There is one major hurdle in teaching English in elementary schools. Most elementary school teachers could not speak English fluent enough to even teach it.

Teachers should take English as a Second Lanquage courses and then pass the appropriate exam before being allowed to teach in English.

[...] Vox Populi: English ‘a must for development’ [...]

SUBJECT: ENGLISH IS A CASH LANGUAGE
RE:
Do you realize the importance of English in the world today?
AS A MATTER OF FACT By Sara Soliven De Guzman
The Philippine Star 04/30/2007
http://www.philstar.com/philstar/NEWS200704302606.htm

My comment on this Star article:

In the U.S. back in the 1970s, many young blacks promoted the use of a Black English dialect saying that it would help their political causes. It was a difficult dialect to understand, by those outside of the Black community and it did not prosper. Many older Black leaders and educators opposed the use of the Black dialect in place of standard English, and a common saying among them was “ENGLISH IS A CASH LANGUAGE”. Their thinking was that it would be difficult for young Blacks to get well paying jobs if they didn’t speak the type of English spoken in corporate America.

My grandparents emigrated to the U.S. from Ireland in the early 1900’s and spoke the language native to Catholic Ireland of Gaelic. Being under English colonization for hundreds of years, they were forced to learn English and today Gaelic is rarely heard. Many older Irish people still hate the British for their oppressive colonization, and blame the British for the deaths of over a million Irish during the Great Famine of 1845-49. (I had an Aunt & Uncle who visited me in Los Angeles some years back. My Aunt wanted to visit the Queen Mary tourist attraction in Long Beach Harbor, but my Uncle refused because he didn’t want to pay to tour a “damn British ship”.) The independent Irish Republic has realized the importance of using the English language to its’ benefit, however. Today Ireland has a strong economy with many U.S. and European industries located there. Were it not for the widespread use of English in Ireland, Dell, IBM, Apple, HP, Intel, Google, Abbott Laboratories and Bell Labs, would probably not have chosen to locate there. Had Gaelic prevailed as the national language it is doubtful that Ireland would be nearly as prosperous as it is today.

The U.S. was once a British Colony, and upon gaining independence English became the predominant language in place of other European languages in use at the time, such as Spanish, French and German. America could have become a Tower of Babel, with different European languages spoken in different areas of the country. The United States would not be “United” with its’ long term strong economy without the unifying language of English.

Naturally, anyone who lived under colonialism resented it, but in hindsight we can see that the use of the international business language of English has helped the economies of those countries who adopted it.

An important question is what is more important – national pride and patriotism OR creating jobs, thus feeding the population and eliminating poverty and hardship. National pride cannot put food on the dinner table.
When a country achieves significant economic gains and can then feed and house all of its’ people, then that is something to be proud of.

It is worrisome to see that the Philippines may be losing its’ advantage in
international competition due to a decline in English skills. Once again:
ENGLISH IS A CASH LANGUAGE.
Mike Green

Let us support each other by letting the other person grow and experience the best of life to its fullest…

All my life, I grew-up in the Philippines but later on migrated to a different country. I did not speak fluent English at that time. As an adult it became harder for me to communicate and landed me with less opportunity. Since then, I pushed myself to the limits to learn English and later on it paid-off.

I am now working in one of the best companies in the world and getting more than I used to and this is the result of by just learning the English language. I can now send money to the Philippines to support my family, my niece can now study in a private school, I can now provide medicine and good food, and I can now help other people to survive! Now, how can you prevent a person from learning the English language in order to have a better life? Naku po! day! Magisip-isip nga kayo!

I agree with the views of Mr. Mike Green regarding his valuable article. Learning the english language (speaking, reading and writing) is really very important. It is the language of international business and anyone who mastered this language has a great advantage in securing a more rewarding career; it does give credits whatever is his/her profession — whether you are working in the Philippines or abroad. The Chinese, Korean and Japanese students are taking extra learning time just to understand well the english language. The British and American students are also harnessing their ability in spelling and grammar of their own language (though they speak well being their own mother tongue), but it is unfortunate that Filipino educators are (maybe) just ignoring the importance of this language over the issue of “patriotism”. I’m an engineer working overseas and even now I am trying to educate myself in learning more the english language because I had realized that learning english grammar is not just enough and one must have the skill also to speak it FLUENTLY (in British or American twang).

Hi,

I agree with all the comments above. In addition, I would say that the continued use of “other” languages, even in our country, does not empower individual Filipinos. Inability to use “english” puts them in the tight grip of “unawareness” which in times misunderstood or mislabelled, which I dislike if anyone does call, as being “ignorant”. No one is “ignorant”, its just being unaware or lack of information and in a way led to lack of confidence. Inability to express and inability to communicate or choose the fitting words/phrase may be the effect of speaking a “not-so-well” developed language or dialect.

Nationalists view on this however seem to disregard the effects. I am not saying we should speak “english”. What I am saying is that “english” should be the forefront of our communication skills. If we use Filipino according to the views of Nationaslists, would in the end spell disunity as the Filipino language could not be an unacceptable mode of communication accross the country. Even if we adopt Filipino across every aspect just like Japan, it would then be too late!

