer to the works of the writers, living or dead. The point is, every nation, race, culture so to speak has its own creativity and own way of expression of their craft but on the one hand, they too have their own critical turn of mind.
Eliot points out that we have the tendency to insist upon those aspects of his work in which he least resembles anyone else and out from this work, we tend to find his individuality as well as the man’s peculiar essence. So what we do is to enjoy the poet’s peculiarity from his predecessors especially his immediate predecessors. Furthermore, Eliot argues that we exert efforts to find, for our own pleasure and enjoyment, something that is out-of-the-way in a particular work. Whereas, if we only approach a particular poet without this prejudices and biases, we shall find not only what is “the best” out of his work but also what is considered as the "the most individual parts of his (the poet) work may be those in which the dead poets, his ancestors, assert their immortality most vigorously."
Eliot posits that, tradition should be discouraged if it only consists in following the ways of the predecessors in full obedience and adherence to its successes. It thus, defeats the purpose of individuality. Tradition according to Eliot is of much wider significance. It cannot be inherited. Thus if you want it, you must labor to obtain it. It requires, however, the historical sense which is indispensable to anyone who would aspire to continue to become a poet in his lifetime. Historical sense for this matter, involves a perception of both the pastness of the past but also of the essence of its presence and the presence per se. Thus he claims that this "historical sense" is not only a resemblance to traditional works, but an awareness and understanding of their relation to his poetry.
With this notion, Eliot argues that the term "tradition" in itself contains peculiar quality, that is, special and multifaceted quality. It symbolizes a definite fusion of past and present and that’s what he means by tradition, a historical timelessness, that is. Where there is fusion of the past and the present, the essence of present temporality, stands also the essence of continuum between the poets of the past, the present, and the future, so to speak. A poet must embody his and other’s works to everybody while, simultaneously, expressing his contemporary environment.
The English tradition generally maintains the principle that art advances through change that is, a separation from tradition but in the same juncture also upholds the belief that literary advancements are recognized only when they conform to the tradition. And as maintained in this statement below, Eliot posits a poet’s significance rules over his appreciation of his connection to the dead poets, his ancestors.
“No poet, no artist of any art, has his complete meaning alone. That means that his significance, his appreciation is the appreciation of his relation to the dead poets and artists. You cannot value him alone; you must set him, for contrast and comparison. Among the dead, I mean this as a principle of aesthetic, not merely historical criticism.”
Eliot posits that the necessity that the poet shall conform and cohere, is not one sided because when a new work of art is created, it simultaneously applies to all the works of art which preceded it. This means, further, that when a poet at the present introduces a new art, it changes the structure of this existing order, and causes a readjustment of the old to have room for the new. Thus, the addition of the new art alters the way in which the past is perceived and everything that is attached to it. In Eliot’s own words: "What happens when a new work of art is created is something that happens simultaneously to all the works of art that preceded it." And with this notion, the poet of the present shall be judged by the standards and bearings of the past.,
“The present poet shall be judged, not amputated by the standards of the past, not to be judged to be as good as or better or worse than, the dead but a judgment , a comparison in which two things are measured by each order….” And “to conform merely for the work is not really to conform at all; it would not be new, and would therefore be not a work of art.”
What Eliot is trying to point out is that, it doesn't mean that the new is more valuable because it fits in; but that its fitting in is a test of its value. Accordingly, the dead writers are remote from the present writers because the present know so much more than they are because, in fact, the dead writers are that which the present writers know. Eliot maintains his position by saying that what is supposed to be insisted upon is that the poet must develop or obtain the awareness of the past and that he should maintain to build up this consciousness all throughout his lifetime.
What happens when the present writers integrate the essence of the past writers is a picture of surrender of him as he is at the moment to something which is more important. That is to prove that the advancement of an artist is a constant selflessness, a “continual extinction of personality”. Since the poet engages in a "continual surrender of himself" to the vast order of tradition, artistic creation is a process of depersonalization.
“There remains to define this process of depersonalization and its relation to the sense of tradition. It is in this depersonalization that art may be aid to approach the condition of science. I shall, therefore, invite you to consider, as a suggestive analogy, the action which takes place when a bit of finely filiated platinum is introduced into a chamber containing oxygen and sulphur dioxide.”
Eliot in the last paragraph compares the poet to a medium in a chemical reaction, labeling reactants as feelings, and emotions that are fused to create an artistic image that will capture and relay these same feelings and emotions. What ascribes greatness to a work of art is not the feelings and emotions present, but the nature of the artistic process by which they are produced. It is by far, the power of fusion that attributes greatness to an artwork.
Lastly, for a comment and by-word, Eliot never actually directly mentions the word talent once. What we can observe in his essay is that he seems so focused exclusively on the "tradition" facet of it. This implies that the "Individual Talent" mentioned in the essay is not what is typically considered to be talent, but instead, in his definition, it is the ability to connect with tradition and create something which has the merit to become a part of it.

From Work to Text
By Roland Barthes

This essay talks about Barthes’ contention on the inseparability of a literary work and its text. At the onset of the essay he actually acknowledges the fact that change has taken place in our formation of language as well as of the literary work where accordingly, it is with language itself that literary work owes its phenomenal existence. This particular change is clearly connected with the current development of linguistics, anthropology, Marxism and psychoanalysis. What is new and which affects the idea of the work comes not necessarily from the internal recasting of each of these disciplines, but rather from their encounter in relation to an object which traditionally is the province of none of them.

Barthes argues that what history, our history allows us today is merely to slide, to vary, to exceed, to repudiate. Just as the theory of Albert Einstein on special relativity demands that the relativity of the farness of reference be included in the object studied, so the combined action of Marxism, Freudianism and Structuralism demands, in literature, the relativization of the relations of writer, reader and observer (critic). Against the traditional notion of the work, there is now the requirement of a new object, obtained by the sliding or overturning of former categories. That object is the TEXT.

According to Barthes, to understand TEXT further as a fashionable term word in itself, its is imperative that like him, we should be reminded of the principal propositions at the intersection of which TEXT can be seen there STANDING. Moreover, the word proposition had to be understood more in a grammatical than in a logical sense because the following propositions are not argumentations but enunciations, touches, approaches that consent to remain metaphorical. The following then is Barthes’ proposition which concern method, genre, signs, plurality, filiations, reading and pleasure.
According to Barthes, The text is not to be thought of as an object that can be computed. So for a proposition that concerns Method, thus TEXT accordingly is methodological field where the work is seen as a reality while text is the “real” one. The work is displayed, the text is demonstrated; while the work or the literary piece can bee seen in a bookshop, for the text, it shows a process of demonstration according to certain rules; the work can be concretely held in the hand while text is held in language. Furthermore, the text is not the decomposition of the work, it is the work that is the imaginary tail of the text; or again, the text is experienced only in an activity of production and that it cannot stop for its constitutive movement is that of cutting across particularly it can cur across the work or several works.

In the same way, the TEXT does not stop at good literature. It cannot be contained in a hierarchy, even in a simple division of genres. According to Barthes, what constitutes the TEXT is, on the contrary, its subversive force in respect of the old classifications. The Text, for Barthes, is that which goes to the limit of the rules of enunciation (rationality, readability, etc. A text is not even a rhetorical idea, resorted to for some “heroic effect: the TEXT tries to place itself very exactly behind the limit of the doxa. To make it clear, the text functions as a subversive paradoxical force.

TEXT can be approached, experienced, in reaction to sign. Signs are identified as having two levels of meaning which are the literal and concealed, and is best moderately symbolic. While the work itself function as the general sign, the text can be approached and experienced in relation to sign, but the text, like language is disinterred and has no closure. The work closes on a signified. There are two modes of signification which can be attributed to this signified either it si claimed to be evident and the work, is then the object of a literal science, of philology, or else it is considered to be secret , ultimate, something, to be sought out and the work then falls under the scope of hermeneutics, of an interpretation;

In other words as Barthes points out, work itself functions as a general sign and it is normal that it should represent an institutional category of the civilization of the Sign. Its field is that of the TEXT in the contrary practices the infinite deferment of the signified dilatory; its field is that of the signifier and the signifier must to be conceived of as the first stage of meaning, its material vestibule, but in complete opposition to this, as its deferred action.

The text is radically symbolic; a work conceived. Perceived, received, in its integrally symbolic nature is a text. Thus the text is respired to language; like language, it is structured but off-centered, without closure.

The text is plural. As to plurality, the text unlike the work is plural. It accomplishes the very plurality of its meaning, (an irreducible plural), rather than just have several meanings. The meanings do not coexist, but instead can be seen as passages and overcrossing that cannot be interpreted. The TEXT is composed of a web of signification and intertextuality that has no origin or destination. The reader is faced with several disconnected, half-identifiable incidents that come from codes which are known but are combined in a unique manner. Ultimately, the text cannot be repeated and exists only in its difference. Plurality is not simply to say that it lids several meanings but that it accomplishes the very plural of meaning.

Furthermore, work is caught up in a process of filiations where it is identified by its relationship to its owner, the author while the text is not restricted by its relationship to an author. Literary science instructs the reader to respect the work and the author’s intentions, while the legal system imposes a direct connection of the author to his r her work. The text, on the other hand, is not restricted by its relationship to an author. There is no vital respect demanded by the TEXT because it functions as a network that can be broken and read with no consideration of the author. It does not necessarily mean that the author does not have relationship to the text but that he / she functions as a guest rather than an owner. This time, the author becomes a paper author where his life is no longer the origi9n contributing to his work”

Another proposition posed by Barthes states that the work is normally the object of consumption; no demagogy intended here is referring to the so-called consumer culture but it has to be recognized that today it is the ‘quality’ of the work and not the operation of the rereading itself which can differentiate between books: structurally there is no difference between cultured readings and casual readings in trains. In reading, the work is considered as a commodity wherein the reader consumes the work passively while the text escapes the trappings of consumption because of its relationship to play, activity, production, and practice. However, when one tries to consume the text in a traditional sense that it becomes unreadable and boring. As long as she the reader is able to produce the text, he / she will be satisfied.

The final approach to the TEXT is known as pleasure. Barthes points out that a reader can have pleasure in both reading and re-reading certain work but such pleasure is inextricably linked to consumption. The ability to reads the author ultimately means that the reader cannot rewrite the work but in contrast, the text is linked to pleasure without separation. The text is bound to jouissance (bliss or ecstasy) that it is to a pleasure without separation. Order of the signifier, the text participates in its own way in a social utopia; before History, the teach achieves, if not the transparence social relations, that at least of language relations: the TEXT is that space whereon language has a holdover any other, where languages circulate.
According to Barthes, the growing importance of interdisciplinary in literary and cultural analysis has changed our notion of language and the traditional notion of the literary work. The work has changed and a new object, the Text, has appeared. While Barthes does not want to limit the idea of the Text by providing an absolute definition, he posits that it is “that social space which leaves no language safe, outside, nor any subject of the enunciation in a position as judge, master, analyst, confessor, decoder” (Barthes “From Work to Text,” 1475).

The Death of the Author
Roland Barthes

Barthes starts this essay with an implication that the traditional critical approach to literature raises a difficult problem: how can we perceive accurately what the writer intended? His answer is that we cannot.. When, in the passage, the character dotes over her perceived womanliness, Barthes challenges his own readers to determine who is speaking, and about what. "Is it Balzac the author professing 'literary' ideas on femininity? Is it universal wisdom? Romantic psychology? … We can never know." Writing, "the destruction of every voice," defies adherence to a single interpretation or perspective. Barthes directly says that we shall never know the answers to these questions for a good reason that writing accordingly is the destruction of every voice, of every subject slips away, the negative where all identity is lost, starting with the very identity of the body writing.
In this essay, he disapproves of the method of reading and criticism that is dependent on the author’s identity such as his viewpoints, political or religion, historical context, ethnicity, psychology or even his personal or biographical attributes, to condense and glean meaning from his work. It means that the experiences and biases of the author serve as a perfect "explanation" of the text. For Barthes, this method of reading may be apparently tidy and convenient but is actually sloppy and flawed: "To give a text an Author" and assign a single, corresponding interpretation to it "is to impose a limit on that text."
But such act of criticism is not a new thing according to Barthes as “no doubt it has always been that way”, says Barthes referring to the kind of interpretation the reader makes in a certain work. Well, Barthes’s strong contention is that, readers must separate a literary work from its creator in order to liberate it from interpretive tyranny . This separation or disconnection of the literary work and its author occurs , the voice loses its origin, the author enters into his own death, writing begins.
Each piece of writing contains multiple layers and meanings. In a well-known quotation, Barthes draws an analogy between text and textiles, declaring that a "text is a tissue [or fabric] of quotations," drawn from "innumerable centers of culture," rather than from one, individual experience. The essential meaning of a work depends on the impressions of the reader, rather than the "passions" or "tastes" of the writer; "a text's unity lies not in its origins," or its creator, "but in its destination," or its audience.
The removal of the author is not just a historical fact or an act of writing but it definitely transforms the modern text. The temporality is different. Unlike the tradition notion, Barthes greatly opposes that the author is sued to believe in as that it concessive of as the past of his own book. This contention is explained that no longer the focus of creative influence, the author is merely a "scriptoria" (a word Barthes uses expressly to disrupt the traditional continuity of power between the terms "author" and "authority").The author is thought of to nourish the book, meaning, he exists before it, thinks, suffers, lives for it is in equal position and relationship to his work as a father to his child. Moreover, the latter is contrasted by Barthes with the contention that the modern scriptor is born simultaneously with the text. There is no other time than that of the enunciation and every text is eternally written here and now, with each re-reading, because the "origin" of meaning lies exclusively in "language itself" and its impressions on the reader. Having buried the author, the modern scriptor can thus no longer believe s according to the pathetic view of his predecessor, that this hand is too slow for his thought and passion.
Finally, in the last paragraph, Barthes challenges everyone to answer the question posed in the first paragraph of the essay and the answer would be “ no one”, no person says it: its source, its voice, is not the true place of these writing, which is reading. And gives a concluding line that says, “we know that to give writings its future, it is necessary to overthrow the myth: the birth f other reader must be at the cost of the death of the death of the author.

On Grammatology
Jacques Derrida

This essay begins with a triple exergue (French), or epigraph (English) which serves as a heading or an inscription of what the essay is really all about. The exergue are as follow: 1) The one who will shine in the science of writing will shine like the sun; 2) these three ways of writing correspond almost exactly to three different stages according to which one can consider men gathered into action and these are: a) the depicting of objects is appropriate to a savage people; b) signs of words and of propositions, to a barbaric people and; c) the alphabet to civilized people and; 3) lastly, alphabet script in itself and for itself the most intelligent.

