As online teaching starts this school year
TACLOBAN CITY- Some students enrolled in this year’s school year may have to be compelled to change their Facebook account names, particularly those using Chinese or Korean characters.
For this year’s school term, students, especially in college and secondary levels, will be resorting to online method of teaching.
The change of method of teaching for this school year, which will formally opened on August 24, was part of the campaign of the national government to address the growing number of coronavirus disease 2019(COVID-19) cases in the country.
For teacher Jocelyn Tualla Balagusa, who handles Grade 12 students at the Leyte National High School (LNHS), based this city, she would be requiring her students who are using Chinese or Korean characters as their FB names or accounts to use their real and complete names beginning first day of classes.
She said that considering that all her students will be required to go online, it would be difficult for her to ‘locate’ them if they are using these characters.
“We teachers will be creating our group chats or FB page. How can we add or locate them (students) if they are using these Chinese characters,” Tualla Balagusa said.
She said that last school year, out of the 45 students she had, only five of them were using their real names.
LNHS is the biggest secondary school in Eastern Visayas biggest with more than 8,000 enrollment.
“So what I did was to call them through their mobile phones,” Tualla Balagusa, who is handling nine sections in Grade 12 teaching HUMSS (humanities and social sciences), said.
And calling her students instead of ‘messaging’ them on their Facebook accounts entail additional expense on her part as she need more ‘load,’ Tualla Balagusa said.
Lemuel Dave, a Grade 11 student at LNHS, said that it is okay for him to change his FB account using his name.
But the problem, he said, it would take 60 days for him to do that.
“I would love to but still I have to wait until 60 days to change it again,” the 16-year old student said.
He has been using his account with Chinese characters for more than eight months now.
The student explained that under the guidelines of Facebook, one can change or replaced his or her account only after the lapse of 60 days or two months.
Heeven Kyle Abiertas, a Grade 9 student, said that he resorted to using Chinese characters as he was ‘bored’ when he created his Facebook account.
“That’s ok. I will just create another FB account using my real name,” the 14-year old student of San Jose National High School, said, adding that he would still continue to use his FB account with the Chinese character.
It’s not clear yet why using Chinese or Korean characters became a fad of sort among young FB users.
But Queen Sofia,14, said that she noticed that almost all of her friends and classmates switched into using Chinese or Korean characters as their FB account names last year.
“We would like to avoid our accounts being hacked or attacked by trolls that is why I and my friends decided to use these characters as our FB accounts,” the Grade 9 student of LNHS, said.
She too, favor to use their real names for this school year though she admitted that she would not close down her original FB account.
For Ariel, who declined not to give his complete name but is using Chinese characters as his FB name, he has no choice but to change his name’s account.
“It’s ok if our teachers will ask me to use my real name in my FB account. I am using these Chinese characters just for fun. I just translated my name using the Google,” the 13-year old who will be entering Grade 9 this school year, said when asked why he is using the Chinese characters as his FB account.
(JOEY A. GABIETA)
