General Information

The Advanced Filipino Abroad Program (AFAP), now on its 19th year, is funded by the U.S. Department of Education and administered by the University of Hawaii Center for Southeast Asian Studies.  This year, the program will be held at De La Salle University Dasmariñas and Manila. The summer intensive program will begin on June and end on August.

This summer program is designed to provide American and Filipino American students with the opportunity to learn the Filipino language (Tagalog) in a Philippine setting, through a unique short-term immersion program.   Unlike the typical and conventional travel abroad programs, it focuses on advanced level language acquisition and consists of a structured academic program of four hours every morning and from two to three hours of task-based language use in the afternoon.  The latter activity provides the participants maximum exposure to native speakers outside the classroom.  It is this combination of structured and unstructured learning environments that is difficult to duplicate in the student's home institution.

This program has five primary goals:

• It is designed to provide intensive and specialized instruction in Filipino (Tagalog) for advanced students withing its natural, cultural, and social context.  It will enable participants from a variety of American institutions and different disciplines to supplement their previous training in Filipino and to attain a high level of language competence within a relatively short period of time.
• It is intended to promote cooperation between the United States and the Philippines and stimulate discussions among scholars from these countries.
• It aims to provide in-country experience and preparation which will enable the participants to deal with cross-cultural stress in the Philippine society and to develop the social skills necessary for life in the Philippine society before they go into the field.
• It will provide potential researchers an opportunity to see their chosen area first hand, and to select appropriate research sites and introductory contacts.
• It will provide and test a body of pedagogical materials for intensive language study abroad programs and field test proficiency examinations in Filipino.

The AFAP is funded by the Fulbright-Hays Group Projects Abroad Program since 1991. A consortium of six universities supports this program: Cornell University; University of Hawaii; University of Michigan; University of Wisconsin at Madison; University of California at Berkeley; and University of Washington.   They contribute consortium fees and participate in the selection of participants.

Students' evaluations of this program reveal extremely positive feedback.  Their overall response spoke highly about their maximum exposure to Philippine language and culture.  They attribute significant gains in achieving higher proficiency in Tagalog to this aspect of the program.  it is a level of proficiency in Filipino which existing programs in the United States are not able to achieve.  This experience not only adds immeasurably to their language competence, it develops greater awareness and sensitivity about another culture, and possibly of their own.