According to Derrida, this exergue intends to focus not only on ethnocentrism, nor on logocentricism, but in the most powerful ethnocentrism. To be able to further understand the essay, Derrida defines and describes each terminology as used in the essay. Ethnocentrism, he describes as everywhere and always had controlled the notion of writing. Logocentricism, he says, refers to the metaphysics of phonetic writing, which was fundamentally - for enigmatic reasons that are inaccessible to a simple historical relativism.

Derrida asserts that his intention for this essay is nothing but the most original and powerful ethnocentrism, where in the process of imposing itself upon the world, controlling in one and the same order. And this order had something to do with writing.

In this essay, the order that the author mentions points out the concept of writing in the human race where phoneticization of writing must hide or disguise its own history as it is formed. Another part of this order involves the history of metaphysics which accordingly in spite of all the diversity not only from different philosophers but also beyond, always assigned the foundation of truth in general to the logos such as: the history of truth, of the truth of truth, has always been, except for a metaphysical

This also means the concept of science or the scientificity of science. This has always been determined as logic- a concept that has always been a philosophical concept even if the practice of science has constantly challenged its imperialism of the logos for example by invoking non phonetic writing from the beginning.

Based on the essay, the science of grammatology simply categorizes the different ways by which writing corresponds to 3 different ways: the depicting of objects is appropriate to a savage people; signs of words and of propositions, to a barbaric people; the alphabet, to the civilized people. This means that science of grammatology has already existed a long time ago. This was intelligibly understood by people in their particular time. Derrida explained why the speech / writing hierarchy can and must be reversed. In other words, he argues for the redefining of the term writing that will allow him to assert that writing is actually a precondition for and prior to speech.

The Interpretations of Dreams
Sigmund Freud

Dream is such an unexplainable and complicated reality of man although psychology and psychoanalytic theories would try to explain the nature of it. In such manner, here, in this essay, Freud gives his notion about dreams and the interpretation of it.
In this essay he talks about dream especially at the very beginning how dreams could be very affecting to once emotion. He explains it further by showing the three (3) division of the brain where the id, ego and the superego are part of it. Each part of the brain actually plays a very significant role in the working of the human mind. These are described or attributed as the conscious, subconscious and the unconscious part of man’s brain. Now as Freud puts it, no matter how much one part of his brain suppresses his id, the ego would suppress his id by telling it that he should behave according to the convention of the society. Man’s pleasure is indeed sometimes suppressed.
So Freud based on the psychoanalytic theory tries to present his idea about Oedipus Complex, this unusual attachment of a boy or extreme love of a child to one of his / her parents. Freud here talks about how this complex came into existence. This actually comes from the story of a boy who was prophesied to bring about death to his own father and would marry his own mother. So as he left home to evade from that oracle, he met along the way King Laius, whom he didn't know he was his real father, then killed him in their fight. Then he came to the place of Thebes where the people at that time were disturbed by the trouble – causing Sphinx. Whoever gets to answer correctly the monster’s riddle, he shall be given the queen for his wife. Oedipus, being wise and cunning was indeed ale to answer the riddle and so he married Queen Jocasta, without knowing it was his real mother.
After years of marriage and bearing children with the queen, his mother, the plague came to disturb the people gain. The only way the plague would stop is to drive the king’s murderer out of the land. So this is where the tragedy begins. It was during this time that Oedipus blinded himself by plucking his eyes out for not finding out the truth.
The lesson of this according to Freud is that man being given the freedom is not actually bound to follow what is fated or prophesized about him. He can still survive if he wills. Accordingly “the deeply moved spectator should learn from the tragedy that contrasts his examples.
The story of Oedipus is the reaction of the two dreams, the dreamer’s father to be dead and sexual relation with the mother. So that when these dreams are dreamt by adults are accompanied by feelings of repulsion so that this legend will include horror and punishment.
Here in the story of Oedipus, we will see the repulsion of man, the act of the will to evade the unpleasant situations in life that are out of the convention of the society. As society dictates what a man should do and how he should behave. But in the case of Oedipus, after what he has gone through have realized he has done such despicable behavior the reason why he blinded himself. However, despite that act wasn’t an act of the will, but the unconscious part of the mind of a person lurks in him and stores data that probably trigger the unconscious mind to have hat dream which Oedipus had and eventually led him to kills his father and marry his own mother. It wasn’t deliberate but he had the part of himself that dictates him on whether he should do the act or not regardless of truth.

The Rise of English
by Terry Eagleton

Terry Eagleton in this essay suggests the interconnectedness of literature and ideology. Accordingly, they are not separated. However, when we look at the meaning of literature itself, it is described as an ideology itself. The “Rise of English” was because of the failure of religion.

Terry Eagleton’s essay on “The Rise of English” in the early 20th century posits that indeed its growth was due to the failure of religion itself. Religion is capable of operating at any social levels meaning from the elite intellectuals, to the middle-class and the liberal and theological intellectuals. Religion does not only address the need of the ordinary masses but also the elite. Religion is said to address doctrinal inflection among the elite and the intellectuals. It encompasses the different social classes during that time, from the pious peasant, the enlightened middle-class and the theological intellectual. In this sense, Eagleton was trying to point out the significance of the rise of English studies at that time because it served as no less than the channel by which literature and ideologies were being carried out. It was further pointed out that literature works not by particular concepts or doctrines but mores by images, symbols, ritualistic practices, and mythology and that while religion slowly was diminishing and starting to stop to provide social bonds and values a society needs to come together, English is constructed to carry ideologies on throughout time.

In this essay, Eagleton maintains that as religion progressively ceases to provide the social ‘cement’ or something that serves as the foundation in the society, affective values and basic mythologies by which a socially turbulent class society can be welded together. She asserts that ‘English is constructed as a subject to carry this ideological burden from the Victorian Period onwards but it took a long while before such growth was really achieved. Accordingly, English Literature rode to power on the back of wartime nationalism, but at the same time it also served as a moment of epiphany on the part of the English ruling class whose identity had been profoundly shaken.

What Is Literature?
Jean-Paul Sartre

There can be so many definitions of literature but as based on Jean Sartre’s definition, literature is something that is associated with writing. With that point, Sartre asks the question “why write?” for so many reasons, one write probably out of passion, others for artistic inclination and to some writing would mean, it is conquering. To conquer is to dominate and be above others. Writing basically allows exploration and escapade. It enables one to travel and explore the world and hi9s very ideas. Self – expression is one good reason why one writes.

This essay revolves around the existentialist notion that “man is the mean by which things are manifested.” Sartre, indicates that the individual discloses or reveals being. So by introducing relationships and order, and such imposition of unity on the vast differences amongst people in the world, he / she directs being. He further argues that the reader brings to life the literary object which can exist only in peculiar top which exists only in movement. It is the reader who completes what has been begun by the writer. Sartre views the relationship between reader and writer as sharing the collaboration of freedom. The writers like all other artists, aim to provide aesthetic satisfaction to his readers.

Meanwhile the center of the essay talks about the relationship between the writers and their readers and ends with a chapter on the role of the writer. According to Sartre, the writer, a free man addressing freemen, has only one subject and that is freedom. Of course, one does not write for slaves. It is actually a great way of releasing desire and a certain way of wanting freedom. To write will not only stop up to defending those who are enslaves through one’s pen because Sartre believes that in time, literature would trigger awakening and call for revolt and battle, thus each one can defend and fight for his own freedom. But still, whatever be one’s reason is to write, Sartre asserts that one will ask another question as to for whom does one write?

The Second Sex: MYTH AND REALITY
by Simone de Beauvoir

The myth about woman plays a considerable part in literature. However, its importance to life, its effect to individual’s customs and conducts is questioned. So according to the author, it is better to look into reality while scrutinizing the myths there are about woman.

The author mentioned that there are different kinds of myths. One of these is the myth of woman redirecting an unchangeable aspect of the human condition which the division of humanity into two classes, man and woman. It projects a reality that is directly experienced or is conceptualized which for her a static myth but indisputable. It is endowed with absolute truth.

Beauvoir contends that man is unable to penetrate her (woman) special experience of the quality of a woman’s erotic pleasure, the discomfort of menstruation and the pains of childbirth for these experiences are only but experienced by a woman. She further posits that there is mystery in both man and woman but man himself has established a universal truth based from his point of view. He has a misconception of reciprocity between man and woman.

According to Beauvoir, the mystery in woman is not on its subjective solitude of the self but it is on the level of communication; that the word has its true meaning and to assert that woman is mystery is to say, not that she is silent but that her language is not understood; she is there but hidden behind veils. That she exists beyond these uncertain appearances.

She posits that she would be embarrassed to decide what she is but not because the hidden truth is too vague to be discerned; it is ALL because in this domain there is no truth. An existent is nothing other than what he does.

She posed a challenge about many women who did nothing and eventually failed to make themselves anything. She said that for women to be asking what they should have become is simply a vain question.

Beauvoir asserts that women are as capable of choice as men, and thus can choose to elevate themselves, moving beyond the 'immanence' to which they were previously resigned and reaching 'transcendence', a position in which one takes responsibility.

According to her, if man fails to discover that secret essence of femininity, it is SIMPLY because it does not exist. Her strong contention is that woman could not be objectively defined through this world and that her mystery conceals nothing but EMPTINESS.

Beauvoir argued that women have historically been considered deviant, abnormal. She said that even Mary Wollstonecraft considered men to be the ideal toward which women should aspire.

Beauvoir said that this attitude limited women's success by maintaining the perception that they were a deviation from the normal, and were always outsiders attempting to emulate "normality". She believed that for feminism to move forward, this assumption must be set aside.

Lastly, these are the concepts that Beauvoir posits in her essay:
 The feminine mystery would be mystery in itself from the fact that it would be a Mystery for itself. It would be absolute Mystery.
 Mystery is no more than a mirage that vanishes as we draw near to look at it.
 the myth of a woman is a luxury but along with luxury there was utility. These dreams were irresistibly guided by interests.
 the myth is one of those snares of false objectivity into which the man who depends on ready-made valuations rushes headlong.
 to recognize in woman a human being is not to impoverish man’s experience; this would lose not of its diversity, its richness, or its intensity

According to Beauvoir, to discard the myths is not to destroy all dramatic RELATION BETWEEN THE SEXES. It is not to deny the significance authentically revealed to man through feminine reality. It is not to do away with poetry, love, adventure, happiness or dreaming. IT IS SIMPLY TO ASK THAT BEHAVIOR, SENTIMENT, PASSION BE FOUNDED UPON TRUTH, that truth about men which according to her, the men of today show a certain duplicity of attitude which is painfully lacerating to women.

 They are willing on the whole to accept woman as a fellow being; BUT they still require her to remain as the inessential.

 For her, these two destinies are incompatible. In this paragraph, Beauvoir compares man and woman in terms of attitude towards destiny and life itself. For woman, destinies are incompatible. With man, there is no break between public and private life whereas woman’s independent successes are in contradiction with her femininity since the true woman is required to make herself object, to be the other.

The second to the last paragraph is de Beauvoir's presentation of the feminine body: that is should be flesh, but with discretion and so fort and so on (p.189-190)

The last paragraph concludes the essay in a subtle but emphatic way about how women should regain “her place in humanity”. To quote” then she will be a full human being “ when” to quote a letter of Rimbaud, “the infinite bondage of woman is broken, when she will live in and for herself, man – hitherto detestable - HAVING LET HER GO FREE.”

Compulsory Heterosexulaity and Lesbian Existence
Adrienne Rich

At the onset of the essay Rich shared the conception of “compulsory heterosexuality” and the context, meaning, the place, the time and milieu in which people nowadays are living. He argues that heterosexuality is a violent political institution making way for the "male right of physical, economical, and emotional access" to women. She challenges women to put their focus towards other women rather than men, and shows lesbianism as an extension of feminism. Rich challenges the notion of women's dependence on men as social and economic supports, as well as for adult sexuality and psychological completion. She calls for what she describes as a greater understanding of lesbian experience, and believes all these will eventually be felt and explained through experiencing the "erotic" in female terms.
Rich claims that women may not have a preference toward heterosexuality, but may find it imposed, managed, organized, propagandized, and maintained by society. Society has historically described lesbians as deviant. Rich claims that the moment women perceives lesbian existence as more than mere sexuality, it is more likely that more forms of "primary intensity" between and among women will be embraced.
Rich argues that part of the lesbian experience is an act of resistance to patriarchal role and the male right to women. She writes that lesbians have been deprived of continuity of their personal and political history, and that when included in history, they have been simply the female versions of male homosexuals, with no individuality. Rich asserts that to treat the lesbian experience as a version of male homosexuality is to discard it, denying the female experience and the realities it brings, falsifying lesbian history.
Rich holds that compulsory heterosexuality denies women of their own sexuality and comfortability in exploring their bodies and those of others. That serves to imply that only a man can sexually satisfy a woman (by delivering a vaginal orgasm), and hence that serves to prevent women from having relationships with other women.

An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness
by Chinua Achebe

Chinua Achebe is a Nigerian novelist and short story writer who contends that Conrad’s Heart of Darkness is so blatantly racist that it should not be considered art. He maintains that Conrad dehumanized Africans and portrays the Congo as an uncivilized place in contrast to his civilized England. Achebe sees little hope for improved attitudes as long as Conrad’s novel remains prescribed reading in literature curses, and the media continues to marginalize African culture.

Now, Achebe looks at how Conrad created the image of Africans. Conrad mentioned that the most interesting and revealing passages in Heart of Darkness are, about people. These people are actually the Africans; he belongs to this kinship that he calls ugly and made horrid faces. Here, the Africans were described poorly and very embarrassingly as if humiliating or belittling his own kind.

Another point that Achebe has given attention to in his essay is on Marlow’s Attitude which accordingly reflects Conrad’s attitude. Achebe points out that Conrad, in his story, has a narrator behind a narrator whose primary narrator is Marlow but his story was just also narrated by another narrator, the shadowy person. According to Achebe, Marlow enjoys the confidence of Conrad which feeling was obviously reinforced by the very close similarities between their careers. Evidently, the character of Marlow played as a witness of truth and one who kept advanced and humane views.

The general point that Achebe is driving out is that Conrad is a racist. And that his racism dehumanizes Africans but that at the end of his essay, Achebe is optimistic about “change” to come. No matter how Africans were looked down and being dehumanized by Conrad, time will come that Western culture will also look at the accomplishments of an African man. That time has actually come indeed.

On National Culture
By Frantz Fanon

In this essay, Fanon straightforwardly contends that colonial domination very soon manages to disrupt in spectacular fashion the cultural life of a cultured people and this cultural obliteration is made possible by the negation of national reality, by new legal relations introduced by the occupying power, by the banishment of the natives and their customs to outlying districts by colonial society, by expropriation, and by the systematic enslaving of men and women. He posits that in the colonial situation, dynamism is fairly quickly replaced by the force of the colonizing power. He further implies that the area of culture and national identity have been marked off by fences and signposts which suggests that once a country is colonized, it absorbs the colonizer’s power and culture thus making the latter’s own culture vanished, if not replaced by the colonizer’s culture.

