English and the nation's memory

Sitting at my desk at the Ortigas Foundation Library in Pasig, surrounded by 16,000 books and periodicals relating to Philippine history, culture and the arts, I realize over 90% are in English with maybe another 500 vintage titles in Spanish and very few in Filipino. This breakdown is probably not unlike many other major reference libraries in Manila.

Amid all the discussion in the press, academic circles and the political sector, as to whether or not English should be the primary language for education in this country, one of the greatest advantages of an English language education for Filipinos is almost always overlooked. The ability to read and comprehend English makes vast amounts of Philippine history and heritage, along with East Asian and world history, accessible to Filipinos. Constantly promoting English, as a means for contract workers to find jobs abroad or in domestic call centers, perpetuates a colonial mentality and degrades an important academic discipline.

English should be regarded primarily as an educational tool which enhances a student's or the general public's knowledge of the Philippines, builds up national intellectual capabilities and enriches national culture and identity. Books in English also open up vast reservoirs of collective human knowledge regarding world history, science, religion, political theory, literature and the arts. Works originally written in English or translated into modern English over the last several centuries make up the largest repository of printed information. Despite the marvels of the Internet, I still believe reading full-length printed books is the best way to absorb complex information.

Spend a few hours in a library or in any of the new bookstores opening in the malls around Manila and you will be surrounded by an overwhelming number of fascinating publications for all ages and all interests. There are illustrated books and magazines ranging in topic from art to architecture, biology to biography, cooking to crime, erotica, the environment, finance, fiction, gardening, philosophy, sports, travel and on and on. This phenomenon of big, full service bookstore chains, many connected to international publishers, is blossoming in Singapore, Bangkok and Hong Kong and in upscale malls around the world. For harder to find or out-of-print books just click Amazon or ABE books on the Internet and search by title, author or subject.

If the Philippines loses its college level English language skills, which seems to be happening at present, it will be losing access to much of its own indigenous history and national memory. Some parochial nationalists argue that this is just fine with them; let the nation build its future on a local Malay-based language such as Tagalog. What they overlook is that the majority of educated Filipinos have been writing in English or have been translated into English from Spanish for well over a century. Despite the fact that many Filipinos were reported to be literate in various dialects at the time of the Spanish conquest in 1565 there is virtually no evidence of a substantial canon of work written in native Filipino languages.

In the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries there were travel accounts of the Philippines in Spanish, French and English, voluminous reports to Spain by officials and friars, and Spanish dictionaries of Filipino languages phonetically spelled out in the Roman alphabet. Many Filipinos were writing eloquently in Spanish in the 19th century — Jose Rizal, Pedro Paterno, Graciano Lopez Jaena, Marcelo H. Del Pilar, Apolinario Mabini, and other leaders of the Philippine Revolution and Wenceslao E. Retana, the great bibliographer. During the first years of American occupation of the country, American scholars translated thousands of Spanish books and documents into English and added a tremendous amounts of new sociological, cultural and scientific information in their lengthy reports. Emma Blair and James A. Robertson's 55 volume, annotated set of Philippine historical material is an outstanding example of the American dedication to written documentation.

By the 1920s and onwards Filipinos such as Maximo M. Kalaw, Claro M. Recto, Manuel Quezon, Camilo Osias and Rafael Palma were writing in both Spanish and English. After the Second World War, major Filipino writers wrote mostly in English, including National Artists for Literature Nick Joaquin, F. Sionil Jose and Bien Lumbrera. Political theorists like Renato Constantino and eminent historian O. D. Corpuz, Resil B. Mojares, also choose English. These are just a few of the distinguished Filipino thinkers and writers who wrote almost all their work in Spanish and later in English.

Today the large majority of Filipino writers, historians, scholars and journalists are working almost entirely in English. English is very much part and parcel of the Philippine's national birthright.

Unfortunately for the ardent nationalists, the sheer practicality of trying to acquire a college graduate level education in the humanities solely in Filipino is not feasible. Young people in third world countries, especially in the case of the Philippines, can spurn the serious study of foreign languages in the name of national sovereignty but ironically they will end up sacrificing a large portion of their own national memory and individual heritage. A nation that forgets its past identity and place in world history is ill-prepared for the inevitable challenges of future colonial pressures. Pop culture flooding the Philippines from other Asian countries is as shallow as anything Hollywood churned out in the 1950s. The serious thinking arriving here from our East Asian neighbors is almost all in the form of books published in English in Tokyo, Hong Kong and Singapore.

