SEA Spotlight - 8/30/24 - Lady Aileen Orsal

Harvard University’s Filipino language courses, offered in 2023-24 for the first time in the University’s history, will be on offer again this fall. Filipino Language Preceptor Lady Aileen Orsal will teach the elementary, intermediate, and advanced levels of the courses, which will take students beyond the classroom into a rich community of language learning and cultural immersion.
 
In her newly minted courses in fall 2023, Orsal wanted to create diverse learning environments that reflect the multicultural, multilingual nature of the Philippines. A highlight of last year’s course, which Orsal will continue this fall, was a collaboration with the Harvard Peabody Museum of Archeology and Ethnology, in which students of all levels collaborated to create a mini exhibit entitled “Tahanan (Home),” using objects from the Peabody’s collection of 8,000 ethnographic and photographic materials from the Philippines. Another popular course project that Orsal plans to develop and continue this academic year is working with storybooks by Filipino and Filipino American authors. Students were able to speak with the authors on Zoom to learn about the process of creating culturally rich materials.
 
“One of the things we want to do in class is to really expose [students] to different resources that are available beyond the classroom, so that they can continue learning once the semester is complete,” Orsal explained.
 
Students of Filipino language are encouraged to participate in a number of Filipino groups across campus, including the Harvard Undergraduate Philippine Forum, who started their own Filipino language tables. Some of Orsal’s students also volunteered as facilitators in some language events with Boston University Filipino Students Association and the Tufts Philippine Student Union. According to Orsal, “The Philippines is very much about community so it is a great joy to see these connections being made.”
 
Orsal is excited about this year’s courses as she expands on last year’s successful projects and incorporates valuable student feedback. She plans to begin a monthly get-together to develop mentoring relationships between the different course levels, to assign mini papers on topics related to students’ concentrations, such as health in the Philippines, and to establish more intentional collaborations at Harvard and beyond.
 
“After taking the class, [students] are not only able to survive as a short-term tourist or researcher, they will also be able to find ways to have long, lasting connections—things they may not have expected from a language class, such as a renewed passion for museums, or renewed interest for using their creativity in storytelling,” Orsal says. With more than 7,000 islands, there are a myriad of resources available on the Philippines, and Orsal, as a guide leads students to “cultural and rich language resources that will help them connect to a broader community even in the diaspora.”
 
“[The courses] aren’t just about reconnecting for heritage learners, but about rediscovering the global Filipino in everyone. They not only dig deep in diversity but also emphasize that language is the primary tool for understanding stories, whether those are the stories of families for heritage learners, or the culture of native speakers, which may resonate even to non-heritage students.”
 
Lady Aileen Ambion Orsal obtained her bachelor’s degree in Mass Communication major in Journalism from the Philippines. She then pursued a graduate degree in Philippine Studies at De La Salle University-Manila and is currently working on her dissertation for the PhD Philippine Studies-Language, Culture, Media program. Since her research focus is on the integration of culture in the teaching of Filipino in selected universities in the US, she returned to Northern Illinois University (NIU) which was her host institution when she served as a Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant from August 2018 to May 2019. Last May 2024, she obtained her MA Communication Studies degree from the said institution with a graduate certificate in Southeast Asian Studies. Her research focused on transnational media in the region particularly the case of Netflix in the Philippines. Prior to being hired as the first Filipino language preceptor at Harvard University, she worked as a university instructor for journalism, communication, and language courses in the Philippines for about ten years.

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