He further contends that certainly after centuries of colonization a nation will suffer from emaciation of the stock of natural culture. It becomes, as he maintains, a set of automatic habits, like some traditions of dress, and a few broken-down institutions. If this happens, what can be seen is a very stagnant way of life, if not, unmoving culture. Growth among the remnants of this culture is affected. There is no real creativity and no overflowing of life. What we will actually see is both extremes. Inhibition of culture is not different from poverty of the people and national oppression. According to him, after a century of colonial domination, we find a culture which is rigid in the extreme, or the dregs of culture. This implies that after centuries of colonization, a nation’s original culture may not be totally vanished but somehow, is likened to sediments that are retrieved after years of colonization as the culture is already combined and mixed up with the colonizers’ cultures.

Fanon posits the importance of culture in man’s growth and freedom as he said that the withering away of the reality of the nation and the death pangs of the national culture are linked to each other in mutual dependence. This is where his contentions are grounded upon as he maintains that the reason why it is of capital importance to follow the evolution of these relations during a struggle or national freedom.

According to Fanon, the nation which is colonized faces struggles as exploitations aggravates and poverty cause them to drive And resort to revolution. These movements in a colonized nation which were taboos come to existence. The rise of national consciousness come to life thus encourages the masses to revolt against colonialism. Along with it rise the intelligentsias (the intellectuals) who at the beginning or during the period of repressions, belong to consuming public and, later became producers. He says that literature at first chooses to confine itself to the tragic and poetic style but later on novels, shorts stories and essays are attempted. Themes in literature were altered, in fact, as he puts it; we find it less and less of bitter and hopeless recrimination as well as of that violent, resounding and florid writing which in a way serves to reassure the occupying power.

Literary works awaken the people’s national consciousness as these contain works that talk about one’s culture, characteristics, ideals, and not to forget the oral tradition, stories, epics, and songs of the people which were filed away are now beginning to change. However, that situation can only be transitory. This transition of literary works helps the nation progresses in its national consciousness. It modifies and gives precision to the literary utterances of the native intellectual. In reality, it only functions as a springboard to the real revolution. The continued cohesion of the people constitutes for the intellectual an invitation to go further than his cry for protest. The lament first makes the indictment; and then it makes an appeal

He also mentions about the literary allusion as being widely used by then where the old formula “this all happened long ago” is substituted with that of “ what are we going to speak of what happened somewhere else, but it might well happened here today, and it might happen tomorrow.

Fanon adds that it is only from that moment of literary shift that we can speak of a national literature. Here there is the level of literary creation, the taking up and clarification of themes which are typically nationalist. This may be properly called a literature of combat in the sense that it calls on the people to stand and fight for their existence as a nation and molds the national consciousness, giving it the creativity it needs, the forms and contours and flinging open before it new and boundless perspectives; as well as assumes responsibility. It is indeed a literature of combat because it is the will to liberty expressed in terms of time and space. There is that experience of new rhythm of life and forgetting of the muscular tensions and develops the imagination. So from literature, creativity flows to other aspects of humanity even in its crafts. The repercussion of the rising revolution indeed not only influenced literature but the entire nation, its national culture and people.

Fanon is careful to point out that these attempts at recovering national continuity throughout history are often contrived and ultimately self-defeating. He explains that "national identity" only carries meaning insofar as it reflects the combined revolutionary efforts of an oppressed people aiming at collective liberation. He explains that national consciousness is not nationalism but it is the only thing that will give a nation an international dimension. It is said that national culture is not folklore, not an abstract populism that believes it can discover the people's true nature. It is not made up of the inert dregs of gratuitous actions, that is to say actions which are less and less attached to the ever-present reality of the people. A national culture is the whole body of efforts made by a people in the sphere of thought to describe, justify, and praise the action through which that people has created itself and keeps itself in existence.

Lastly, in the last paragraph, fanon emphasized the urgency to build up his nation as a challenge to man, being known for his acts. This building up of a nation is a necessity accompanied by the discovery and encouragement of universalizing values. Then he concludes that it is national liberation which lead s nation to play its part on the stage of history. It is at the heart of national consciousness that international consciousness lives and grows. National consciousness then preserves a culture and in the same way when culture sustains national consciousness. In short, they are inseparable. They are intertwined and must go together always. Fanon ends his essay which goes; this two-fold emerging is ultimately only the source of all culture.

Aspects of Literary Stylistics: Reality, Language, the Individual
Anne Cluysenaar

This essay talks about aspects of literary stylistics which focuses on reality, language and the individual. Anne Cluysenaar discusses in this essay that before going through the ordeal of discussing in details the study of language, it is very wise to ask whether language is worth of much attention. The answer is yes. In the previous essays read, literature and history should be intertwined or should go together. In the way, language should go with literature and vice versa. In the very first place, literature uses language in the expression of man’s ideas, thoughts emotion and feelings. In the same way, language enhances literature so that literature becomes more appealing and attractive to readers. It is in this point of view that Cluysenaar brings up stylistics as far as language is concerned so as to give justice to the use of language in literature and employing language in enjoying the beauty of literature. In this essay, Anne Cluysenaar mentions three aspects, reality, language and individuality. What do these aspects have to do with stylistics then?

Reality, as Anne Cluysenaar points out, speaks of that which is hidden, or that is revealed by language – thus making and assumption and where it is not only independent of our perception of it but also independently observable. In other words, it is that which we can associate with words, so that in effect we can check the degree of accuracy with which language relates to it, thus we match our perceptions or our pictures with the real thing. Language is in a fundamental sense creative and which creativity is that kind to which both the writer and the reader are sensitive, and the merely the “creation” of a world. The writer must therefore, use the conventions of his own language, the Blue guitar being, that is referring to the language.

Lastly, the individuality as mentioned by Cluysenaar has something to do with the uniqueness of the writer himself. The problem that faces the creative writer is what is commonly facing all other writers. It means that we have to use our “blue guitar”, our language, to express things exactly as they are and not copy others language. Otherwise, we become not our very selves but others.
ORALITY AND LITERACY: THE TECHNOLOGIZING OF THE WORLD
Walter Ong

The essay, Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the World, a written by Walter Ong talks about the shift in verbal art from orality to literacy which involves lyric, narrative, descriptive, discourse, oratory to television, philosophical, scientific works, historiography ad biography and many more. And among these genres that is most studied according to the author, in terms of orality – literacy shift is narrative.

Ong posits that narrative is everywhere a major genre of verbal art, which is present from oral cultures into high literacy and electronic information processing. In a sense narrative is paramount among all vernal art forms because of the way it underlies so maybe other forms often even the most abstract and this is to say that knowledge and discourse come out of human experience and that the elemental way to process out verbally out of the said experience is to give an account of it more or less as it really comes into existence as imbedded in the flow of time.

Although narrative is found in all cultures, it is in certain ways more widely functional in primary oral cultures than in others. As Havelock pointed out in 1978, “Knowledge cannot be managed in elaborate, more or less scientifically abstract categories.

Generally, oral cultures generate quite substantial narrative or series of narratives such as the Trojan was of the Greek Myth because of their sixe and complexity scenes and actions, narratives of this sort are often the roomiest repositories of an oral culture’s fore.

Narrative itself has a history, says Ong and it has to do with temporal sequence of events that is why in all kinds of narratives there is a certain story line. In effect, the situation at the end is subsequent to what it was at the beginning, nevertheless memory, as it guides the oral poet, often has little to do with strict linear presentation of events in temporal sequence.

Why so bitter with teachers?

2010-01-12T06:25:00.001-08:00

i don't quite see the point why Osang had to be bitter with her teachers and why she would give such harsh comments to teachers.whether she's referring to her teachers way back her student life, the point of the matter is that her comments put into question the credibility and integrity of teachers.

Liars? the teachers? Us? Me? well, we couldn't blame her if that's how she looks at teachers but she wasn't supposed to air that out to offend the viewers especially the concerned individuals. if she had a bad experience with her teachers then as mature individual, she should have done something about it by not hurting anyone. we'll it may have just been a farce statement, a comment to jeer and cheer the public but even then, she should have been sensitive to others' emotions. she explained and apologize alright but the damage has been done. this is a lesson for all of us to ponder on. our tongue is so powerful. our words may make or unmake lives, it may break or unbreak emotions...the very essence here is that, we have to be more tactful and responsible with the words we utter. otherwise, we will burn the whole forest.

remember, what has been said can never be unsaid and no matter how much we try to patch things up, when the wound has been nailed in our hearts, it may heal in due time but will always leave a scar...

my journey by: D

2010-01-12T01:04:00.000-08:00

I have always wanted to become a teacher but it took me a long time to become one. Over the years i also pondered on my trails; on my journey in life. it wasn't just tough, it was really like journeying through the wilderness. i wasn' t that brave i know. i was just so determined. in some part of my life, i would have considered the medicine or any medical courses had it not been for financial constraints. my inclination and interest for medicine was so deep not because i wanted to become famous in this field but it was all because of wanting to treat my pop from his paralysis which caused him physical disability and memory loss. the drive to achieve what i wanted in life was so intense but the force which tried to pull me down was equally strong or... even stronger. honestly, getting into college during those years was like climbing Mt. Everest. i guess everybody would agree with me especially when you only have a mother to take care of her 7 children and an ailing husband. She was a freelance laundry woman and sometimes a vendor of native delicacies which she acquired in consignment basis at the super crowded carmen market or in a sidewalk at an elementary school near our house. she had to do a lot of moonlighting to be able to feed all nine mouths at least twice a day.

growing up in this kind of life had made me question God. life was not only hard, it was really miserable. questions kept flying in my head and they were left unanswered for quite sometime, the reason why i didn't get to enjoy my high school life plus the painful fact that i had been cheated by the only person whom i thought have really loved me. i was so filled with remorse and hatred that i found myself so broken and spilled out. i have never been so lost in my life as i had been during these moments. i was groping in the dark trying to get hold of myself. again, questions were innumerable, my pain so immense and my doubts extremely clouded my soul. my bitterness in life gradually ate me up and i woke up one day so sick, in fact dying, spiritually. i had to be healed. i succumbed to a challenge that has totally changed my life. it was a decision that turned my life colorful, filled with joy and purpose and above all, love and faith. my direction in life was so crystal clear. that was when i enrolled in a christian seminary. i have found my trail heading to purposeful direction.

i finished bachelor in theology after 4 years where i enrolled at a biblical seminary as full academic scholar for the entire college years. during these years, i have involved myself into missions both local and national, worked in a church as an associate minister, youth and music pastor and worked with foreign missionaries, youth and children especially in creative and performing arts. back then, life was so close to perfect and fulfilling until i met my second boyfriend, the man with whom i have entrusted my life and love. i married at the age of 24.

Life has changed. i had to give up my ministry and look for a greener pasture to survive. then one day, years after, i realized that my passion for the youth, for children, for counseling has not wavered. i decided to take another course and became a teacher. my decision was triggered by an unpleasant circumstance that i have experienced while at work. it brought me down again to my knees and sought for God's divine intervention. i saw His beautiful plans amidst the tragic events in my life. the song "God will make a way" is so real in my life. it says that"God will make a way when there seems to be no way...by the roadway in the wilderness He'll lead me...rivers in the desert will i see..." with 2 kids to raise, a working husband to take care of and a father to attend to, God arranged everything to my advantage. He ordered my steps.

I finished bachelor in secondary education with flying colors where i was absorbed as college instructor after my graduation with no hassles of applying for a job at all..i found myself incomparably happy and fulfilled with the profession i chose to tread upon after the vocation i have set aside for quite sometime.

My quest for learning did not stop. i finished M.A. in Education major in English and i keep on yearning for more, not for any selfish motives but for some wonderful plans awaiting ahead. i am now into my second masters degree. i am so blessed to have been granted a scholarship under CHED for M.A. in English Language Studies at MSU-IIT which i hope to finish this March 2010.

we may be trudging on rocky roads and rough hills along life's way; the treks may be so lonely and risky; we may be clouded with trials and obstacles; doors may be closed upon us, but rest assured that God will open the windows for us. God's grace is just sufficient and ever present for those who call on HIM.

To capsulize everything, life is a journey and he who walks with the True Guide in life will be able to find his way no matter how long, no matter how far our journey will be. AND so long as i live; so long as there is God as the center of my life, i shall continue with my journey.

EE1 - Speech

2009-12-22T01:21:00.000-08:00

email your answer to ildgazelle_hankjaere@yahoo.com

questions: (ESSAY)

1. What is Christmas?
2. Describe its essence to you as:
a. a daughter / son to your parents
b. a best friend
c. a sister / brother to your siblings
d. a student
e. a christian believer

deadline is on December 27, 2009

Merry Christmas and a happy new year...

yesterday, today and tomorrow

2009-12-18T20:43:00.000-08:00

I painted a rainbow but I doubt if I saved a promise
I sang but I doubt if I gave the right melody
I danced but I doubt if I made the right steps
I searched but I doubt if I found the answer
I taught a soul but i doubt if I made a difference

I write but I doubt if I am read
I express myself but I doubt if I am understood
I smile but I doubt if I am captured
I speak but I doubt if I am heard
I sow but i doubt if there will be harvest

I will keep my dream but I doubt if it will come true
I will wait but I doubt if there is something to hope for
I will fight but I doubt if it is worth the battle
I will move on but I doubt if it will be a great journey
I will survive but I doubt if it's possible without YOU!

