Speak English Please!

According to European Chamber of Commerce, 75 percent of 400,000 college graduates have sub-standard English skills. It’s a shame for us Filipinos that is noted as one of the best English speaking nations. Also in official achievement test given to graduating high school students in 2004-2005 school year showed that only 6.59 percent could read, speak, and comprehend English well enough to enter college. And the worst is 44.25 percent had no English skills at all. And we are nearing the bottom rank when it comes to international achievement test in all subjects.

What happen to our knowledge we learn from our beloved teachers and professors. It looks like our country’s education system is already deteriorating. Many factors can affect the quality of education taught in school, like in public schools that is lacking of teachers, classroom, desks and chairs that leads to a two up to three shifts of classes per day. So the students spend less time in school and gain limited information. On the other hand the problems encountered on the private schools are the hiring of less experienced and not well trained teachers. That’s not only the problem, according to Matthew Gray an American who trains Filipinos to speak with American accents for jobs at call centers, there is plenty to blame, cell-phone text messaging and the popularity of foreign soap operas dubbed into the Filipino language. While Neil Perez, an English and Literature lecturer at the University of Santo Tomas, blames the decline on the influence of pop culture and domestic media, where the dominant language is “taglish,” a combination of Tagalog and English.

Even Pres. Macapagal-Arroyo has ordered the education department to make English as primary medium for instruction nationwide, the decree does not have the force of law to compel schools to do. The bill passed by Eduardo Gullas in 2004 to make English the medium of instruction at all levels in schools, still sits in the House of Representative.

Not only the government are eager to raise the Pinoy youth English skills. Private sectors like the European Chamber, along with other local business groups, recently launched a program called “English is Cool”, aims to revive the fading English of Pinoy youth. According to Rina Tanchoco, the program director, the decline of English among Filipinos is “definitely repairable and reversible”. That gives a lot of hope, so better take the opportunity of having those programs. In an increasingly globalize economy, English is a key for employment overseas. We may be left far behind by China and India.

facts source: The Philippine Daily Inquirer
AFP

Funny, writing this took a lot of time, I honestly admit I’m not proficient in English. So if you have seen any grammatical error on my article, feel free to comment.

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