A Day of Language Study

We have done several posts about various adventures we have had and places we have been able to visit in our down time. But we are not gallavanting around the country ALL the time. We have never told you exactly what it is we do all day.

Steve and I are both in full-time language study. Which means that we are at it for at least 8 hours per day. Steve gets up early every morning to spend time in the Word and study his lessons. After spending time in the Word and getting the kids ready for the day, we both begin class at 8:00 am every morning. We have 2 teachers that come to our home every morning. They are both wonderful Christian ladies who have taught Tagalog for a long time now. We begin class by meeting all together and discussing various topics on Filipino culture.

After discussing culture for 10-20 minutes, we split off for individual class until 10 am. Ate Marie is my teacher, and we meet in Steve and my bedroom. Ate Marie's husband is a pastor at a small local church that we visited last week, and will probably attend there fairly often. Steve has class with Ate Edwina back in the office. Ate Edwina has been teaching Tagalog for 30 years now! Here's a piece of trivia for you - did you know that I have actually lived here in Lipa City before? When my parents were studying Tagalog in 1979 (I was still a baby) we lived here in Lipa. Amazingly, Ate Edwina was one of my parents' teachers back then!

After class ends at 10, we usually work on homework, prepare for our coach session in the afternoon, do emails, or run errands. I often spend some time during this hour instructing our house helpers with what to do that day or how to cook lunch.

At 11:00, I start teaching Mikayla homeschool - also in our bedroom. She is learning fast, and that hour is (usually) one of my favorite in the day. This year, I am only teaching her reading and writing. Next year - once I am further along in language study - we will be able to launch into the exciting world of math as well.

We have lunch together as a family at noon. Then at 1:00, our language coaches arrive and stay until 3:00. Steve and I each have a language coach. Language coaches are different than our teachers because they have no training or experience in teaching Tagalog. They are simply native speakers who are willing to help us out (they do get paid too!). While our teachers stay the same all the time, we are supposed to regularly switch out our language coaches so that we are exposed to a variety of ways of saying things. Steve has male coaches, and I have female ones. Our coaches usually don't speak much (if any) English. So they are usually unable to help with grammar questions, but they are great for practicing what we are learning and for learning new vocab. Here, I am doing just that with my current language helper, Rona. I point to a picture, and she says what is happening. Then I point to another picture, and she says that one. We repeat the process til I have learned as many new words/sentences as my head will hold.

Raphael has been a frequent language coach for Steve. He speaks excellent English and is able to help Steve with cultural questions and grammar ones too. He is only 16 years old, but is top in his class and a primary leader at their small church. Often we just stay in the house and practice with our coaches through conversation, drills, or games. But sometimes we go out and run errands with them or go visiting with them to practice as well.
After class, I exercise for an hour (I spared you the pics for that part of the day!). I either go jogging or swim laps at the nearby community park, do Pilates or jumprope while watching Tagalog TV, or we go to a gym. After that, we both try to spend time hanging out with our neighbors and just chatting with anyone who will chat with us. Here, Steve is fixing the cabinet door while chatting with Walter, one of his language coaches who also works in our yard once a week.
We eat supper as a family at 5ish, then we either play with the kids, run errands, or go visiting as a family until the kids go to bed at 7:30. After that, Steve and I study our lessons then watch Tagalog TV for exposure time to the language until we head to bed at 10ish. Studying language is hard work, and we both find it very difficult to get our brains to shut off after a day of language study. We have found that watching 1 sitcom episode like Everybody Loves Raymond is a great way to get our brains to relax before trying to sleep. Thankfully, we brought several seasons with us, but we are about ready for some new ones - the re-runs are getting old.

Please continue to pray for us as we press on with language study. There are times where it is incredibly frustrating and overwhelming. We find we are using a lot of ibuprofen for headaches nowadays. But there are other times when we are very encouraged with how much we can already communicate. We both shared our testimonies at a little church on Sunday. Steve did it nearly all in Tagalog until he got to Spiritual things, and I was able to do the virtually the whole thing in Tagalog with a few helps along the way. That was encouraging, but it also served as a reminder to stick with it because after the service, several came up to ask us spiritual questions, and we were unable to go deeper. Talk about motivation to study harder!

Our supervisor and teachers are very encouraged with the progress that we both are making. They say that we are FAR beyond where the "normal" student is after 2 months of study. Their excitement about our progress encourages us when we get overwhelmed with how much we still don't know. Steve is at about a 2+ out of 10, and I am at about a 3+. We have to be at a "5" before we are released from formal, full-time language study and allowed to move to our ministry location. Of course, we will still have a lot of learning to do at that point, but we will be able to begin ministering to our people group in Bicol then.