MAELS

2009-12-14T23:53:00.001-08:00

whew? time indeed flies so fast..i thought it was just yesterday when i responded to the call of vertical alignment in capitol university. what i am referring to is the graduate program we are supposed to finish to be vertically articulated for the College of arts and sciences, humanities and English department. after having gone through the ordeal of thesis writing, proposal and oral defense, the hassles of encoding, editing and revising, it felt like i was nauseous already with the idea that i was going back to school again for another master's degree. i enrolled in the MAELS program along with other colleagues , who, like me were also not vertically aligned. at first i found maels too tedious and taxing...later i started to enjoy the class and the professors we had...so challenging and nerve cracking...again, i experienced soreness on my back, recurring migraine, eyes strain and stress to the highest level...i realized this was no joke after all..i put my heart into my studies...well, that's what i usually do...i always give my best and sometimes, it's too frustrating to note that my best is not good enough...

now, i am about to finish the program together with my 13 other colleagues...we stayed together in one roof during the entire summer class, had fun and laughter together, shared the same apprehensions and tensions...

now, few months more and we are graduating but before the final day comes, we are about to face a judgment we truly fear...i hope that the verdict is in favor of us...more effort needed, more time to spend, more energy to burn...more more more of everything...

plain agony but i am curious will this be a worthy endeavor? one with a wholesome end? best wishes!

leaving you temporarily

2009-04-18T23:14:00.000-07:00

Since I am in full blast with my summer masteral classes at MSU - IIT, Iligan City, I will be temporarily away from blogging. i am still adjusting to my schedule as full-time student...be back soon with so many write - ups i wanted to post. i unluckily ran out of time so hopefully i will be able to post them in-between my skeds. whew! this is terrible but i am sure gonna love this summer 2009...so hot and scorching...can't help but sweat...well gurl here i go, sweat it out! i will be back, promise...

a deeper study of Subanons, A Novel by Antonio Enriquez

2009-04-11T06:24:00.000-07:00

Subanons
A Novel By Antonio Reyes Enriquez
Presented by: Dorcas Menoc – Bandiala
Presented to: Dr. Anthony L. Tan
March 20, 2009
Mindanao State University – Iligan Institute of Technology

About the Novel
Subanons, Published in 1993 depicts the lives of the Subanons in Mindanao at the height of the government’s military campaign against NPAs. The Subanons are not merely caught in this crossfire; they are singled out as the primary casualties of war. Their days are fraught with a violence against which their only recourse are their values and their gods.
Background and Overview of the Novel
The novel Subanons by Antonio Reyes Enriquez is a fact-based occurring in the Zamboanga Peninsula, Mindanao during the Marcos’ regime. At a surface level, the main theme is to expose the conflicting situation of the Subanons being sandwiched between NPAs demand for revolutionary taxes and the Military’s inhuman and unjust killing of innocent residents of the Zamboanga Peninsula. Other themes could include the tension between solidarity and individuality, between rational and emotional reactions, preservation of cultural and personal values and strong faith in their gods amidst the terror of torture and death.
In the novel, Subanons, adults and children were tortured mercilessly and brutally killed by military with high powered rifles creating holes on helpless bodies. It happened after the brave Datu was executed by the guerillas. Atrocious killings followed after the datu’s nephew was caught with a WWW II grenade vintage which he brought with him to show off to his friends. The boy was made to name names that should be included in the hotlist as rebels. The Mayor of that town ordered the murder of all these people in the list.

The Author
Antonio Enriquez (A. R. Enriquez)
Ramiroville, A. Ramiro Street
Carinugan, Barrio Balulang
Cagayan de Oro City 9000
Misamis Oriental Province,
Philippines

Tel. No. (088) 233-2952
Email: antonio_e36@yahoo.com

Born and raised in Zamboanga City--A (Antonio) R (Reyes) Enriquez is the author of several books of short stories and novels. He has been published in his homeland, the Philippines, and regarded as the first Filipino fictionist writing in his homeland to break into foreign publication with his short story collection, "Dance a White Horse to Sleep and Other Stories," and Carlos Palanca grand prize "Surveyors of the Liguasan Marsh"--both published by UQP, Queensland, Australia, the latter in 1977. His short stories have been translated to Korean, German, French, and Chabacano.

It was his fearful and unforgettable experience in Liguasan Marsh in Maguindanao that likely started his career as a novelist; Liguasan Marsh was the setting of his first novel, “Surveyors of the Liguasan Marsh.” However, his “happiest and most memorable times” in his grandfather’s land in a coastal village of Labuan, west of Zamboanga city, which encouraged him to write about farmers, fishermen, and the common folks. Labuan village is the setting of most of his stories; He is a much awarded writer, among the notable awards: UMPHIL; U.P. National Fellow for Literature lifetime award; S.E.A. Write Award, Hawthornden International Retreat for Writers Fellowship; and Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Award in Literature, for the short story and its grand prize for the novel categories, English division.
He and his wife Joy, with their five grandchildren, now live in Cagayan de Oro City.
Author: A.R. Enriquez**A Palanca Award Laureate

Characters:

Amado Bualan (Datu): The Protagonist in the story – he and the rest of the Bualans are actually the protagonists in the story. They belong to the Subanon tribe whose desire is to attain peace, order and freedom among their tribe. He is a barrio leader who was executed for not giving in to the rebels' demands.

Subanon：The protagonist in the story, the oppressed tribe both by the rebels and the military

Alawi:The Nephew of Amado Bualan and Manang Rosing who was arrested for bringing a hand grenade

Manang Rosing:The wife of the difuncto Datu Amado Bualan

Mayor Jose Lim: The Tyrant mayor who sought for revenge for his rejection in the past

Major Demosthenes Dulla:The Military leader of the 10th IB in Guipos, Zamboanga Peninsula who takes and gives order from his tyrant leaders

Mr. & Mrs. Rodriguez:A Professor Researcher from Zamboanga City State University whose intention was to study and preserve the ancestry of the Subanon Tribe

Military:The front liners and the executors of violence and oppression

Commander Ka Oca:The leader of the rebel troops who demands not only to the government but also oppresses the civilians. He ordered and executed the death of Datu Amado Bualan.

Shamman Tampilis:A man who was believed to have supernatural powers, who saved the corpse of Vice – Mayor Ginaya for a respectable burial.

Dr. Bualan:The doctor who was accused as a witch doctor. He was also in the list of people to be murdered as member of the Bualan clan. He wasn’t killed though because the soldiers were scared of him thinking he was a witch doctor.

Vice – Mayor Ginaya:One of the Bualans. He was also murdered

Balat: Vice – Mayor Ginaya’s Buddy who was also murdered ahead of him.

Mr. Ramos:BIR Collector who was willing to bribe the oppressor in case he will be harassed by giving them his BIR Tax collections

Farmer Rigid:the farmer who was brutally tortured because military accused him of spying the soldiers for the communist rebels

Sigbe:a widow who went to see Kalinga

Kalinga:The 3rd wife of Shamman Tampilis

Binay: The wife of Mayor Jose Lim
Puring Bugao:The woman whom Mayor Jose Lim wanted to marry

Myna:The mother of Puring Bugao

Bungi: The toothless outlaw whom Amado Bualan went to talk out with regarding the release of the village cattle

Nuay Sapatos:the Shoe-less ones who collect revolutionary taxes from the Subanon people

Setting:

The story takes place in Zamboanga peninsula, in July 1985, where the dictatorship of President Marcos was about to end. About 400 nautical miles from the metropolitan city, somewhere in Guipos, in Zamboanga Del Sur, Mindanao, was the camp of the 10th IB Army Unit. It was dark and gloomy, nighttime to be exact; the Subanon Village chief walked his way to the soldiers’ bunk which seemed like empty and dilapidated. Inside the bunkhouse, he saw through the windows across the ladder three armed soldiers in camouflage brutally beating a naked man, which he undoubtedly recognize as Rigid, a farmer in the village who came to the camp earlier to look for his lost farm animal. Unfortunately, the soldiers suspected him to be allegedly a member of the communist group, or rebel. This rebel group is better known as NPA or New People’s Army. The Datu or the chieftain of the Subanon tribe was there and saw the maltreatment and humiliation that the soldiers had inflicted upon their suspect. The room was unventilated and damp yet inside the datu’s heart was burning like coal. The barracks, where the soldiers stay was filled with darkness. Other soldiers who were already drunk were already snoring hard on their beds. There is a strange atmosphere of helplessness, hatred and humiliation that envelopes the suspect, now a victim, and the witness who was ironically the leader of the tribe but couldn’t do anything to save the man who was being badly beaten. Until finally when the soldiers were tired of hitting hard Rigid did they give up and continued in their drinking that Amado, the Datu, helped the man up and brought him out of the barracks. He was sent home by Datu. He left him at the dark side of his home. He left immediately so as to not aggravate the debasement that the man was feeling for himself after that humiliating torture and unjust action.

PLOT
Exposition
The book begins showing the shameful and humiliating torture of a farmer, Rigid, by the Military men at the station. At the onset of the story, we could see brutal tortures and unlawful inhuman beatings of the civilian man, again, Rigid. The soldiers beat him as he was suspected to be a rebel, an NPA who was accordingly spying on them. The farmer insisted he was just looking for his lost carabao. Shortly after, the cruel and abusive soldiers took basinful slops and innards of carabao and were forced by the soldiers through his mouth which caused him to throw up vehemently afterwards. The Datu saw this but was unable to help or save him from the military hands. After the torture, the soldiers returned to drinking again and left the almost lifeless man naked. The Datu helped him out, fast and quick and brought him home. The Datu, Amado Bualan had to shade himself in the dark so that the wife will not see him. He intentionally did that to protect Rigid from total humiliation and embarrassment. Amado Bualan was sure that he would all the more feel the humiliation if his wife will know that someone else saw his nakedness and what he has gone through. It will debase his manhood.

Rising Action
In the beginning of the novel, Farmer Rigid was brutally tortured. Despite his innocence, the military continued to debase him and humiliate by stripping off his clothes. He was accused of spying on the soldiers for the rebels which accuses he adamantly denied and refuted because he was just looking for his lost carabao. But his reasons were never heard out. He was still beaten and tortured.

Complications
The persistent coming of the communist rebels to collect the peoples’ revolutionary taxes which were refused by the villagers has added problem to the villagers.

Conflict
Subanons were squeezed between the pressures from NPA’s and the atrocities of the Dictator’s soldiers. The execution of Datu Amado Bualan by Commander Ka Oca. Datu Bualan was being judged as having committed crimes against his people thus created a conflict among the Subanon Tribe.

Major Conflicts were:
Rigid vs. Soldiers – when he was tortured by the soldiers
Amado Bualan vs. Commander Ka Oca – when he was executed
Amado Bualan vs. villagers – during the council meeting
Alawi vs. soldiers – when he was arrested
Bualans vs. Mayor Jose Lim – when he ordered the murder of all the members of the
Bualan family

Climax
The boys captivity and the death of all those members of the Bualan family, including the murder of the innocent victims as a result of the military zoning, the unjust military killings of Balat and the Vice Mayor Ginaya.

Falling Action
Shamman Tampilis took the corpse of Vice mayor Ginaya from the stage platform at the plaza and brought it home with him to be given proper burial when others had chosen not to get in between but he did so without fear.

Denouement
The hope for peace and freedom from the dictator’s hands that they did not see await them in the morrow.

In the final scene of the book, there was the conversation between the two women, one a widow and the other the wife of Shamman Tampilis. They were concern about what could possibly happen athe next day.
A hint of the author's intention can be found in the final description of the mountain ranges of MT. Guillian and the setting of the sun that like hope it will come the next day, shining bright like the sun.

Summary
Part 1
Chapter 1: The torture of Farmer Rigid
It was dark and gloomy, nighttime to be exact; the Subanon Village chief walked his way to the soldiers’ bunk which seemed like empty and dilapidated. Inside the bunkhouse, he saw through the windows across the ladder three armed soldiers in camouflage brutally beating a naked man, which he undoubtedly recognize as Rigid, a farmer in the village who came to the camp earlier to look for his lost farm animal. Unfortunately, the soldiers suspected him to be allegedly a member of the communist group, or rebel. This rebel group is better known as NPA or New People’s Army. The Datu or the chieftain of the Subanon tribe was there and saw the maltreatment and humiliation that the soldiers had inflicted upon their suspect. The room was unventilated and damp yet inside the datu’s heart was burning like coal. The barracks, where the soldiers stay was filled with darkness. Other soldiers who were already drunk were already snoring hard on their beds. There is a strange atmosphere of helplessness, hatred and humiliation that envelopes the suspect, now a victim, and the witness who was ironically the leader of the tribe but couldn’t do anything to save the man who was being badly beaten. Until finally when the soldiers were tired of hitting hard in Rigid did they give up and continued in their drinking that Amado, the Datu, helped the man up and brought him out of the barracks. He was sent home by Datu. He left him at the dark side of his home. He left immediately so as to not aggravate the debasement that the man was feeling for himself after that humiliating torture and unjust action.

Chapter 2: The Slaughtering of Dogs
Weeks later after Rigid’s beating, Lapuyan Municipality, specifically the Karpok Village, was confronted with another problem when one night, a little before midnight the dogs all over the village were howling and barking. The people were awakened by their noise. Datu Amado Bualan, light sleeper as he is, was the first to wake up moments later. He was suspecting that the “nuay sapatos” or “the shoe-less ones” , referring to the communist rebels were stealthily creeping to the village under the cover of darkness since the barrio failed to “contribute” as revolutionary tax which is half of their crops, animals and fowl. Manang Rosing, Datu Bualan’s wife was scared started to worry as she packed some things to escape when worse comes to worst. The dogs’ barking was louder and restless. Manang Rosing was in terror because it was as if they were also hearing footsteps but couldn’t exactly figure out if there were really people coming into their homes. They were preparing themselves to escape in case rebels will barge in their homes. The family was helpless with Datu Amado being unarm except for his almost century old WW II hand grenade which may not even explode and a kampilan, and an old long bolo, about two-generation old which he inherited from his father.
A quarter of an hour had passed or maybe less, the surroundings had gone back to silence but still the Datu couldn’t tell his terror and fear. This time, with the silence of the night comes also the silence of the dogs, not even a howl or a yelp coming from any dogs in the village. It was the following day that they realized all the dogs in the village were actually killed by the “nuay sapatos”. They intentionally did that to terrorize the villager so they would be forced to give their revolutionary taxes.
Datu Amado Bualan recalled how peaceful Karpok used to be and reminisced how happy they were before the declaration of Martial Law. He and his people were free from oppression. They were free, the river people. Night or day, whether in the farm or on cogon hills, in the wood or forest, there were no soldiers to terrorize and beat them to death leaving them almost with little life or no “nuay sapatos” to take them away and salvage them. And despite how poor the Subanons were, they never went hungry. They always had something to eat. Life was described then as easy and carefree. And they were simply happy. They only have one fear, and that is the Datu or the Thimuay when they commit transgressions. Unlike now, they are uncertain of their tomorrow.