I think it is time to adopt english as a primary language. This will be a Philippine English just like American or Australian English. Am not comparing but stating that this will be our very own as part of our culture but completely understandable accross the globe. Alll other dialect/languages would then be secondary or optional like tagalog, chinese, spanish, arabic, , visayan or tausog.

The effect is unthinkable - ordinary businessmen could expand their market immensely, ordinary men can engage meaningfully about laws, policies and current events. Of course there are more.

The ability to speak good english is one thing to make this a posibility is another thing! Our politician must learn to see the future; our future not their future!

Many thanks to my Kababayan.

Erwin R

Note: this is my final and edited blog. whew! I’ve mistakenly pressed the ’send” button a number of times while typing. thus the typographical errors. My heart-grounded apology! Here it is:

I never dreamed of becoming an English teacher my whole life, though I practically excelled in many scholastic or academic endeavors involving the English language during my days in school.

And later in life, I tried to make myself “marketable” by learning the trade of media and communications. And at some point in my life, worked as a “TeleMarketing Specialist” and being “commended for Excellent Communication Skills.” I also ventured into hosting, voice-over talent, narrator of plays and musicals, musical entertainer, Radio Jock/Announcer, Video Jock, and other communicative mediums.

All these and more, have helped me metamorphose into a better and confident communicator.

I come from the Philippines where English is considered as a second language and is basically used as the medium of instruction in our educational institutions.

Any foreign entities would practically be able to thrive easily anywhere in my country simply because almost everybody understands and uses the language. It’s never easy to learn English but by constant usage of such in almost all of our daily interactive dealings, (may it be personal or bussiness), it has become an indespensable part of our “Filipino system.”

At present, I’m working here in Indonesia Primarily as an English Teacher painstakingly teaching Indonesian kids how to write and speak good and proper English.

Indonesia, like other Asian countries such as, Korea, Japan, China, Thailand, has later realized the greater importance and advantage of learning English. And in order to be competitive and thrive in this complicated and dynamic world of ours, English teachers, or any other subject teachers who are able to speak the language fluently have been on the haul in this part of Asia purposely to teach the young and not-so-young Indonesians
how to speak the global language.

Given the opportunity and with much convincing schemes from my siblings who have been settled here long before, I find myself rather strangely and unexpectedly, yet willingly in the teaching medium. And admittedly, I’m having the time of my life here! Or simply, I love it here! Yeah, for now. After all, I love the teaching profession too among other worthy endeavors. And mind you, i really want to be a part of shaping the lives of the younger generation for our world to have a better-brighter future. It’s brought me tremendous and unequalled joy within.

Consequently, on the course of my new found endeavor as a young educator, I met Eugene, a confident and hopeful Chinese-indonesian tycoon who quipped to me in a rather exaggerated presumption when he said: “You know my friend, time will come that there will only be two most used languages in the global arena. It will be English and Chinese; the former to be used in peoples’ daily interactions particularly in schools, offices or workplaces and the latter, to be used in bussiness, commercial and trading activities of all peoples of the world.”

Eugene, for his part, regretted how he despised his late father’s proddings for him to learn to speak Chinese. (His father and ancestors migrated from mainland China to Indonesia). He endlessly reasoned to his father sparing him from learning the language as it wouldn’t be of relevance anymore being in Indonesia.

But, somehow, he began to realize its indespensability in contemporary times as well as in the future as culturally and bussiness-wise, fellow Chinese bussinessmen help each other towards success and prosperity. And the basic knowledge of the Chinese language indeed pose a tremendous “plus factor” to any Chinese bussinessmen in their pursuit to thrive or succeed in the bussiness world.

On the other hand, Eugene observed that his contemporaries and counterparts in the bussiness have been experiencing remarkable breakthroughs more than he does simply due to the fact that they can speak fluent Chinese. Reality indeed bites hard for him.

Needless to say, equally important to him is English. You see, you may not be needing English that much in your locality, but elsewhere in the world, it is the “common language” or better labelled as the: Global language.”

Eugene may never be able to compensate anymore for lost times in learning how to speak Chinese, (as he realized that he doesn’t have the luxury of time anymore), but he is religiously trying his best, in every given opportunity to learn everything he can to master English. It’s never too late for Eugene, don’t you think so? As long as one lives, learning never ends. Everyday is a classroom situation.

Good luck, Eugene in your personal quest. Godspeed, my friend!

And with these, I rest my case.

It is Universal Language for Peace and Development; the combination of languages like Spanish, Greek, Latin, Aramaic, and etcs.
Widely spoken by our people in Iloilo using American Standard English.
And use by people in the Working Ground abroad to express freely with thier BOss!

Learned it, it is one the Media of Communication for Good and Friendship!

“Freedom of Speech”
Speak in the Language of the People!
Or Use English if needed.

Wow Philippines, English Good.

God Bless Us and Enjoy Life!

An engineering company with which I do business recently sent a recruiting team to the PR. They recruited about forty CAD designers. I asked why they chose the Philippines to recruit, the answer “We like the Filipinos because they speak better English than any other nationality from Asia”.

