It’s a long way to go.

While others find distance learning as convenient and maybe also easy, it is clearly the opposite. It is challenging. I am on my fourth year in distance learning, second time to shift a major from BET in ADMU, to R&DM in UPOU in 2014-2016, now, I am with Dip Literacy and Language Learning (Ladderized MLLE).

Juggling homesickness, fulltime work and personal needs and my own language learning, there is that constant reminder that I need to get a GWA of at least 2.0 or higher to qualify for Comprehensive Exam to continue to Masters’ Degree next year.

It took me awhile to really figure out where I will prosper and what kind of job I want to do for the rest of my life. It took a few job changes, one major decision to join an NGO and that blessing of being able to work as an OFW and earn a few more bucks and live comfortably in a small room, in a little, quiet town down south of Japan for me to really pursue myself into finishing this goal in the university I had always dreamed of. Yes, ever since high school, I have this dream of owning a Sablay from University of the Philippines.

As of today, I am halfway of the ladderized program and will need to spend 2 more years in continual progress with very high grades to finally graduate and get that Sablay. Apart from that dream, living in Japan, I just realized that I have bigger Second Language Teaching (SLT) goals—in Japan, I dream of being able to train local teachers-not on teaching but on building that confidence that they can teach a second language—Combining confidence and competence with willingness to learn, I think, it will all get somewhere better. There will be no massive need to recruit foreigners, unfortunately there are recruits who most of the time just speak the language but don’t necessarily have the competence to teach but just the oozing confidence and feeling of being privileged. 

Literacy is more than just a cultural exchange experience.

It’s a long way to go. It’s a dream bigger than I can ever imagine for now. But let me celebrate my small achievement of getting a 1.25 in my LLE 204 (Second Language Teaching). It would have been a perfect grade of 1.0 if I really delved into the discussions and went beyond the requirements of the subject. HAHAHA. I think, I should be done with overachieving at this point in my life. 

I am still awaiting my grades in LLE 207 (Evaluation and Assessment in Language Learning), this one really stretched my wits and wrecked my nerves and it still is, coz we are still on the waiting mode for the grades.

Five more subjects to go, a Comprehensive exam, then the pocket rip-off Thesis, I can finally say “Achievement Unlock” then it is time for the next challenge.