Pugad Baboy is one of my favorite Filipino comic strips since my elementary days. I could remember how my classmates and I would rush to the library during recess to catch the latest Pugad Baboy strip in the Inquirer Entertainment section. Today, I am using Pugad Baboy as part of our lessons in Filipino. I just love how flexible we can be when we homeschool.
I got the idea of using comics as a Filipino lesson from Edwin, one of my classmates in elementary. He was getting high marks in Filipino. His Filipino vocabulary is huge. I am from Bacolod, thus Filipino/Tagalog is not our native language and I struggle with new words. So I asked him how he got so good in Filipino. He answered that he reads a lot of Pinoy Komiks.
We don’t have Pinoy Komiks today but Pugad Baboy by Pol Medina Jr. was the one I grew up with and is still in publication. So I bought some Pugad Baboy books. Gab and I started reading them. I would just choose the strips for Gab to read. Some jokes are not yet for his age or for his generation (betamax anyone?). 😀
I find Pugad Baboy a good material for learning Filipino conversations. The humor encourages Gab to learn and understand new Filipino words. He already learned new words like sindak, nadurog, and kumunoy. As well as words like ‘taragis, boldyak, and holy syet!
Some dialogues in the scripts may sound pang-kalye but I want Gab to learn that too. He will hear inappropriate words eventually. I might as well, teach them myself. Some jokes may also sound offensive today but I want Gab to discern them for himself.
Using comics as a learning tool was worth a try. So far, it is doing OK and Gab is looking forward to reading more Pugad Baboy books.