Chapter 3: The Subanon Council of Elders’ meeting
A day after the incident, the Subanon Council of Elders met with the villagers. Datu Amado started his talk by telling them what they already knew and that is, the “shoe-less ones” were responsible for the killings of their dogs the night before. Women and children were at already at the all-purpose shed fifteen minutes before the meeting had even started. Datu Bualan told the villagers that what the rebels had done the night before was meant to warn them to “contribute” otherwise worst will happen. Those who did not do so had paid dearly. The sitios nearby had refused to contribute half of their crops to the revolutionary cause and were afterwards burnt to the ground. Datu Bualan asked for their opinions whether to give in to the rebels’ demand to contribute or not but the villagers adamantly refused so. If they do so, their children will starve to death and worst of all, the “shoe-less ones” were never satisfied as they recalled how the revolutionary started. It all started with a little of everything. Few sacks of rice and corn, two to three goats and a dozen chickens at first until the demands went up to one third of their crops until it went even higher leaving them almost nothing for their children. The revolutionary taxes were accordingly voluntary contributions but in the end have become an obligation that shouldn’t be neglected or else they suffer.
Sadly, it wasn’t only the communist rebels that the Subanons were fighting against during that time. Because after the declaration of martial law, there was military zoning conducted house-to-house searching for firearms and deadly weapons. Not only that, young men were brutalized even for the flimsiest and lousiest reasons. They would be kicked and hit with the rifles butts. And those who were suspected to be aiding the rebels were brought to the army camps for interrogation and if they didn’t admit so, would be tortured. In fact some of them were not able to return and as the villagers believed that they were being “salvaged”. The word is coined to mean suspects were executed to death and buried in some abandoned fields. Because of that, most of the young Subanons moved from the village to the city, that is, the Zamboanga City, a 12 – hour trip by launch via the rough China Sea. They had to go there to look for jobs but were oftentimes jobs were “unavailable” for them, the Subanons. Subanons discovered the prejudices they had to go through. Because they were Subanons meant doors would have to be shut to their faces, just because they were natives. Slim were the chances for them to land a good job. Most of their jobs were dishwashers, washing the slime, sweater and fish guts off the floor and at a Chinese restaurant; they washed dishes or collected slops in pail. It would be very lucky enough for a Subanon to be able to get a good job in the city because nobody trusted them there. Highlander tribes were treated as suspects.
But being help in the city wasn’t their first choice. Almost all of the young Subano men wanted to become soldiers for they had seen what power there was in a barrel of a gun. In fact, the military called them “the fodder for the Moro Rebels”. Still, being natives, getting into the military wasn’t easy they had to bribe the recruitment officer. The recruitment officer would take their money and promise them enlistment in the military but which promises weren’t kept. They were treated as ignorant pagans. Because the native recruits were ashamed to go home, many joined the NPAs whom in the first place they’d been fleeing from.
These were some of the painful memories that the Subanon had experienced in the hand of the abusive military. So while on meeting things have been discussed whether to give in to their demands or not. But Datu Amado Bualan was sure that if they don’t give in, he would face execution by the NPA and that would mean, his own deaths but he was ready to give his life just not to give in to their demands. He wouldn’t want to betray the trust of his people and not even debase himself by doing so. He decided to stick to his principles. He would die for his people, and for his village. So after the meeting, the people left the all-purpose shed and knowing that not giving in to the demands of the rebels would mean worst thing would happen that the night before, when rebels slaughtered their dogs. The people were disappointed and afraid as to what may happen next.

Chapter 4: Bungi and Datu Bualan
After the slaughtering of the villagers’ dog, Datu Amado Bualan became silent and bored on dinner time which usually he tells stories about his good deeds. One of the good deeds he had done was that when he went to the hideout of an outlaw to talk him out about releasing the village’ cattle. What he did was very dangerous. Bungi, or the Toothless one could have shot him dead but Datu Amado Bualan did not mind the risk he had to go through knowing that what he was doing was for his people. As a Subanon it was his duty to do so because if he didn’t then that would mean he is weak.
Indeed, Bungi released the cattle, or made him choose which cattle to pick from the corral or fence and told him to leave at once. Bungi had to say to Datu to leave at once lest he forgets that he’s a son of the respected Paganding and the ancestors of Bualans. That hideout was actually the graveyard of the Bualan clan. It was indeed an honor for Datu Amado to have claimed the cattle again from Bungi but the problem he was facing then wasn't about Bungi but about the rebels who would be soon coming after him for sure. Even the Farmer Rigid, who was being tortured by the soldiers, left him, along with other villagers. They have left the village for fear. Rigid, instead of being indifferent against the soldiers who had eaten his carabao did not do anything but leave as well for fear that they might be killed by the communist rebels whom they were anticipating to be back the soonest while all others have left. Rising was suggesting that they too should leave but Amado couldn’t betray his pride. He isn’t leaving his village. He had already sent his children ahead to his cousin in the city and Alawi, the boy who lives with them and Rosing had to prepare and would be moving to Lapuyan, to another barrio where the Vice –mayor, Carlos Ginaya, also a blood relative of Bualan lives. Amado, despite Rosing’s intense persistence to leave, did not bother to listen. He was more conscious of his surroundings. The silence of the night outside was louder than Rosing’s voice. While Amado was in deep thinking, somewhere outside looming in the darkness was a shadow waiting for the last light of the oil lamp to flicker out.

Chapter 5: the death of Datu Bualan
Less than a fortnight later, early one morning, the communists came to Karpok as everyone in the village has expected. Just the day before, almost all of the villagers and then last of the council elders, including the Shaman had left. Many nipa huts on the slopes were empty. And in the barrio, only just about a quarter of an hour earlier, billows of smoke could be seen but now houses and farms were abandoned. Although most of them would say they would not leave so long as the Datu himself did not leave. Only very few keep their word. About this time, only Manang Rosing and her nephew, Alawi and Datu Amado Bualan were in the house. But at that very moment the shoe=less ones had barged into the house just when he was about to leave for his farm. He was told he would go to a trial for the alleged crime he committed against the people. Even if he wanted to change his clothes on decent one to appear decent before his people, he wasn't allowed to. Instead he was punched hard in the ear and pushed him roughly down the wooden steps. The communist rebels wouldn’t accept there’re any worse than the soldiers. Manang Rosing screamed and cried that Datu Amado had not defied his people. Alawi hid in the bushes while the NPA rebels pushed Amado across the empty lot in front of his house where across this lot as its border, stood a huge baluno tree which was over a hundred years old and overlooked a creek. It was so huge, gnarled and tough that not even five people could put their extended arms together around d the entire trunk. Its mango-like fruit, the Subanon natives had for centuries saved the tribe from starvation. In some unexplainable way, It was called the life-preserving tree because it bore abundant fruit even during droughts. It is also in this same huge tree when he was tried by the NPA. The people‘s court, including the NPS rebels. Ten Subanons from among the herded men were picked up to make up the so-called People’s witnesses. It was an informer in the village who gave them their names and whom all ten owed Datu Amado Bualan a favor.
Commander Ka Oca, the leader of the NPAs was learning back on the bench and started to narrate the sins Amado Bualan had committed against his people. And each accusation was confirmed guilty by one of then picked men down to the last person. and because of that, as planned by the NPA commander that those people who loved and adored Amado will hate him for all the sins he committed against the Peoples. The NPA commander KA Oca demanded death to the enemy of the people as he shouted at the top of his lungs. Commander Ka Oca pointed his .45 caliber pistol’s barrel at his temple. Manang Rosing was crying helplessly who was held back by the villagers. The Datu was somewhat nostalgic and sad for his wife that he lowered his gaze from his wife and left everything to his gods. The commander then pulled the pistol’s trigger which released a slug which cut through his temple and entered into Amado’s head, and exploded. Amado was killed in front of his people, right there in the life – preserving tree huge baluno tree.

Part 2
Chapter 6: The giving of antique Jars to Minister Libarnes
Long before, no strangers can get inside the Subano tribe for fear of the human sacrifice the Subanon chief would always order one especially stranger from another tribe to someone who had lost his way from Lapuyan. But that was a log time ago.
Two years after the imposition of Martial Law by the dictator Marcos in September 21, 1972, the first strangers and visitors and were welcomed by the old villagers like a prodigal sons. This visitor was the dictator’s minister and about thirty aides and a security of two truckloads of soldiers. He was the minister of PACD – Presidential Action for Community development. Then two years later another batch of visitors came either by solo flight or by pair. Each visit of course meant a celebration for the Subanon. It was then that PACD minster Onofre Libarnes had promised to concretize the road or cement it. It was not because he was just simply magnanimous but because he was greedy for the artifacts and the historical and ancient jars there were in the village. A researcher from Zamboanga State University, Mrs. Rodriguez and her husband came to the village to study its artifacts as well.
Earlier the Bualan chieftains would give gifts “the antique jars” to the visitor’s as a token of gratitude to the minister. The Thimuay Labi Piunlon consented to the giving away of these antique jars in exchange for the concreting of the dirt road in Lapuyan but Minister Libarnes did not keep his promise . Mr. and Mrs. Rodriguez were so shocked for the greed of these visitors who took advantage of the innocence and hospitability of the people there, including the PACD minister who wanted to have one of those antique jars. They said that the minister deserves to be given such gift because it was him who brought the villagers’ greetings to the president. But Mrs. Rodriguez was sad and dismayed thinking that those antique jars will never be returned to he village anymore which she said that those antique jars were not only so expensive which costs over a million pesos each now but it was most of all an invaluable artifact that would represent an epoch in the Subanon peoples’ history. But the jars were gone because they were just too stupid and hospitable, accordingly, for their own good.

Chapter 7: The Arrest of Alawi
Two weeks after the execution of Datu Amado, his nephew Alawi Setit was on a public passenger on his way to the poblacion. In his trousers pocket was a hand grenade WW II vintage. It had belonged to his uncle when the Datu was a guerillero fighting the Japanese forces in the Baganian Peninsula. Don Amado had kept it a souvenir and had hidden it in a bamboo tube in the chicken coop, instead of surrendering it to the military after the imposition of martial law. He once mentioned the hand grenade before to his wife, Manang Rosing before, which Alawi overheard too. After the death of the Datu, Alawi remembered the hand grenade and took it from where it was hidden. He showed it off to his friends so they were all in awe at Alawi’s bravery being able to carry one until one day, on his way to the poblacion. He brought this hand grenade WW II vintage which Datu Amado wasn’t even sure if it would explode. Alawi was so preoccupied with his thoughts that he did not notice that the jeeney had stopped for inspection at the checkpoint. The passengers would have to go down for inspection of the goods. But Alawi was sp surprised and acted silly about the grenade that he jumped over the jeeney window. The two policemen ran after him and caught him and confiscated the grenade as well confiscated the other passengers goods and livestock. The people were so shocked.
Alawi was brought to the INP station at the town plaza. The people came to gather to witness what might happen to Alawi. While the other policemen was butchering the confiscated goods, Alawi was left standing still at the corner of the INP Station confused and scared what might happen to him.

Chapter 8: At Plaza Imbing
In front of the police station, on the dirt road, and empty ground of the town plaza called Imbing named after one of the Subanon gomotans in ancient times, about twenty curious men and women had gathered. New people came but did not mix with those who have gathered earlier. Low voices came droning from among the men and women who were gathered there. Words were exchanged but hardly spoken above a whisper, each careful to bring about attention. Though every curiosity had drawn them all at the INP station, they never forget that if they catch the attention of the policemen, if pleased, they could all be arrested and detained.
The townspeople farmers and natives stood in pairs, threes and fours though the latter was rare; but always never more than four, thus they occupied a bigger are of plaza Imbing more than what such a number normally would. Before the dictator’s time, in such an incident, it would be an be an unnatural and strange sight to see a crowd forming sparse, isolated clusters of not more than four persons, instead of a single mass of unterrified, free people. But now, gunfire and death were not unfamiliar sights to these people, and not any firing could send then scurrying in great panic. Not a few had found themselves scurrying great panic as they are already used to it. They have become calloused and accustomed to indiscriminate military firing. As oppressed people, they learned to adapt to such situations and recover from them quickly. So to that issue of Alawi and the people’s curiosity about what would possible to him, some people went back right away to their village to tell other people to take precautions especially those who planned to talk about the incident because the military intelligence had ears everywhere. One could land to the stockade if he attributed unpleasant incidents and comments giants the tyrant’s regime.

Chapter 9: Mayor Jose Lim and his old resentments
Mayor Jose Lim, Chinese blood had married Binay the cousin of Puring. It was actually Puring, Myna’s mother. Puring is the last Thimuay Labi Pinulon a direct descendant of the Gomotans. He wanted to marry Puring because he knew that marrying a Datu’s daughter or a favorite niece was the quick fireproof way to be wealthy and powerful. But Puring was already betrothed to somebody so, he married the cousin Binay who then had grown so big and had become si fond of listening to soap operas on radio.
The mayor had heard of the arrest of the Alawi, a nephew of the difunto Datu Amado thus arousing in him his old resentments and very bitter memories of being rejected. He found the arrest of Alawi as the best avenue for him to avenge his rejection in the past.

Chapter 10: Mayor beat Alawi and made him write names of NPA
Mayor Jose Lim went straight to the police station to see Alawi himself. At the sight of the mayor in the police station gave Alawi relief and was happy to see the mayor. But when the mayor came closer to him, he himself beat him. Alawi received a blow on the head and a kick in the groin and crashed him against the wall. On Alawi’s face, the temporary light of rescue abruptly turned dark; and surprise, not unmixed with fear, replaced it. And Alawi, realizing the gravity of his situation, real fear now came to the boy, giving him Goosebumps and sweat poured profusely. He promised to do everything for his uncle just so he wouldn’t hurt him anymore. Mayor Jose Lim saw that his plan was working so easily and so easily to accomplish. He told Alawi to make a list of all the communists and informers in Karpok and the neighboring barrios and sitios or he will be shot. Alawi all at once agreed but Mayor Lim wasn’t satisfied. So that the boy will surely keep his promise, he beat him again and again. And before he left, mayor Lim instructed Major Dulla to make sure that the boy is helped about with the listing. With that mayor Lim meant Dulla should write the names himself with the specific people whom mayor Lim mentioned and have the boy sign it. The mayor instructed that those who will be included in the .list everyone who comes against him, and all those who belong to the Bualan clan.

Chapter 11: Brutal military zoning
The following day, Thursday morning, the military conducted the zoning. They would get into the houses and ransack their house with food and other precious materials. Alawi was brought with them, masked. He served as the military guide for the zoning and of those who were in the list. His own Aunt Rosing’s house was ransacked but because of Alawi’s silence, his aunt was saved from death although the Rosing recognized Alawi behind the mask. In another part of the town, there was also zoning where military killed even the innocent children. They did not pick who they would kill. Young girls and boys, women and men, young and adults alike were murdered brutally. So during that military zoning of the villages which ended late afternoon, some twenty Subanon men, women and children were shot and killed and about a third of that number were wounded or declared missing.

Part 3
Chapter 12: Military Zoning in Lapuyan
On a cold Friday, three days after Alawi’s arrest and after he had signed the list with names for the alleged suspects as rebels or communist, Major Dulla and his troops went to his first target. Almost all stores and markets stalls were closed. The people knew that once there were arrests, it is expected that military would conduct zoning 2 to 3 days after. All the families, stores and merchandise were confiscated except for those who are at the mayor’s side and the Chinese meztiso were safe. While in Karpok, up on a hill was the clinic of Dr. Bualan, he was also included in the list. But after the soldiers harassed even those sick people, they left the clinic because they thought that he was a fake doctor, a balian.
In a while, the soldiers and the young lieutenant crossed the hanging bridge: one soldier was holding his scapular, the other was feeling assured with his red turban, and no curses by any witch doctor could touch them.