Richard Jones
Alberta
Canada

Re-post article: English as medium will work better this time

Inquirer
Last updated 04:11am (Mla time) 05/25/2007

Generally, many people, including most of our educators, favor restoring English as the medium of instruction in schools. However, there are two schools of thought about its implementation. One bats for the use of Filipino and the local language in the first three years, side by side with English. The other is for the use of English from Day One, without the aid of Filipino and the local tongue.

I believe that the use of Filipino and the local language will water down instructions in English and slow down the whole process of learning English. The result will not differ from the present situation where students have only a sputtering knowledge of English. This is a deviation from the objective of making our students English-literate so that they can use English (the universal language) and easily assimilate lessons in science, technology and communication.

I am 82 years old and a product of the educational system established by the American government in the Philippines in the early 1900s, which mandated that English be used as the sole medium of instruction in all schools in the country.

I enrolled in Grade 1 in Ilagan, Isabela. From the first day in school up to fourth-year high school, English was uncompromisingly used as the sole medium of instruction. Filipino (a.k.a. Tagalog) or the local language never served as a crutch for our teachers in bailing them out of language difficulties and communication problems. We thought, read, wrote and spoke in English like our counterparts in English-speaking countries overseas.

In 1940, Grade 7 was taken out of the elementary school curriculum because of financial constraints. Subsequently, English lost its dominant role because Filipino was widely used as the medium. The well-written and well-thought-out English textbooks were replaced by inferior Tagalog reading materials containing gross errors in grammar and fact. The Grade 1 curriculum was crowded by the premature inclusion of subjects earlier intended for the higher grades. The teachers, products of the same defective educational system, served as mentors. School administrators and faculty members lacked the dedication to educate. They were involved in irregular practices instead of serving as good examples to the students. All these and many more contributed to the deterioration of our educational system.

Our dismal showing in international tests in mathematics and science made us take a serious look at our educational system. Now, the restoration of English as the medium of instruction appears to be the chief ingredient in the reforms. The English-only policy worked in our time. It will work even better this time. The advances achieved in communications will guarantee the success.

APOLONIO G. RAMOS

Using the native languages as a medium of instruction is indeed a noble idea. Noble indeed. No problem with that. But the huge problem. The language structure! I don’t mean to say that our native languages are inferior. It’s just that it’s not dynamic to modern terms because our linguists failed to do so. How would you translate Accounting terms like “Frozen Asset” to Filipino? The closest I could think is “Nanigas na pag-aari”. Asset = Ownership = pag-aari. See how VERY awkward it is?

No wonder why many from the upper class prefer English. Not really because of “colonial mentality”(although in certain cases, it can be attributed to this). It’s more because of the lack of dynamic structure of the local languages. You see, words without exact translation are “phoneticized”. Computer becomes “kompyuter”, Nurse is “nars”. Very awkward, really

As aforementioned, using native languages is a noble idea but we have to restructure our languages before using them as medium of instruction. At the moment, I say stick to English first. If we already had made our native languages dynamic, then that’s the time to push through it.

Learn our language first then of course English is given.

We learn English as it is accepted international language. We depend on it to communicate. We are proud to be able to speak English. We are proud saying US/UK invest in call centers because we speaks English.

But have a deeper thought. If we were excellent in science and math, we don’t have to speak so good English to be able to stand on our own like Japan, Israel. Singapore or Hongkong. Being able to think, make and produce our own industrial products for the world would be better. For now, we are just being used because we can mimic their English and accent and we are cheap. Once we become more expensive and other country becomes viable with this kind of call center or BPO business, we can say babay and perhaps we will be back to square one.

I say this because we were once first preferenced of investments of technologies making products that are expensive to make in US, Europe, Japan etc. Take the wireless phone, facsimile machines, disk drives etc. They have plastic moulded casings. There were many companies invest on then advance equipment. At least 5 years later, new designed equipment (more efficient) comes and we didn’t innovate. We stayed on the same machines to make the same products and chraged more. Countries like Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand invested on more modern machineries so US companies move their source there as they can make it cheaper and better.

So no more business for us and those old machines were sold to local companies which until now are use to make plastic toys and spoon and fork for fast food chains and other products based on low technology.

So where is the knowing English plays a part on this situation. None. It suppose to be just plain common sense and advance in science, math and innovation.

Philippines as a country have been proud of the fact that we are better in communicating English language as compared to other Asian countries.
The same reasons as to why we are all over the globe holding white collared jobs as well as blue collared jobs.

We should keep and maintain English as a medium of instructions in schools because it is through this that our country has survived economic meltdown by sending thousands if not millions of Filipinos to work abroad ,thereby billions of dollar remittances in return.

Is English a must for development?
As we embarked into global development, good communication is a tool, and English as a most learned language by any nation, not only the Philippines, we must use this tool to be able to communicate and relate with each other.And we are at an advantage on this .

Is English a cash language ? In a way it is, it is true for our country since our government do not put emphasis on science, math , technology and other areas that can provide better jobs, create new technologies that would want us as English speaking Filipinos to stay and work in our country.

For now , as we forever wait for our government to make necessary improvements ,we must hold tight to that skill, teach the coming generation of that ability … the ability to speak the English language.