Filipino regional languages and their many spoken dialects are beautiful and deeply expressive of local cultures and the modern Philippine nation. They represent ancient and modern oral and written traditions which capture the finest nuances of the Filipino character and the Filipino world. However, as is true in all parts of the world, local languages are dying off or being hybridized at a rapidly increasing rate. Much is being done to try to record and save these linguistic traditions but the loss is an inevitable result of high-speed, electronic, global communication. The positive side of this phenomenon is that greater and greater numbers of people across the globe are now able to communicate with each other in the remaining international languages and can share massive amounts of knowledge and information, stored in the collective libraries and archives of the world.

The current government policy seems to give every poor Filipino a bit of fractured English and send them on their way abroad, hopefully to earn foreign exchange. No class of people should be groomed to be overseas workers; they need jobs here at home, near their families, in the country they love. The high social cost of this public policy is broken homes, not to mention that intelligent and motivated citizens are being forced overseas when they should be home mentoring their children. Working the graveyard shift at call centers catering to foreign clients, is not much more desirable.

Tremendous resources, local and foreign, are now being spent on teaching English to impoverished elementary school kids. The current mantra being that English is one's passport out of the Philippines to high-paying jobs. It would be better to strongly promote English for high school and college students, especially reading and writing skills, so they can build a strong new nation from within, on their own terms. Rich Filipinos automatically provide their children with this type of English instruction. It should be available to all who want it.

High-quality text books, instructional material, libraries and reading centers should be available in every high school and college with standardized testing and mandatory reading assignments. Not only English but Chinese and Spanish should be promoted by the Board of Education. For the evolving Philippine middle class this would create a new generation of highly articulate readers and writers with excellent abilities to access information and form critical opinions and thoughtful analysis of their society and leaders.

(Jonathan Best is the curator for the Ortigas Foundation Library and Philippine Studies Center in Pasig.)

DepEd to train 137,420 teachers in English

The Department of Education (DepEd) is not inclined to heed the advice of the American Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines (AmCham) for teachers and graduate students of public high schools to be tested in English proficiency.

According to DepEd, they already have a range of "intervention programs" to upgrade English instruction in elementary and high schools led by a training of teachers that teach the language in public schools numbering 137,420.

DepEd said it would focus on schools, which registered low mastery scores in the 2007 National Achievement Test (NAT), in identifying which public high schools to prioritize.

The department said it was President Arroyo who ordered them to zero in on schools that tested low in mastery in the 2007 NAT. A student is considered in the low mastery level if the mean percentage score (MPS) is between 15 to 34 in the 100-item test per subject.

The NAT, which measures what the students in Grade 3 and second year high school know, understand and can do, covers Mathematics, English, Science, Filipino and HEKASI.

On Monday, AmCham executive director John Forbes said they have a pending proposal to DepEd to test public school teachers and their students on their English proficiency to determine the effectiveness of government efforts to arrest the deteriorating language skills of Filipinos.

Forbes said that by assessing the proficiency level of teachers and graduates, the appropriate and most effective remedial measures can be taken by concerned agencies and stakeholders to address the problem.

AmCham, Forbes said, was concerned over the deteriorating competencies of Filipinos in the English language which, he said, is a required skill by many American companies that have set up operations in the country.

A shrinking English-speaking workforce, Forbes pointed out, could dissuade American companies from investing and opening business in the Philippines.

Philamlife turns 60

The Philippine American Life and General Insurance Co. (Philamlife) will hand over P5 million to the Promoting English Proficiency Program of the American Chamber of Commerce.

The program will enable over 6,600 school teachers and students, in six schools across the country, to undergo computer-aided English language training. The official check turnover happens during the Makati Business Club meeting on June 21, with no less than American International Group (AIG) president and chief executive officer Martin Sullivan in attendance.

Philamlife, which is a member of the AIG global corporate family, is celebrating its 60th anniversary on June 21.

Philamlife president and chief executive officer Jose L. Cuisia Jr. said the year-long celebration is dedicated to its shareholders, beginning with the launch of its new generation life insurance products, namely Brilliance (educational plan), Leisure (retirement plan), Longevity (pension builder), Abundance (variable life insurance) and Bounty (participating endowment plan).

Sullivan addresses the employees and agents of Philamlife and its affiliate companies in a separate assembly on the 21st at Le Pavillion. He will confer awards to the companies top agents who qualified in a contest conducted in anticipation of Sullivan's visit. In the evening, an anniversary gala event will also be held at the Shangri-La Makati for Philamlife's corporate and media partners, VIP clients and top agents.

