‘Meaningful’
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Previously referred to as English Festival during its birth as an annual three-month-long event in 2016, the English Fortnight was re-christened in 2019 to sustain maximum student engagement while performing all the activities. After its first online iteration in 2021, the English Department originally planned this year’s Fortnight to be co-organized by its other organization, the SISC Debate Club. However, not wanting to overlap the club’s goals of spreading debate culture, the English Department had the recently-reborn SEC take its place.
SEC had its origins as an interest club brought up every school year without a standardized organizational structure. The launching of the SISC Debate Club last 2019 prompted Sir Rey to push for the establishment of a regular English Club to propagate informed English speakers and to make Fortnight a student-led event. Since its reformation as a student-led club last August of 2021, its moderators and officers have been publishing weekly social media content through Instagram posts called Grammar Nuggets, Word of The Week, and Trivia.
“I was thinking and reflecting on what could be an advocacy I can actually share to the department and the school,” Sir Rey said. Following his time in the Global Schools, the English Head embarked on bringing the SDGs—a set of 17 targets of sustainability laid by the United Nations—to classroom activities and student-led initiatives. This first came to fruition in SEC’s first major school-wide event, the SDGs Awareness Month from November 8-29, 2021.
Following this, Sir Rey decided to continue his advocacy by integrating it into English Fortnight.
“I told myself that this year, we should be intentional with our English Fortnight with our activities because the activities that we have is actually a very good way for us to be aware of the SDGs . . . So this time, this year’s theme was more of an advocacy, [with the] intention to teach students using the English language to learn the SDGs.”
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Rey was delighted that the SEC successfully co-organized this year’s event, and hoped for future Fortnights to eventually become completely student-led. The English Head remarked, “It’s actually very meaningful [because] it’s the first time that the SEC was so engaged. This time, it was more of the students who prepared everything.”
‘A large-scale event’ Notwithstanding the two-week delay brought by the January COVID-19 health break, the SEC officially launched English Fortnight 2022 on the morning assemblies of JHS and SHS as the club officers presented their major goals. SEC Head of Membership Enzo Saulog — who was a host in the Opening Ceremony — said, “I’m very excited for what will happen in this year’s English Fortnight since our club was only formed this year and it’s my first time being part of planning a large-scale event like this in SISC.”