Chapter 13: Bugao’s Residence with Mr. Rodriguez and Mr. Ramos
Meanwhile, at Bugao Residence, Puring (the supposed girl whom Mayor Lim wished to marry before), was talking with Mr. Rodriguez, the anthropologist and the BIR collector. By this time they have already heard about the military zoning taking place in Lapuyan and Karpok and the nearby villages, barrios and sitios. They anticipate that they will be visited since they realized that most of the victims were from the Bualan clan. Once they thought they heard footsteps, maybe soldiers, going past the house and knowing at the neighbor’s door. And later in the night they heard a cry from the riverbank which cry was abruptly cut off maybe by rifle but. They saw the soldiers, like savages and murderers, prowling in the dark night.

Chapter 14 –16: Balat’s and Vice – Mayor Ginaya’s murder
Balat is the right hand of Dr. Ginaya. He lives at the shed of Vice – Mayor Ginaya. The house is just close to the Bugao residence. The guests were starting to pack their things for fear that their house will soon be visited by these soldiers. At first Balat, very scared, tried to escape but the soldiers were able to catch him. He was shot and brutally murdered. His body was dragged by the soldiers away from the house. At first the neighbors, including the Bugao family and their guests heard a scream but later there was silence.
The soldiers went back to the nearby area where they have taken Balat from. The squad came to the bend of the dirt road, past the biggest general merchandise store there. After the bend some ten meters or so, was the vice mayor’s house. The soldiers quickened there steps to catch up with the others.
At the Vice – Mayor’s house, they haven’t the slightest idea that he would be t5he next victim. The couple was already on bed talking about what they hard earlier, the cries for help of his buddy, Balat. But the Vice – Mayor never thought that he was part of the list. They were surprised when there was knocking at the door. The Vice Mayor had to open it himself and in a split of a second, the moment he open the door, there was a flash of light that faced his sight. It was a gun fire. His body felt numbness after that shot. The Vice Mayor’s body was dragged and was placed at the town plaza. Meanwhile all others peoples on the list including Mr. Bugao, were arrested.
On the bare floor of the wooden stage platform, the corpse was covered with a coat of black ugly flies, which like the dogs were habitués of the fish and meat stalls and the garbage dump areas. The flies busied themselves making miniscule tears at the flesh with their tiny jaws. The sun rays continued to beat on the rotting flesh, to clothes sticking to it stealthily, as sausage skin would; the dried blood served as glue. None of the dogs attempted to come near the Vice – Mayor’s corpse. Still imprinted in their minds were the smell of the gun powder and the thunder of the guns they heard earlier. At first the foul-smell of the corpse disturbed the residents but eventually get used to it. Nobody came close to the dead body. Only Balian Tampilis was known to venture out in the middle of the night alone, in his usual stroll. And it was believed that it was him who drove those dogs away.
The exposure of the corpse at the plaza also exposed the stench almost everywhere but three days later the Shamman Tampilis came, wrapped the body around with a mat and brought the corpse with him, which were gone all of a sudden, as if sucked in between walls of the houses along each side of the road.

Chapter 17: Sigbe, Tampilis sister went to see her sister in law
Three hours later after Shamman Tampilis claimed the Vice Mayor Ginaya’s body his widowed sister, Sigbe left her house and went to see the third wife of Shamman Tampilis, Kalinga. Kalinga said she is worried for Tampilis because of what he had done. She was scared that this time he had overdone his strangeness. But Sigbe said that they have two gods to watch over him. His own Gulay, and the God of the Christians.
They couldn’t forget Ginaya’s death and how his body was treated as an animal carcass. They knew that his corpse was used to frighten them and to take their will to defy them but according to them, they have been mistaken because the people will not forget how for three days and three nights they had to breathe the foulness of repression and terror.
Neither of the two ladies looked through the window of the landing from where, if they were to gaze out, they would see the outline of Mt. Guillian as it began to fade in the setting of the sun. But tomorrow, the sun will rise behind the mountain ranges and Mt. Guillian, an ancient times, their outline will once again show against the sky.

Chapter Analyses
Chapter 1: The Torture of Farmer Rigid
The first chapter which is about 9 pages talks about the brutality of the soldiers against civilians. Questions that would certainly pop out are:
1. Farmer Rigid was looking for his lost carabao; he was on the right track. Was it wrong to ask the soldiers, the supposed protector of the country, of peace and order of our land and our people for him to be beaten to death? There seems to be really no freedom at all for any citizen to express himself during that time and if this situation had persisted up to the present, how would people survive? There is an obvious abuse of power among the soldiers. They seem to be the ultimate power in the land. Their guns and bullets their best allies.
2. Evil is really innate in man. There is that evil spirit lurking in man’s spirit. Once given power will drive him wild and oppressive. Is that how power could make the hearts of man calloused and unaffected? Like that of the soldiers who brutally beat Rigid, the one whose carabao was lost. He was the victim here, but why was he accused? And even if he was indeed a spy, why would they hurt a helpless man, alone? Why wouldn’t they just arrest him and detain him to stockade instead of hurting him like a brute? Human as we are, we cannot even afford to hurt animals that hard. We cannot even hurt a dog or a cat just like that. Evil.
3. One question that I feel I need to ask is: What could have happened if the Datu helped him out or came in between the soldiers and Rigid? Will the Datu be also beaten? How cruel of them to do that. Was it really declared by the President that all suspects be tortured, debased and humiliated?

This chapter is really an eye opener. A shock I have recovered as slowly as until now I could imagine the vivid description of what this man had gone through. I could feel the excruciating pain. The cries. The terror. All these I feel was unbearable.

Chapter 2: The killings of dogs
The main thrust in this chapter is the attempt to show how the NPAs had terrorized the villagers. That even by slaughtering animals, they could threaten the people to succumb to their wants; to give in to their wants. But what they did not realize that the slaughtering of the dogs, probably had scared or terrified them but had never let them lose hope and faith in themselves. The more they became strong to stick to what they believed is true and right.

Chapter 3: The Subanon Council of Elders’ meeting
It is very important for a people to preserve its culture. Unity is one important element that would keep a tribe strong and sturdy. Nothing will move them if they only had oneness in spirit and in thoughts. Had the other members of the tribe brave enough to fight like that of Datu Amado, then things would have been resolved. The power of fear would actually cause someone to lurk into the corner of his house and be silent rather than being silenced forever by the oppressors.

Chapter 4: Bungi and Datu Bualan
The bravery of Datu Amado Bualan is exceptional. It was because of his own principle and his fore parents’ beliefs about manliness. He wouldn’t be treated man enough if he doesn't do any act as risky as what he did when he went to see Bungi. What he did was no easy task. It was such a risky decision. Indeed, Datu Bualan was caught in a dilemma as to see the man alone or just leave all what intended to take back in Bungi’s possession? But for Datu Amado, death is sweet for those who do something great and heroic. It makes him a complete person. And having done that has made himself a better person, to others as well as to himself most of all.

Chapter 5: The death of Datu Bualan
The death of Datu Bualan served as an eye opener and most of all as a sacrifice. He was betrayed especially by those people whom he has done favor to. Hardships and difficulties in life would sometimes lead people or squeeze people to betray someone else. But I believe it isn't an excuse. Perhaps if these people have chosen to stick to truth, Datu Amado would probably have not died. But death is sweet again if one dies with meaning and with worth. Others were killed out of nothing but Datu Amado was killed with a reason. He was killed because he wouldn’t give in to the selfish demands of these rebels. Giving in to their demands would mean making them worst people in the world. Worst, because they will continue to abuse the tribe. It takes an individual to respect his own self before others will do that to them. Unfortunately, Amado was alone, alone against the many devourers. But his being alone did not scare him. He died with dignity and honor. And shame for those who saved themselves and betrayed the man who had once worked for their own good and advantage. There was irony in the death of Datu Bualan when as stated in the last line. He actually died at the huge baluno tree which was way down from his ancestors was believed to be a life-preserving tree but it was right there where he was executed, where he died. His life wasn’t preserved then. It was consumed and devoured by the selfish and indolent NPAs who were oppressing their own kind. And for those who were around and have witnessed his death, which tree would symbolize indeed a life – preserving tree because of Datu Amado’s sacrifice, he died for others, and other lives were preserved. He gave his life so others will see how much he wanted to keep his land for his people and posterity.

Part 2
Chapter 6: The giving of antique Jars to Minister Libarnes
Since time immemorial, corruption had always been the game of the politicians. They took advantage of the ignorance of the tribe and had only thought of their own advantage, Filipinos against Filipinos, thus making our country poorer and poorer. It’s no wonder that up to this time, 24 years after this tyranny, we are still experiencing the same kind of corrupt politicians. Nothing has changed. We are still devoured. Nothing is left for us, even our ancestry and our treasures. The jar which symbolizes the ancestry and represents the Subanon tribe was owned by the rich, by the selfish tyrants who were also after of power. And so with the people themselves, they were like puppets owned by these military, subject under their control.

Chapter 7: The capture of Alawi
Alawi’s capture is a picture of total abuse and evil nature of man. Alawi, like any ordinary boy, even if he was exposed to violence and terror had nothing in mind but innocence. He was innocent when he had that grenade because it wasn’t intended to kill anybody but just to show off to his friends. Violence excuses no one. It doesn’t leave out even the innocent children. How power can actually make man cruel, if used in a selfish way and evil motives. Alawi symbolizes innocence, a child who yet to learn so many things in life.

Chapter 8: The people talking about what might happen to Alawi
In short, people had no freedom of speech, no freedom to gather and meet as a group. They were all controlled and deprived of their rights. And with the constant violence and oppression around them have made these people amused to it. They 我ere helpless, because nobody from the group could even stand to help the boy whom they knew was an innocent one and a boy who came from a well-bred family, of values and good morale. But that didn’t matter to them. Fear was so strong that it deprived them of doing what they were supposed to do.

Chapter 9: Mayor Jose Lim and resentments and revenge
Here’s another oppressor, a man which represents another kind of a devourer, one who’s only after of making himself rich and who’s greedy of power. He ordered the murder of those people who went against him even those who haven’t done him wrong. He would kill those who have rejected his proposal for marriage before. He is the kind of person who was into avenging for his unsuccessful plans. Again, his selfish motives have truly made him another evil and tyrant leader. He took revenge even to the innocent child. He was a helpless man so dependent of his power.

Chapter 10: Mayor beat Alawi and made him write names of NPA
The tyrant leader, Mayor Jose Lim had used the innocence, fear and helplessness of a child for his own purpose, for the realization of his revenge. He took advantage of the child’s weakness. Other people have been involved because of these.

Chapter 11 -12: brutal military zoning
It is obvious that the military have really oppressed the oppressed. They have been brutal to the defenseless. They have been cruel to the innocent. What I did not understand is that why would they do that? My point is, like those children killed, why were they murdered brutally too? They were harmless, defenseless but why would a tyrant leader order such killing? I pondered on this and I said was it not that perhaps these military have wrongfully taken the order of the president? Perhaps the problem wasn’t actually in the president, it was in those who execute the order if the order was to kill those who went against the government. Who defied the government and the leaders, why would include the helpless, defenseless and unarmed children? I see nothing but a picture of total abuse of power.
Just imagine even the sick people were kicked and hurt, but here comes one soldier who was scared of the balian, a witch doctor, why then didn’t he kill the doctor? It is maybe because they believed more on supernatural power. Human being didn’t have power unless he had guns. But to that case of the doctor, since he was thought of as a witch doctor, his power is far scary than the power of the guns that’s why he wasn’t touched. If that was the case, then we couldn’t blame our ancestors if they were too dependent on charms and other supernatural powers because it was the only way they could defend themselves.
Part 3
Chapter 13 –15: Military brutality
Those in the list were murdered one by one. Military men went house to house and kill each in the list, when homes that time weren’t safe. No place was ever safe in that time. And the sanctity of the dead body was not observed. When our dead are supposed to be given proper burial, that time the corpse were dragged or just thrown or buried anywhere. Families were deprived to see or touch their love ones. People will just be noising anytime and killed the next day. This is a picture of oppression, brutality and military abuse.
If this chapter has to be summarized it could be described in one word: brutality.

Chapter 16: Shamman Tampilis claimed V – Mayor Ginaya’s corpse
Only the Shamman (Tampilis) was able to come near the corpse of Vice – Mayor Ginaya. He was the only one who was able to give him proper burial. It was only him because he was believed to have power. He can go invisible at night and he moved swiftly. This chapter shows a picture of magical realism wherein this scene is a little magical but could actually happen. He symbolizes somebody who is not afraid, one who was willing to sacrifice his life for others. He showed the kind of bravery that others have not shown. It tells us that even if others choose to protect themselves and keep themselves away from harm, he was willing to sacrifice himself. The Bualans symbolize the spirit of bravery there is in man that only requires stirring.

Chapter 17: Sigbe , Tampilis sister went to see her sister in law
I just thought that the last chapter is significant, especially for women. It is remarkable that ended with the two women, Lingam the third wife of Shamman Tampilis and Sigbe, the widowed sister of Shamman Tampilis, whom both women are close to the heart of Tampilis. Tampilis as we have seen ion the previous chapter had saved the corpse of his blood relative Vice – Mayor Ginaya and gave him a respectable burial. The two women were anticipating that their clan was one by one being murdered. The Bualans who stand for the people’s right, who fight for people’s right, who faced and sacrificed so much for others, all these men were slowly murdered one by one, leaving their wives a widow. My point is, as the last chapter ends with the women talking, I perceive it as a depiction of the role of own in the society. How did they go about with the hope awaiting them? The last paragraph states, “And neither had to look through the window of the landing from where, if the two women were to gaze out, they would see the outline of Mt. Guillian as it began to fade in the last light of day. But tomorrow, the sun will rise behind the, mountain ranges and Mt. Guillian, as in ancient times, their outline will once again how against the sky”
I see this chapter significant as well as the lines in the last paragraph as something which depicts hope for change. Hope for a brighter tomorrow. Hope that after the setting of the sun will rise a new day filled with peace and freedom. Hope for everyone and this hope will come from women. Was it not that this situation was towards the end of the long tyrant years of President Marcos? Was it not close to the people power in EDSA? Was it not the change of society wherein a new president sat in Malacanang in the person of a Woman? A widow? Madam Corazon Aquino. Didn’t her husband also die because of this tyranny? I see so much significance in this last paragraph referring to the political change where the dawning of the day and the rising of a new tomorrow give hope to every heart that has long been deprived of it. Thanks to people power. Thanks to EDSA Revolution. Thanks to President Corazon Aquino, who, despite her being a widow had fought for people’s power, rejected the Marcos regime and military oppression. Rejected the abusive in power!