The decline of English proficiency

As the education system gears up for the opening of classes this June, the teachers, parents and students have begun to repair and beautify the school buildings, classrooms and grounds. Principals and teachers are preparing their lesson plans and other requirements for the students. Amidst these activities, I hope that our educators will plan to redouble their efforts to improve the teaching of English in order for the Filipino to keep abreast with the global competition.

While we have heard anecdotal stories - call centers accepting a very small portion of those who apply; tourists remarking on the quaint English laced with Tagalog or the local dialect; and university professors lamenting the inability of students to speak or comprehend in English, surveys from the Social Weather Stations provide a stronger evidence of the sad state of English proficiency.

The March 2006 SWS survey on the Filipino's self-assessed proficiency in the English language showed a decline over the last twelve years if compared to earlier SWS surveys in December 1993 and September 2000. The decline is manifested in all aspects of English proficiency from ability to speak and write and to think in English.

Only two out of three Filipino adults (65%) say they understood spoken English and could read English in the March 2006 survey in contrast to threefourths (75%) in the September 2000 and the December 1993 surveys. About half (48%) could write English in the latest survey while it was 61% in the two earlier surveys. Only a third (32%) in March 2006 said they spoke English compared to more than half (54%) in the two other surveys. Fourteen percent admitted they were not competent in any way in English while it was only seven percent 12 years ago. In the March 2006 survey, 19% indicated almost no use for the English language in contrast to only 10% in both September and December surveys.

No wonder there is the continuing lament of not being able to land a job despite the thick pages of the Manila Bulletin's classified ads section. Looking through the listing one finds the following requirements for Junior Accountant - "proficient in English language (oral and written);" for Field Service Engineer - "with effective communication skills (oral and written English);" for Professional Medical Representatives - "Above average communication skills (English)" and very few can qualify.

The decline in English proficiency has been attributed to the English proficiency skills of the educators, not just of those teaching the language courses but also those handling the other courses. Aggravating the situation was the abolition of English as a medium of instruction in schools. This was meant to help development a Tagalogbased national language.

Business and industry should follow the lead of the American Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines and the Makati Business Club whose Promoting English Proficiency Project (PEP) is dedicated to a world-class Filipino workforce with English proficiency meeting high international standards. The three-pronged approach covers advocacy, refresher training and certification testing. Together with nearly 100 partners to date, PEP hopes to establish at least 50 Computerized English Language Centers (CELCs) to train 45,000 teachers and students by the end of 2008.

Teachers and parents should encourage the children to read more English books rather than watch television shows. Directing them to bookstores in the malls will help instill in them the love for reading as well as reading them stories by their bedside. Speaking to them in English and discussing the books they have read and the stories they have heard will increase their confidence in their English proficiency. The home and school are the best places to meet the desires of 68 percent of the Filipino surveyed who agreed that developing good English communication skills opened up better job opportunities for all.

Insurer helps students brush up on their English

MANILA, Philippines -- Foreign investors in the Philippines say that the Filipinos' ability to communicate in English is one of the reasons they put their money here.

English, after all, is the language of the Internet and the lingua franca in math and the sciences.

Unfortunately, the Philippines is losing its edge in this department, as seen in the increasing difficulty of call center operators to fill job openings that require excellent English skills.

According to the oft-repeated statistics, only three in 100 applicants land jobs in call centers.

There are many reasons bandied about to explain the decline in English language proficiency in the Philippines. One is the increasing use of Filipino as the medium of instruction. The proliferation of television shows in Filipino is another.

Insurance giant Philamlife is more interested in finding a solution and bring up the quality of English language skills, especially among the youth.

This is why Philamlife has partnered with the American Chamber of Commerce in the Philippines, or AmCham, and some universities to train a new generation of Filipinos that express themselves well in both written and spoken English.

Philamlife president and CEO Jose Cuisia Jr. told the Inquirer that the group had decided to adopt AmCham's Promoting English Proficiency project as one of its key programs to celebrate its 60th year in the Philippines because it believed that having an English-speaking workforce was still one of the Philippines' top competitive advantages.

As its contribution to the efforts to bring up English skills among the youth, Philamlife will invest P5 million to finance the training in English of 100 teachers and 1,000 students in six colleges and universities.

Cuisia said Philamlife would use the DynEd interactive software program to improve English skills to help the teachers and students improve their skills. The DynEd courseware, which was developed by California-based DynEd International, is preferred software used for English language training.

Cuisia said the teachers and students would be tested before the start of the training to determine their English proficiency level.

A post-test will then be administered after the 80-hour computer-based training to see how well their English skills have improved.

Araullo University in Cabanatuan City, in the northern town of Nueva Ecija, became the Philamlife group's first partner school in English language training last March.

