Filipino Maker Spotlight: Speak Pinoy

Who is the creator of Speak Pinoy?

I’m Vanessa, a 35-year-old half-Filipina born and raised in New Zealand, and a proud second generation Filipino. I’m a marketing professional by trade, and language lover by passion. I didn’t grow up knowing how to speak Filipino. In fact, I ended up learning Spanish at University instead, because I felt it was the closest language available to Filipino. In learning Spanish, I saw the benefits of having good teachers and good resources in learning the language that I wanted to do the same for Filipino.

What do they make? 

Online and print language learning resources, to learn either Tagalog and Visaya/ Cebuano the fun way for kids and adults.

Printables

Flash Card Game

Posters

Where can you get their products?

• Flash card game and posters in New Zealand 
• Online resources available worldwide. Download them here for free!

Why do they do what they do?

Vanessa: "When I was growing up, I was this little kid trying to learn Filipino from a dictionary as it was the only resource we had at home. After learning Spanish and also teaching English in Chile, and using lots of cool resources availble for teaching, I wanted to create something that wasn’t available to me when I was a child. I wanted to try a different approach to learning Filipino to make it easier for people to learn and to teach their kids."

Why we love them

Speak Pinoy’s language learning resources are:

• Simple
• Fun
• Colourful

Speak Pinoy’s brand philosophies of:

• Creating a fun experience around the language   
• Parents are not language teachers, they don’t have the background or experience, so these tools can help to guide parents with new ideas for teaching

"Speaking with Vanessa felt like speaking to a kindred spirit. It felt really good to meet someone who has the same passion and vision in creating learning materials for the next generation of Filipino kids, wherever they are in the world.

Seeing things through her point of view also taught me a very important lesson as a first generation parent, she made me aware that using the ability to speak another language to talk about my kids in front of them or express difficult emotions- in her experience, actually gave her a negative association to the language.

Vanessa believes expressing difficult emotions in another language is natural, but emphasises it should be balanced with positive and fun language experiences. It was a revelation, and a very important lesson learned."

- Camille

Find Speak Pinoy on Instagram @speakpinoy

Spotlight: Filipino Makers Series

When we started Campfire Crates, we found it difficult to find quality Filipino Learning Resources, and part of the reason was that they all weren't in one place. And that's something we hope to work at to get the resources we need for our families.

With your help, we are creating a Directory of Filipino Learning Resources!

We hope our work here can shine a spotlight on the amazing Filipinos around the world doing amazing work for Filipino language and culture education and celebration, and help you find them all in one place.

Be featured! Are you a Filipino learning resources creator, author, performer, artist, publisher or indie seller for kids? Send us a note at hello@campfirecrates.com. Can't wait to meet you.