THE JAPANESE language is one among the first three languages of DepEd’s Special Program for Foreign Language (SPFL) initiated in SY 2009-2010 and implemented in selected public secondary schools. The two other foreign languages are Spanish and French. German, added in 2011, was followed by Chinese in 2012. DepEd collaborates with the respective cultural institutes such as the Instituto Cervantes, Alliance Francais Manila and Cebu, Japan Foundation, Goethe Institut and Angeles University Foundation’s Confucius Institute, respectively, for the summer language training of select public secondary school teachers to teach these languages. The languages in the SFLP are offered beginning in junior and continued to senior year secondary level and are for students who have demonstrated competence in English and capable of learning other foreign languages.

Like Spanish, Japanese language in the Philippine educational system is not a new phenomenon. During the two years of Japanese occupation (1942-44 – WWII), Japanese was taught in Philippine schools. I learned Japanese together with hiragana and katakana at the Holy Spirit during those years. The first Filipino President of the University of San Carlos in Cebu who was my batch mate at the Holy Spirit excelled in our Nihongo class and in inter school competitions. A quarter of a century later, my earlier years of learning Japanese influenced me to take up summer studies in Japanese literature and classical theatre at Sophia University (Jochi Daigaku) – a Jesuit university and considered “one of Japan’s top private universities.” (https://www.sophia.ac.jp/eng/e_top/global.) It was a very pleasant summer experience what with reading the haikai we wrote while on a picnic --- made more memorable with cherry blossoms all around in myriad shades of pink; the weekend nights at the Ginza for the kabuki performance as subject for our reflection papers, or the noh and kyogen staged at some temple shrine and the bunraku (puppet show) at other sites

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