Themes:
Antonio Enriquez’ Novel attempts to trace back and show the defects of society to the defects of human nature...The moral is that the shape of society must depend on the ethical nature of the individual and not on any political system.
Good and Evil: If there is evil power lurking in man, there is also this goodness him. Life is a choice. It is on our choice which makes a difference in our life, society and others.
Power: Different types of power, some used and abused. The NPAs were abusive in power. The military were dependent on the power of guns. Mayor Jose Lim shows tyrant power by
Symbolism:
Bualans – the Bualan clan represents the people whose heart was for goodness. Straight and willing to do the right thing no matter what happens.
Alawi – represents the innocence in each victim of tyranny.
Mt. Guillian - is a new hope ranging from man’s heart. Its trace fades when the sun sets but in the rising of a new tomorrow, comes a brighter sun, of hope, of peace, of freedom
Sigbe and Kalinga – represents the widow President Aquino, the rising of a new leadership, the voice of a woman be heard.

Point of view
All novels use at least one perspective, or point of view, from which to tell the story. This may consist of a point of view of no single character (the omniscient, or "all-knowing" point of view), a single character, multiple characters in turn, and combinations or variations on these. Enriquez uses the omniscient point of view, which enables him to stand outside and above the story itself, making no reference to the inner life of any of the individual characters.

A Book Review
By: Christine Godinez-Ortega. “When Writing is in the Blood,” Inquirer Mindanao, December 11, 1999

Antonio Enriquez: Subanons, novel
University of the Philippine Press, E. de los Santos Street, Diliman Quezon City, 131 pages

The scion of a gobernadorcillo who helped carve the Zamboanga City we know we know today makes literary history with his third novel, “Subanons.”
The 17-chapter, 133-page novel in English is the first to tell us about an upland tribe from Mindanao’s Zamboanga peninsula.
No Filipino novelist, whether in Spanish, English or in the Philippine languages, has done it before for any of the country’s upland tribes.
“Subanons” was released by the University of the Philippines Press in September. It won first prize for the novel in English in the 1993 Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature.
It was sent to three publishers until the author settled for the UP Press but not before novelist Antonio Reyes Enriquez asked, “Why should writers beg?”
Today’s university-educated Filipinos who prefer to read foreign novels may ask: Why read Enriquez?
And why not? After all, the Filipino writer has not taken so easily to such a demanding genre as the novel, with perhaps the exception of, surprisingly, novelists in other Philippine languages, like Iloko, Tagalog, Cebuano and Hiligaynon---works that are not in the consciousness of the university readership.
Now, if only to support a Filipino novelist, all Filipinos should read Enriquez. But then, this could be misinterpreted as mercenary, chauvinist even.
Well, not only has Enriquez a story to tell, he also knows how to tell it.
After four collections of short stories and two novels to his name and even as he is finishing his fourth, 800-page novel, “The Revolt of General Vicente Alvarez,” Enriquez’s important place in Philippine literature is secure.
It is said that when a fictionist writes his first novel, he has arrived. And it has been a long road to success for this 63-yea-old Zamboangueño whose parents wanted him to be a doctor instead.
After enrolling in several courses in various schools in Manila without getting a degree, he returned to Zamboanga and traveled to many places in the Visayas and Mindanao, doing odd jobs, becoming a journalist and joining a survey company in Cotabato---the basis for his first novel, “Surveyors of the Liguasan Marsh,” a 1982 Palanca first-prize winner for the novel in English, published in 1981 by the University of Queensland Press in Australia.
Enriquez’s love for writing is in the blood and his gift of imagination approximates the American novelist Henry James’s idea of a writer’s imagination to be like a sensitive spider at its web, catching “the very air we breathe” and converting “the very pulse of the air into revelations.”
But like most writers, Enriquez has had his share of ups and downs in his 40-year writing career.
His early short stories wee published by the Philippine Herald and Philippine Graphic in 1962. His first short story was rejected by the editor of the Sunday Times Magazine who could not believe that such a polished story could be written by an unknown Mindanaoan.
That editor, who confessed to his error of judgment when Enriquez was already reaping prizes for his fiction in later years, is now a columnist for a daily in Cebu City.
Enriquez, who is today based in Cagayan de Oro City, drove to Iligan City for an interview with the Inquirer Mindanao. He joked a lot about the writing craft in what was an incoherent interview because of the presence of Inquirer correspondent Bobby Timonera, the poet Tony Tan, the novelist’s ethno-musicologist wife Joy and grandson Julien Patrick contributed to that freewheeling mood.
“Subanons” was easy to write, Enriquez confided. Some events in the novel, especially the atrocities committed against the Subanons, were witnessed by Enriquez.
In the late ‘70s when he was still with the Ministry of Information, he accompanied Joy several times to Lapuyan, Zamboanga del Sur. Joy was doing research on the Subanon eight-episode epic, the unpublished, “Gambatetu.”
But it was the piercing cry of a 15-year-old Subanon killed by soldiers on suspicion of being a communist that gave impetus to the writing of “Subanons.”
No one really pays attention to the Subanons, they complained to Enriquez in the course of his data gathering. In fact, the Subanons are sore that their building of our national hero, Jose Rizal’s house in Dapitan has never been acknowledged. Not even a street is named after them.
Enriquez learned much from the Russian writers, Anton Chekhov and Vladimir Nabokov. He admires them so much that he named his other grandson, Anton Vladimir, son of his only child Vanessa.
From Chekov, Enriquez learned to describe scene’s vividly as well as the tricks in unraveling the story. From Nabokov, Enriquez learned good writing.
Enriquez learned from other writers as well. He owes debts to N.V.M. Gonzales for local color. Nick Joaquin for his language and his understanding of Spanish culture, and, Graham Green for his profundity through simple language.
Toward the end of the interview, Enriquez refused to name any promising fictionist writing in this decade. Although he acknowledged their “more polished use of language,” he said they “confuse him” for “sometimes they have no stories to tell.”
His friendly advice is for them to learn from the masters by “reading more.”
Enriquez asserts that Filipino novelists can hold their own among foreign novelists, adding that they are just as good in terms of technique and use of language, like Bienvenido Santos, Wilfredo Nolledo who “dazzles,” and Jose Dalisay and his “breathtaking prose.”
As the conversation shifted to why Filipinos are reading the native speakers in English more than their own writers who have actually mastered English and made I their own, Enriquez quoted Nick Joaquin when they met during a workshop in Davao City: “Filipino writers in the ‘30s, in showing our grandfather’s world, made us look subservient because they only saw what the American language saw.”
Of course, this is not true anymore of today’s writers for we only have to judge what Enriquez has achieved.
Writing “Subanons” for Filipinos and presenting it in his own terms is, no doubt, Enriquez’s way of fulfilling their need for illumination about a Mindanao experience, thus enriching Philippine literature and contributing to its flowering in diversity as well as in maturity.

Sources
Book
Enriquez, Antonio R. “Subanons.” Complete and Unabridged. Philippine Writers Series 1999 Likhaan: Sentro ng Malikhaing Pagsulat, University of the Philippines Press Printery Division, 1999.

Electronic Source:

http://www.esnips.com/user/arenriquez

http://www.zamboanga.com/Literature/Zamboanga_Literature_Awards_Tony_Enriquez_UMPIL1.htm

http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=Subanons%2C+a+novel+by+Antonio+Enriquez&vc=&fr=yfp-t-501&toggle=1&cop=mss&ei=UTF-8&fp_ip=PH

http://www.scribd.com/doc/7271149/Selected-Book-Reviews-Antonio-Enriquez?autodown=doc

http://www.zamboanga.com/Literature/Zamboanga_Literature_non-fiction-novel_The_Revolt_of_General_Gueremon_Tenorio7-2006.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_Palanca_Awards

Add-ons: 1993 Palanca Awards
The Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature winners in the year 1993 (rank, title of winning entry, name of author).
[edit] English division
Novel
Grand Prizes: “Killing Time in a Warm Place” by Jose Y. Dalisay Jr.; and “Subanons” ni Antonio R. Enriquez Badingin
Short story
First Prize: “The Axolatl Colony” by Jaime An Lim
Second Prize: “Molde Perdido” by Myra L. Go
Third Prize: “Blood on the Moon” by Mig Alvarez Enriquez
Short story for children
First Prize: “The Man Who Hated Birds” by Leoncio P. Deriada
Second Prize: “The Boy and the Tree of Time” by Jaime An Lim; and “The Pillow Cat” by Marivi Soliven
Third Prize: “Little Bird, Little Fish and the Elephant” by Victorino Manalo; and “The Bamboo Who Wanted to Become a Christmas Tree” by Erlinda Acacio Flores
Poetry
First Prize: “Poems for Muddas” by Anthony L. Tan
Second Prize: “In Time Passing and Other Poems” by Elsa Martinez Coscolluela
Third Prize: “Excerpt from the Unfinished Life” by Mariano Kilates
Essay
First Prize: “Undoing Secrets” by Ma. Luisa A. Igloria
Second Prize: “Listening to My Father” by Victorino Manalo
Third Prize: “Bad Boy, Robin, Baad, Baad Boy” by Jessica Zafra
One-Act Play
First Prize: “Paper Anniversary” by Corinna Esperanza A. Nuqui
Second Prize: “And There Was Light” by Edelisa C. Cruz
Third Prize: “A Jewel for Two” by Ruby Senatin
Full-length Play
First Prize: “The Comfort of Women” by Elsa Martinez Coscolluela
Second Prize: “Death in the Form of A Rose” by Anton Juan Jr.
Third Prize: “Besame Mucho, Love Me Forever” by Rolando S. Tinio
[edit] Filipino division
Novel
Grand Prizes: “Bulaklak ng Maynila” by Domingo Landicho; and “Moog” by Buenaventura S. Medina Jr.
Short story
First Prize: “Rosal” by Mayette Bayuga
Second Prize: “Kamusta na Bok?” by Marco A.V. Lopez
Third Prize: “Lihim sa Tag-araw” by Honorio Bartolome De Dios; and “Wala sa Sarili” by Froilan Sempio Medina
Short story for children
First Prize: “Kuwento ni Malinis” by Rene O. Villanueva
Second Prize: “Si Burnay, ang Batang Palayok” by Augie D. Rivera Jr.
Third Prize: “Ang Paglalakbay ni Butirik, ang Dyip na Masungit” by Adora Balmes
Poetry
First Prize: “Pangunungkan at iba pang Saliksik” by Roberto T. Añonuevo
Second Prize: “Ang Lunes na Mahirap Bunuin” by Nicolas B. Pichay
Third Prize: ”Ilang Pagtutuwid sa Paraan ng Pagtawid” by Fidel Rillo Jr.
Essay
First Prize: “May Katulong sa Aking Sopas” by Reuel Molina Aguila
Second Prize: “Soledad: Ang Mga Babae sa Kanilang Pag-iisa” by Glecy C. Atienza
Third Prize: “Paano ba Umuwi Sa Sariling Bayan” by Cesar Aljama
One-Act Play
First Prize: No winner
Second Prize: “Kristo Tagala” by Ramon C. Jocson and Fernando Villarca Cao
Third Prize: “Madumi” by Allan L. Palileo
Full-length Play
First Prize: “Separasyon” by Lito Casaje
Second Prize: “Aninag, Anino” by Jose Y. Dalisay Jr.
Third Prize: “Ang Butihing Babae ng Timog” by Jose Y. Dalisay Jr.; and “Ang Ninoy ni Ninay” by Ramon C. Jocson
Teleplay
First Prize: “Ang Kuwento ni A” by Rolando S. Tinio
Second Prize: “Magnanakaw” by Rolando F. Santos
Third Prize: “Karatula” by Mes De Guzman

Teaching by Principles by Douglas Brown

2008-12-07T04:42:00.000-08:00

Reflection #4:

All things flow; nothing abides
One cannot step twice into the
Same river; Into the same rivers
We step and do not step; We are
and we are not.

Education as a social institution is seen from the pragmatic point of view, as the source of social transformations, and the catalytic agent of these changes is the school. Consequently, education is a process of growth and development. The learner is possessed with the necessary capacity to develop the habits useful in social adjustment. Thus, teaching is guiding and facilitating learning enabling the learner to learn, setting the conditions of learning

Below is the paradigm of the over-all concept of teaching.

Furthermore, teaching as reflected in the schema refers to something that takes place only when learning does. No matter what the teacher is doing in his classes, if his students are not learning something significant, he is not teaching. When the student fails, the teacher fails more.

It is along the above-context that the teaching principles pioneered by Brown would definitely serve as true basis in language teaching. As noted, there are three basic teaching principles, namely: Cognitive, Affective, and Linguistic.

As regards cognitive aspect, language teachers are expected not be hooked to teaching of the target language, English in a structural way. Although, grammatical competence is but part of the communicative dimensions, but one should consider that mastering forms alone is a futile exercise without meaning. Thus, Canale and Swain valuably substantiate the intermarriage between form/structure and meaning in the teaching of language. Once properly established, students would employ language in an automatic way without mental reservations. Thus, the students would basically experience a life-long and meaningful learning

In addition, once such level of linguistic competence is fully satisfied, students would be driven to do things more in consonance with their knowledge and skills of the English language. Since they have now built “self-confidence” as well as intrinsically motivated in using it, the students would not be afraid in doing future works/transactions done in English for they would be expecting(anticipating) better results in the future. Hence, they could easily manage to dwell on whatever language activities they would meet in the future.

Affective principles(warm and fuzzy principle), on the other pole, would also boost the morale/ego of the students in using the target language, English. Assisting the students properly kindled with matching sense of emotions would basically stimulate their inner drives to learn the language incessantly though with errors. However, errors are part of learning. Once, the students would be able to cross the bridge(new mode of thinking, feeling, and acting—second identity), they would be incessantly crafting their inner self-confidence necessary in combating future language difficulties. Once self-confidence is honed in them, students would become risk-takers in producing and interpreting language that is a bit beyond their language capacity. Thus, exposing students to any communicative situations would challenge them to engage in manifesting their knowledge and skills in the employment of the English language. At one hand, in the process of teaching the English language, it could not be reneged that every language teacher is expected to inject cultural values, practices, and norms associated with the language—for language is culture. Consequently, if students understand the culture of the target language, English, they would be eager to learn more about how to use it in transacting future endeavors without fear.

