Tagalog With Kirby

I’m a first generation Filipina — American that grew up speaking only English and unaware of the richness of our Filipino culture and history. As I learned more about it through Filipino Martial Arts training, I wanted to learn how to understand and speak Tagalog for myself and my daughter. I tried learning it on my own, but was unsuccessful.
Then, our head instructor began taking Tagalog lessons with Kirby and even shared one of his lessons with us. By the end of it, I spoke more and understood more Tagalog in 20 minutes than I had most of my adult life. It gave me a win that maybe I’m not as bad at Tagalog as I thought and should give learning another try. Thankfully, our martial arts academy arranged for Kirby to teach a weekend-​long seminar at the school and I knew that was my chance.
Before the workshop, I had the usual nervousness and self-​consciousness of doing something different and learning something new. That all went away once the workshop was underway. She is extremely patient, friendly, and very knowledgeable. I’m a very technical person who needs context and lots of practice. Her approach is a perfect blend of technical instruction and real life conversational application. Plus, her easy-​going and fun personality makes it more like a conversation with a friend and less like a traditional class. She explained how to do things and why (which is big deal for me) and then gave us a lot of conversation scenarios to start speaking with each other (my favorite part of the workshop).
As I said before, I want to learn Tagalog for my family legacy and to be able to share it with my pre-​teen daughter. She didn’t join us for the first day of the workshop and I’m always afraid I’m pushing too hard. My head instructor suggested I invite her to learn with us the second day and I’m so thankful I did! Initially, she wasn’t that interested, but thanks to Kirby, the fact we were learning among our IMPACT family, and my daughter and I were partnered together, we both had the best time! More importantly, my daughter was excited to learn Tagalog, was taking notes on her own, eagerly participating during the entire workshop, and afterwards couldn’t wait to share her new knowledge with her Tagalog speaking ninong (godfather) and grandparents (my parents!)
Being able to speak Tagalog with her, to see own desire sparked to learn more about Tagalog and the culture, and to hear Tagalog in her sweet little voice was incredible; it reinforced that my investment into the workshop was more than worth it and that Kirby is an effective teacher. It’s never too early or too late to learn Tagalog and Kirby can definitely help you get there.

So being a native of the Philippines and coming to US at a young age, overtime you forget how to speak the native language — Tagalog. It is a language that all Filipino should know. But when you have the nanay (mom) and tatay (dad) who doesn’t know how to teach you the language that’s where you will feel like you never spoke the language! Not anymore!
Joanne has been a great teacher to the Tagalog language. She teaches you from the beginning– vocabularies, sentence structure, alphabets and vowels sounds as a foundation. I’ve been to classes where they just teach you words and expects you to do the rest without explanation. Joanne writes what you say and helps you correct the sentence so you can see and begin to understand your mistake for better learning.
Yeah it’s online and I was skeptical at first too but it’s like if she was right in front of you with the use of the white board and her sending you downloaded materials. If you ever took an online college course and you watched your professor teach via web, it’s really no different here. If you can learn courses online then you can learn a language too!