English Language in the Philippines

English for teachers

50 years 300 years

VS

That is..

make the Filipinos understand and

eventually accept, with affection,

their masters.

redeem the savage and ignorant souls with

religion - Roman Catholicism.

Mission of the Spaniards:

More than three centuries and

a bloody revolution…

the Indios had wholeheartedly

embraced Catholicism, but just as

wholeheartedly rejected Spanish rule.

Unlike Spain's strategy, America's

means of attack and assimilation was

not religion.

Adopted the American form of government;

embraced the American dream

spoke the American language

and were content to be called "little brown Americans".

Decades after the US granted the Philippines its independence in 1946, many

Filipinos still believed in and actively campaigned for the Philippines becoming the

51st state of the United States.

American teach us through:

the mass media,

the arts,

social,

business

and political interaction

o has been relegated to a college elective

o and to private gatherings of wealthy clans of Spanish descent.

Why has English become so easy to learn and so easy to use in the

Philippines?

Adults are constantly teaching their kids:

"close-open"

"beautiful eyes"

"Where's your nose, mouth, cheek, etc.?"

"Where's the dog, cat, moon, etc.?"

body parts

names of animals

names of objects

action verbs

simple adjectives

polite expressions

nursery rhymes

simple questions

In the Philippines, it is an affordable item, a skill that can be used to increase one's position, respectability and marketability.

In most cases, the better one's ability to understand and use English, the better one's chances of career advancement.

The Filipinos' skill and cheap labor are in demand, yes, but so is their command and comprehension of English which makes it easy for foreign employers to tell them what to do. English, after all, is a global language and, luckily - some say unluckily - Filipinos managed to unravel this code quite early and easily.

Nationalists

Filipinos are not Americans. Why then do

we continue to dream their dreams and

speak their language?

Much as our purists and nationalists wanted to erase all traces of American colonial influence, they knew that the language, rather than the dreams, was less difficult to delete.

Or so, they thought. Like the US military bases in the Philippines, English had become a symbol of the subtle but strong dominance of America. It took a strong-willed Philippine Senate and the eruption of Mount Pinatubo to figuratively and literally bury the US bases in ashes. Obliterating English is another matter.

In a setting where education is one of the lowest budget priorities, where teachers are among the lowest paid professionals, and where the systematic translation of English to Filipino has never been given serious thought or considered important, the shift from English to Filipino ended in confusion and frustration.

P544.1

Billion

The government-approved textbooks they will study illustrate the problem. A passage in one for

eight-year-olds reads:

“The dog rolled on the floor so fast and fell on the

ground. There he laid yelling louder than ever. The dog yelled on top of his voice.”

A book for 11-year-olds advises, mysteriously:

“Just remember this acronym —DOCSiShQACNMN—to make it easy for you to remember the order of adjectives in a series.”

Martha are his name.

Teachers have been flunking English for years.

In 2004 only one in five teachers passed the English-proficiency test.

Call-centres complain that they reject nine-tenths of otherwise qualified job applicants, mostly college graduates,

because of their poor command of English.

1. Tell me something about yourself.

2. Why should we hire you for our company?

3. How do you handle work-pressure?

4. What has been your most significant achievement?

5. How do you see yourself five years from now?

6. What are your goals in life?

English as a subject has suffered from lack of money, along with public education as a whole.

Some Filipinos also blame the introduction in the 1970s of Filipino, an artificial national language, as the medium of instruction.

Englishis an Art

that Binds

the World.-Ma’am Padilla

What many Filipinos miss is that English can also be used as a key to understanding ourselves. English, after all, does not belong to America. If we accept it with grace and use it with wisdom, it can belong to the rest of the world.

English in the Philippinesby Doray Espinosa (Language Institute of Japan - LIOJ)

http://gilesig.org/26Phil.htm

The Philippines and the English language

http://www.economist.com/node/13794772