In terms of linguistic principles, individual learner is assumed to acquire language in an unconscious manner since he/she is endowed with the innate capacity to learn the language(Chomsky as cited in Brown, 2000). Such capacity is contained in a black box known as the Language Acquisition Device(LAD), the universal linguistic theory. As divulged, students’ native language has a strong influence on the acquisition of the English language system. Though the native language will have facilitating and interfering effects on the production and comprehension of the new language, the students would then acknowledge that such interfering effects would pave them to assess and identify that the structure of the native language is entirely different from that of the English language. As a result, they would start thinking directly on the target language, which is a salient feature in learning it. Such practice would actually aid students to avoid the first language “crutch” syndrome. Although in the process of learning a new language, students tend to nativize the target language(interlanguage effect= L1 and L2) which lead them to commit errors classified as local or global. For instance, a certain student who says “Does Eric can write?” may sound to be correct since it follows an internalized systematic rule which requires a pre-posed do auxiliary for English question formation. Teachers on this context should never interfere in correcting such local error but rather provide other similar samples for students to internalize the “correctness” of their statements. Hence, the principle of automaticity works here. However, if meaning suffers because of construction(global error), language teachers should come in and provide constructive feedbacks(verbal and non-verbal forms) so students would have an open arm to accept suggestions for possible growth and development in the process of learning and acquiring a new language, English.

Synthesizing the preceding contexts, one can infer that if students are honed to possess all those experiences, their communicative competence would be at par.
Communicative competence, according to Dell Hymes(cited in Brown, 1994, 2000), refers to the aspect of a person’s competence that enables him to convey and interpret messages in order to negotiate meanings interpersonally within specific contexts. There are four components or subcategories that make up the construct of communicative competence (Canale and Swain as cited in Brown, 1994, 2000). These are: (1) Linguistic or Grammatical Competence which encompasses “knowledge of lexical items and of rules of morphology, syntax, sentence-grammar semantics, and phonology. Thus, it is the competence that one associates with mastering the linguistic code of a language—focusing on sentence-level grammar; (2) Discourse Competence(the complement of linguistic competence in many ways) which refers to one’s ability to connect sentences in stretches of discourse and to form a meaningful whole out of a series of utterances. In short, discourse competence is concerned with intersentential relationships; (3) Sociolinguistic Competence which refers to the knowledge of the socio-cultural rules of language and of discourse. As such, this competence basically requires an understanding of the social context in which language is used: the role of the participants, the information they share, and the function of the interaction; and (4) Strategic Competence which pertains to the “verbal and non-verbal communication strategies that may be called into action to compensate for breakdowns in communication due to performance variables or due to insufficient competence.”

As glossed, the various teaching principles of Brown have paved us language teachers an avenue to really develop the language competency of our students. We need to approach language problems(local or global) of our students in a holistic point of view so as not to jeopardize their innate capacity to learn the target language, English.

Integrative Theory of Canale and Swain

2008-12-07T04:14:00.001-08:00

Reflection #3:

One way of developing the communicative competence of the students in learning the target language, English, Canale and Swain (1980) encouraged every language teacher to fuse structure/form with meaning. By doing so, every language learner would be trained to learn English in a holistic approach capitalizing these two essential components of language as a sign system relevant in expressing their ideas freely without hassles.

More pervasively, communicative competence which primarily concerns with the knowledge or capability of a person to appropriately coordinate the rules of language structure and the rules of language use, Munby (1978) substantiated such claim of Canale and Swain. According to him, linguistic competence is an essential part of communicative competence which could not be divorced from other elements of communicative competence. Shown in this context, if language teachers would only be cognizant on their immediate role in motivating students to put into use their knowledge in actual communication situations then effective language learning is not far from reality.
However, since language teachers are always bombarded with lots of responsibilities(no breathing space!), they tend to go back to the traditional way of teaching the English language. As a result, language teaching here becomes so ordinary that somehow would not challenge students to learn to love the subject. Teaching along this vein would not be able to foster effective changes on the part of the language learners.
As depicted above, there should be a paradigm shift to be done by all language teachers. The concept of openness is a viable ingredient in attaining such expected task. All language teachers then should have an open arm in embarking the theory of Canale and Swain for possible changes to occur in their teaching. These are the steps involved in embarking such theory: (1) language teachers introduce the functions of language( e.g. communicating information, using appropriate language, giving instructions/directions, appreciating descriptions, explaining a process, and drawing inferences and making logical conclusions); (2) to realize those language functions, language teachers introduce the notions of language(e.g. improving listening skills through attentive, marginal, critical, and appreciative listening, observing correct and complete sentence structure, observing correct S-V concordance, punctuating sentences correctly, giving instructions and directions, carrying out instructions in forms of commands and requests, using descriptive words that are appealing to the five senses, making an inquiry on how to organize the sequence of the steps in the process, asking questions after a given explanation, observing proper ways in coordinating and subordinating ideas, using inferences in forming intelligent opinions, making observations and gathering facts on what has been heard, read and observed, and by establishing sequence of events properly; (3) After accomplishing numbers 1 and 2, language teachers are now ready to teach grammar corresponding to the language functions and notions established at the very outset employing appropriate language activities. For instance, language teachers could introduce imperative sentences to their students utilizing the language functions and notions of giving instructions/directions.
Once those steps are systematically observed by all language teachers, learning the target language, English, among the learners would become easier and functional—since this is a life-long type of learning deemed necessary in doing and accomplishing future tasks. As deduced, integrative theory of Canale and Swain is very much functional in the teaching of grammar to students. -Dr. Jerry G. Roble

Integrative Theory of Canale and Swain

2008-12-07T04:14:00.000-08:00

A teacher is…

2008-12-06T07:26:00.000-08:00

"One who, in his youth, admired teachers."
H.L Menken

Principles of Automaticity and Meaningful Learning and other related concepts

2008-12-06T05:07:00.000-08:00

Reflection #2:

It is so refreshing to be able to read once again articles on topics like these. Basically, the principles are not new. In fact, these have been discussed and studied through all these years by psychologists, theorists and scholars on language learning and teaching. And what’s good with this is that even if there are so many principles presented by different theorist, they do not quite clash with each other rather they complement from one principle to another. I have heard of these theories way back my college years and have been thoroughly discussed by our language professors may it be in strategies of teaching or in psychology of teaching. As education students, we were exposed to these different theories. It is just that no matter how very common and maybe over studied these principles are, these are also forgotten, if not disregarded most of the times by educators hence, the cause of failure in handling language classes. And I am glad to have relearned these things that are why I said it is so refreshing.

Honestly, I go for the cognitive principles specifically the principles of Automaticity and meaningful learning among all others. I find these more realistic and applicable. In my teaching experience I have always believed on the innate knowledge of students and their capability to learn the natural way because accordingly there is already that lexicon in every man’s system. Language is learned automatically without going through a certain process and procedure. It means that it is built on and never has it required much effort. This is quite true for first langauge learners. But even with the second language learners, learning is automatic; it is as if they already know this information without going through the detail of learning it. It means that there is no such pattern like this is what is supposed to be learned first and this is what are not supposed to be learned. In this principle, automatic learning is learning all at once without much effort.

I believe there is nothing wrong with this principle as this actually addresses the natural way of a child to learn. However, that Automaticity alone defeats the purpose of acquiring proficient learning because for that previous knowledge to be worthwhile, it has to have meaning. In other words, language learning should be meaningful. And this is quite true. It suggests that as a child learns a language, the best, easiest and most meaningful way is associative. This means that each detail of information is associated to sound, symbols, and experience and the likes to make it more meaningful and therefore, there is retention to learning as opposed to rote learning which is learning information in isolated bits that are not connected with one’s existing cognitive structure.

Aside from the two principles I specifically mentioned, all the rest of the principles are contributory to one’s learning. They actually enhance language learning of individual in varied ways. These may be varied and are presented in different principles, views and angles but as I personally see it and as based from my personal experience in language learning and even in my experience as a teacher myself, all these principles have effect on language learning. The impact may differ but in whatever way, they surely contribute to one’s learning.

Man has these different aspects namely cognitive, affective and linguistic, each aspect needs to be tapped and addressed accordingly. In cognitive concept of language learning, motivation is even important as well as the concept of one’s anticipation of reward in learning and so with intrinsic motivation and the important role of strategies and Instructional Materials. Other principles which fall under affective such as language ego, self-confidence, risk – taking and language – culture connection are factual concepts we cannot do away in language learning because it always follows that every time we learn a language, we attribute it to culture thus we cannot just dislodge the notion of language-culture connection. They always go together.

Moreover, the linguistic concept, as I have understood, also speaks about Noam Chomsky’s Nativist theory of Language Acquisition. Everything, as I have mentioned in my previous earlier, works together as an important entity in an individual’s language learning.

Lastly, let me wind up this reflection with my own notion on language learning based from the theories I have read. I strongly believe that no isolated principle or theory will ever work best in isolation as far as language learning is concerned. They definitely work hand in hand and are quite true in language acquisition. All have important contribution in language learning. But it is not necessary that all individuals have gone through or would go through the same pattern in language learning.

Acquisition vs. Learning

2008-12-06T04:04:00.000-08:00

Reflection #1:

Sometimes it is thought that acquisition and learning are the same but as far as second language learning is concerned, these are two different processes. In Krashen’s Monitor Model (1981, 1982), it has been described that both “acquired” and “learnt” knowledge are located at the left brain. However, the difference between the two is that, the acquired knowledge or implicit knowledge is located in the language area while the learnt or explicit knowledge is not but is available for monitoring purposes. According to the underlying principle of this theory, acquisition is a subconscious process and of “acquiring” a language as a result of an individual’s exposure and participation to natural communication. Unconsciously while an individual interacts he unknowingly absorbs and acquires new language and are stored in the language area. Without giving much effort, the speaker acquires the language because of his constant and natural exposure. The important thing here is that the communicators’ understand each other and are a able to decode the meaning of what the other person is communicating. On the other hand, learning occurs as a result of conscious study of the formal properties of the language. This involves grammar structure, sounds and meaning.

I agree with the proponent of this theory. This is definitely true. Learning can never be equated with acquisition. In other words, there is not much effort in acquiring knowledge unlike learning. While it is true that acquisition of knowledge is implicit and that it comes out of the blue, this is being supported by the theory of John Locke which principle suggests that the mind of a child is like a blank slate, a tabula rasa. Therefore, it is capable of recording anything around his environment and I think this is how I have understood Noam Chomsky’s Universal grammar where such principle stipulates that a child acquires this grammar as he uses it to create correct and appropriate grammatical sentences in the language to which they are exposed. In fact, in linguistics, we are also taught of a thing called “lexicon” which refers to our mental dictionary. In other words, the child unconsciously creates a mental dictionary in his language exposure. He maximizes this acquired knowledge in his communication and interaction with other people.

And since learning is a different thing and can never be interchanged with acquisition, as it requires one’s effort and conscious way of studying specific language, one should give much effort to learning than just merely acquiring. This is where the need for formal school comes in. It is in the school where we are taught of the prescriptive grammar as the school is the authority to give rules in second language learning.

The question now is how this theory can be best applied in actual language teaching practice for second language learning. Just as how simple the question is, the answer is also very simple and maybe in some ways, hard to comprehend. But basically, this theory can be best applied in our own teaching field, specifically in language teaching. We start with the micro before we go to the macro. Teachers are supposed to maximize the innate language ability of the child and capitalize this for him to learn the macro way in language. We cannot expect a child to learn other languages unless we learn their language (their legitimate system) and never reject it and maximize this child’s exposure in his own right for him to learn wider and broader knowledge by connecting his own language to what is acceptable and understood universally.

When we apply this to our class (where students have their own language that we sometimes don’t understand), we cannot enforce our own and teach them other languages but as I have said earlier, we allow them to connect this previous learning to what is accepted universally. That way, we open their doors to learning that is more worthwhile and at the same time we are motivating a child to love “to learn” rather than “hate to learn” language. We should not enforce language learning to a child as something that is hard to do as this will create trauma to a child’s experience. But we should make them realize that indeed it is part of their system and that there’s nothing they should be frightened of about language learning and development.

As teachers or language teachers, our biggest role is to enhance love for learning among individuals and make them feel good that they are not discriminated. We should make them feel accepted and that whatever he has learned is something that makes him who he is and the things that we will help him learn can help him who will he become in the future. Definitely, we could not unlearn what the child has already learned, in that sense, as language is innate among individuals, it is just imperative to enhance his own language so that he will become more productive.

The bottom line is, language is part of man’s person as he is. And that it functions as an important element for his communication at the time he started to reach out and communicate with others even before he starts to walk. In other words, we don’t teach and change a child as far as language development is concerned but we are supposed to develop in him what he has stored already in his system. In short, we can capitalize his acquired knowledge, allow our students to collate and connect his acquired knowledge to learning so that his second language learning can be easier and interesting.

A message of thanks to all GREAT TEACHERS in this world

2008-12-04T08:51:00.000-08:00

thank you for being such wonderful teachers, exemplary role models, and caring people. Thank you for knowing your subjects and sharing your knowledge. Thank you for not being afraid to treat students like real people. Thank you for showing acceptance, approval, and appreciation. These are all gifts that are so important to a student's development and that your students will always remember, just as they will also remember you.

Words of encouragement, a little respect and simple gestures of kindness from a teacher promote the perfect climate for students to study, learn, and grow. Your attitude translates into a spirit of friendliness and goodwill toward others in a sometimes unfriendly world. Progress is easier in an atmosphere of creative, freedom, joy, and ease and you foster the feeling in your classroom.

I salute the good work you have done, I appreciate the people you are, and I hank you for your positive influence. You have passed n invaluable instruction and wisdom and created pleasurable moments associated with learning that will always be sweet memories.

Thank you for answering the call to be teachers. Thank you for the enduring impression you've made in the lives you have touched. Every community needs people like. Your contributions are immeasurable. Your lessons are permanent. You improve our world. You are so important. - Donna Fargo

Teaching as an art

2008-12-04T08:47:00.000-08:00

"Not only is there an art in knowing a thing, but also a certain art in teaching it." - Cicero

What is a teacher?

2008-12-04T08:20:00.000-08:00

a teacher is someone who sees each child as a unique person
and encourages individual talents and strengths.

a teacher looks beyond each child's face
and sees inside their souls.

a teacher is someone with special touch and a ready smile
who takes time to listen to both sides and always tries to be fair.

a teacher has a caring heart
that respects and understands.

a teacher is someone who can look past disruption and rebellion,
and recognize hurt and pain.

a teacher teaches the entire child
and helps to build confidence and raise self-esteem.

a teacher makes a difference in each child's life
and affects each family

and the future of us all.

- Barbara Cage

metaphor of a teacher's influence

2008-12-03T05:51:00.000-08:00

"Imagine a wave, breaking in, pausing, and returning to the ocean. Note that the wave, upon returning to the community carries with it a residue, a part of the sacred shore."

-Foster & Little, 1980