Yale University in Connecticut, United States is set to offer Tagalog courses starting in the fall of 2025, and they need a Filipino lecturer to make it happen.
This exciting development comes after Tagalog@Yale, an initiative by Yale’s Filipinx club Kasama, pushed for formal Tagalog language classes last year, according to Yale Daily News, the school’s student newspaper.
Now, the university’s Council on Southeast Asian Studies is on the hunt for Filipino (Tagalog) lecturer to teach six courses per year over a three-year term, with the potential for renewal.
Not only will this lecturer teach Tagalog, but he or she will also work with educators in Vietnamese and Indonesian to enhance Yale’s Southeast Asian Studies offerings, including study abroad opportunities.
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Prior to this, Yale students could only study Tagalog through a program called Directed Independent Language Study, which didn’t offer course credits. But with Tagalog being the fourth most-spoken language in the US, students wanted a more structured, credit-bearing class.
“Tagalog is the fourth most-spoken language in the US,” said Janina Gbenoba, a Kasama member active in the initiative, according to the report. She added that the Filipino community at Yale deserves a space for their language.
“We feel very strongly about it having a place at Yale, both for members of Yale’s Filipino community and because we really do believe that even people outside of the Filipino culture would have an interest in studying it,” said the student.