Philam finances the training modules while the schools will provide the equipment, mainly a computer laboratory where the teachers and students will undergo training.

Cuisia said he was happy to see that the university executives have taken it upon themselves to invite students and teachers from nearby schools to also take part in the training.

He said Philam would only bankroll the training for one year.

It is hoped that the partner schools will invest in the continued training to involve more teachers and students.

Aside from Araullo, the other beneficiary schools include Far Eastern University in Manila, De La Salle in Lipa City in Batangas province, Cebu Normal University in Cebu City, and Cagayan de Oro College.

Software helps Mindanao teachers learn English

DAVAO CITY-Teachers in two Mindanao universities are learning English all over again on their computers, amid widespread perception that the current generation of Filipinos have fallen behind in speaking the international language.

"Learning English has never been so much fun!" said Jocelyn Balansag-Bacasmot, a teacher at the University of Mindanao (UM). She has become adept at the use of the DynEd software in the computer-based English language training recently piloted by the Growth with Equity in Mindanao (GEM) here.

"The software is user-friendly and will surely amaze teachers and students and people from all walks of life," she said.

"Even for someone not familiar with computers like me, the software is easy to use," added Erlinda Allesa, a professor at the Notre Dame University (NDU).

Bacasmot and Allesa are among the 23 teachers who went through an intensive three-day training on international business English in October, a program that the American Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines (AmCham) and the US Agency for International Development (USAID) recently initiated in Mindanao.

The UM in Davao and the NDU in Cotabato have been chosen pilot schools for the USAID-funded project that seeks to arrest the decline of English skills among students through a learning program tailored for students and teachers.

"We regard the decline in English proficiency among Filipino students and recent graduates as quite alarming," said JoAnne Loquellano, project director of the Promoting English Proficiency (PEP). The project is an AmCham initiative that partnered with the GEM.

"Statistics from the business process outsourcing industry show that about 95 percent of job applicants nationwide are rejected primarily because of poor English skills," Loquellano said.

"This is not only true for call centers and similar companies but also of the large number of industries that need good English skills in the international language of business," she added.

Good English, better opportunities

Thus, the famous joke goes; funny it may seem but in reality, most Filipinos today do not even know what's wrong with the line. For a country that boasts of English-speaking citizens, basic comprehension is a problem that largely exists.

They say that the Philippines is the third largest English-speaking nation in the world, but does it really live up to its rank? The March 2006 survey on national proficiency in English of the Social Weather Stations (SWS) says otherwise.

According to the survey, the results showed significant decline in the aspects of English proficiency among Filipinos as compared to the December 1993 and September 2000 surveys. This survey measured the Filipino's self-assessed proficiency in the English language and revealed alarming figures.

The survey showed that 65 percent of Filipinos say that they understand spoken English, a grip weaker from 74 percent of 1993 and 77 percent of 2000, while 32 percent say they speak English a tad low from the 56 percent of 1993 and 54 percent of 2000 results. There is also a decline in reading, writing and thinking in English, the other aspects of the language in the survey.

This simple statistics shows that Filipinos are slowly losing their grip in maintaining the stature of being an English-speaking nation. Using straight English in the streets of Manila is rarer than freshly cut steak, more accepted way of communicating is through 'Taglish' a combination of Tagalog and English.

To make things worse, speaking straight English or even 'Taglish' in public makes one 'pa-sosyal', 'trying hard' and 'conyo' bringing a negative connotation to the language. This means that the youth are now slowly veering away from the 'arte' talk, making it much harder to educate them.

Taking away the negative connotation on the language is what the Promoting English Proficiency (PEP) project is doing. This project is an initiative of the American Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines and the Makati Business Club with nearly 100 partners working for the cause. PEP has conducted and supported several campaigns with various partners in line with their information and awareness drive.

ENGLISH IS A MUST!

Every year, thousands of young Filipino graduates end up jobless, no matter what university they came from. The battle of who knows more and who is best among these graduates in their chosen field is not the only basis that any company is looking for and when applying for a job, good communication skills is in English a requirement.

"Language is now considered a skill," says Test of English for International Communication's (TOEIC) Bambina Buenaventura.

According to her, big companies, both here and abroad, are now looking for good English communication skills among potential employees. Sadly, these companies are disappointed.

TOEIC one of PEP's partners, is the world's leading test of English proficiency in the workplace context, it is used by more than 4,000 companies worldwide and administered to more than 4,000,000 test takers every year. TOEIC is developed by the Educational Testing Service (ETS) based in Princeton, New Jersey, the same world-renowned organization that constructed TOEFL, SAT, GRE, GMAT and TSE.

