Philippines: Global Networking : English, Tagalog or both?

[Harold Schiffman]

http://globalnation.inquirer.net/mindfeeds/mindfeeds/view/20080416-130696/English-Tagalog-or-both


GLOBAL NETWORKING
Global Networking : English, Tagalog or both?


By Rodel Rodis
INQUIRER.net


Posted date: April 16, 2008

Russ Sandlin, an American businessman in the Philippines, recently
closed his call center in Manila because he said he could not find
enough English proficient workers. "Not even 3 percent of the students
who graduate college here are employable in call centers," he
complained. Sandlin cited a Philippine Department of Education report
disclosing that 80 percent of secondary school teachers in the
Philippines failed an English proficiency test last year. "English is
the only thing that can save the country," he wrote, "and no one here
cares or even understands that the Filipinos have a crisis."

Sandlin's discouraging comments came in the form of an e-mail blasting
the Philippine Daily Inquirer for publishing the op-ed article of
Ateneo English Prof. Isabel Pefianco Martin, president of the
Linguistic Society of the Philippines, who criticized the "persistent
efforts of lawmakers to institutionalize English as the sole language
of learning in basic education." "Good luck to the Inquirer. It needs
to reevaluate its writers," Sandlin wrote, "unless it supports such a
misguided set of ideas. God save the Philippines. I hate to see the
country falling ever deeper into an English-deprived abyss."

Prof. Martin's op-ed piece, which was published on April 8, 2008
("Myths about languages in the Philippines"), criticized the narrow
thinking behind a bill in the Philippine Congress (House Bill 305)
mandating the use of English as the medium of instruction in all
academic subjects from Grade 3 onwards and encouraging the use of
English as the medium of interaction outside the classrooms. It also
proposes English as the language of assessment in all government
examinations and entrance tests in all public schools and state
universities and colleges.

The bill which was sponsored by Cebu Rep. Eduardo R. Gullas and
co-sponsored by 207 other legislators (more than 2/3rds of the House
membership) was approved on its third and final reading in the Lower
House late last year. The Senate is slated to take up the bill in
June. If enacted into law, the bill will repeal a 33-year old policy
of bilingual teaching in Philippine schools which encouraged the use
of English and Filipino (Tagalog) as mediums of instruction.

"Targeting the learning of two languages is too much for the Filipino
learners, especially in the lower grades. And if the child happens to
be a non-Tagalog speaker, this task actually means learning two
foreign languages at the same time, an almost impossible task," Gullas
said. Prof. Martin's op-ed piece criticized the bill for its
underlying premise that "if you don't know English, you simply don't
know." She explained that the link between intelligence and English
language proficiency is very flimsy. "In this world, you will find
intelligent people who cannot speak a word of English, as well as
not-so-smart ones who are native speakers of the language," she
asserted.

Prof. Martin criticized the narrow goal of the bill which is "to
produce English-proficient graduates for contact centers, hospitals
and medical transcription offices, never mind if these graduates are
unthinking products of the schools." "The ability to speak like an
American will certainly not ensure excellent performance in the
contact center jobs," she wrote, if the students lack "the ability to
manage culture-diverse environments," she wrote. Even if there were
universal agreement that Filipinos should aspire to English
proficiency, there is still the question of how best to reach that
goal. According to Prof. Martin, "research studies prove that learning
a language becomes more effective when emotional barriers are
eliminated." She cited Linguist Stephen Krashen who taught that the
formula for success in learning a language is painfully simple: the
lower the feelings of fear (low affective filter), the higher the
chances of learning

California adopted a policy of bilingual education in public
elementary schools to help non-English speaking students transition to
regular classes that were taught in English. The Filipino Education
Center (FEC) on Harrison Street in San Francisco, for example, was set
up by the San Francisco Unified School District in 1976 to offer
bi-lingual classes to newly-arrived Filipino immigrant students in a
program where Tagalog-speaking teachers would teach the traditional
elementary courses in both Tagalog and English so that the students
would not fear English and not be traumatized by native American
students ridiculing their accents.

My friend Marivic Bamba immigrated to the US with her family when she
was 5 and couldn't speak English. Her parents enrolled her in the FEC
and she then transitioned into the regular school curriculum after
three years of bilingual education. Marivic went on to graduate from
college and obtain a master's degree and be appointed by San Francisco
Mayor Willie Brown to be a department head (Director of the SF Human
Rights Commission).

Studies showed that immigrant students (Latinos, Chinese, etc.) who
went through bi-lingual education learned English more effectively
than students who were enrolled directly into regular American
English-speaking classes without the benefit of a bi-lingual
transition program. Prof. Martin points out that most Filipinos speak
at least three different languages and English might not even be one
of them. "So when English is first introduced to them, it should be
introduced slowly and gently, with much respect for their first
languages," she urged.

"Teaching and learning English in the Philippines may be a difficult
task, but it need not be a frightening experience," Prof. Martin
wrote. "So much has already been spent on testing the proficiency of
teachers and then training these teachers to become more proficient in
the language. But simply focusing on testing and training, without
recognizing the multilingual context of teaching and learning English
in the Philippines, only reinforces fear of the language."

English proficiency should not be viewed as the measure of a nation's
success. How can we explain the economic ascendancies of Japan, China,
and Korea where English is hardly spoken? Those countries educated
their populations in their native languages using their languages as
tools of communication. English should be similarly seen as a tool of
communication, not as the goal of education.

Contrary to Sandlin's impression, Prof. Martin was not opposed to the
use of English as a medium of instruction in Philippine schools (she's
an English professor at the Ateneo) but the reservations she expressed
concerned the lack of thought given to how to best teach English to
the population. The goal is the same – an educated English-speaking
population. It is the path – bilingual or monolingual – to the goal
that is in dispute.

Please send comments to Rodel50 at aol.com or log on to
rodel50.blogspot.com or write to Law Offices of Rodel Rodis at 2429
Ocean Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94127, or call (415) 334-7800.

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