From the tests they have conducted on workers of companies, the results showed that most of the workers need to improve their English communication skills. Most jobs require this in their newspaper ad, looking for the right employee, the whole package and all. If an accountant is only good with numbers, how can he/she write a report or a presentation?

Beunaventura also said that from the thousands of nurses applying for a job abroad, many of them fail because they were not able to meet the English proficiency requirements. This is a problem that needs to be addressed.

TEACHER-COMPUTER TRAINING

Since the Filipino workforce is one of the richest resources of the country, they must attain good English communication skills, which will ultimately help the country maintain its leading competitive advantage in the global economy. PEP aims to promote economic development and reduce unemployment in the Philippines by developing and maintaining a world-class labor force with English proficiency meeting the highest international standards.

With the decline in the youth's English proficiency, PEP is advocating information and awareness through its many campaigns. Their aim is to increase awareness among the general public on the importance of English proficiency and how to advance once career's both in the Philippines and abroad through better language skills. The advocacy campaign is also aiming to motivate the public especially the students and the youth to make a conscious and deliberate effort to improve English communication skill.

One of PEP's projects is the English Language Training program through a partnership with DynEd. It offers a blended approach learning, it uses teacher-led instruction and the use of a computer-assisted language learning. This is offered in Computerized English Language Centers (CELC). These learning centers offer a trained teacher that will guide the students through various lessons and tests that ensure the student's interest and progress.

According to project co-chair John Forbes, since it is the government's job to educate their youth with basic English language skills, it is PEP's job to strengthen the student's knowledge through their program.

The CELCs are focusing on graduating college students. The program aims to improve on their English communication skills, so that the youth will be ready to compete and join the workforce with good language skills.

Firms urged to test English proficiency

Business groups are urging their member companies to test the English proficiency of their applicants and employees in order for the industry to have an accurate picture of the labor force's language skills.

Officials from American Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines and the Makati Business Club (MBC), both involved in the Promoting English Proficiency program with the Education department, said companies should not just donate to and support English language improvement programs. They should spread the use of the language in their own environment by regularly testing their employees' language skills and by using standardized tests.

Officials said the regular testing and the use of tests like the Test of English as Foreign Language or TOEFL would not only make their employees aware of their gaps and skills, it would also improve and benchmark the country's English language proficiency.

Guillermo Luz, MBC executive director, said his organization is now requiring employees to take the test regularly. It is also using TOEFL to test new hires.

The usual practice to gauge the applicants' skills, Mr. Luz said, is the interview session, which could not be quantified or analyzed. Other firms give English tests, but these are not internationally recognized.

Mr. Luz said the market is demanding an English language proficient force.

For instance, he noted that the business process outsourcing industry, one of the government's flagship sectors, is in need of quality labor force that speaks English well.

Mr. Luz said they want the Top 1000 companies to initiate the standardized English language tests. "Once that starts, that will trigger virtuous cycle here."

The business sector is stepping up its efforts to emphasize the importance of learning the language after a Social Weather Station (SWS) survey released in April showed that Filipinos' English language skills and use have declined over the past few years.

According to the survey, about two-thirds of Filipino adults (65%) said they understand spoken English; another 65% said they read English; about half (48%) said they write English; about a third (32%) said they speak English; around a fourth (27%) said they think in English; while 14% said they are not competent in any way when it comes to the English language.

In September 2000, more than three-fourths of Filipino adults (77%) said they understand spoken English; three-fourths (76%) also said they read English; three out of five (61%) said they write English; more than half (54%) said they speak English; two-fifths (44%) said they think in English; while 7% said they are not competent in any way when it comes to the English language.

Personal usage of the English language slightly declined in March 2006 from September 2000, the SWS said.

In March 2006, 5% of Filipino adults said they make full use of the English language; a third (35%) said they make fair use of the English language; a fourth (27%) said they make partial use of the English language; about a fifth (19%) said they make almost no use of the English language; while 14% said they are not competent in any way when it comes to the English language.

In September 2000, 7% of Filipino adults said they make full use of the English language; two-fifths (40%) said they make fair use of the English language; slightly over a third (36%) said they make partial use of the English language; a tenth (10%) said they make almost no use of the English language; while 7% said they are not competent in any way when it comes to the English language.

The testing of English language skills is part of the Promoting English Proficiency's plan to develop a work force that can stand up to international standards.

John Forbes, Amcham director, said they are now offering refresher English language courses for teachers to enable them to effectively transfer their knowledge to their students.

He said many teachers have insufficient knowledge on grammar, accent, and usage. "I think now, there is a consensus that English is eroding," Mr. Forbes added.

English and the nation's memory