Carabao English - a rejoinder

I join the concern of The FREEMAN in its editorial two days ago on the "carabao" English of most Filipino college graduates. Quoting a report from Europe, it says that 75 percent of the almost half a million college finishers every year have dim prospects of employment mainly for lack of adequate communication skills in English.

There have been similar reports on this problem in the past. There have been alarming indications of it as revealed in the rock bottom performance of our students in international assessments. The Department of Labor and Employment has in fact repeatedly warned that our workers are losing their advantage to other Asian workers in overseas labor market for reason of the former's eroding competencies in English.

Poor performance in international tests of course gives our educational system a black eye. How come a country where English is taught as a second language cannot produce acceptable users of the language? In most Asian countries English is taught only as a foreign language, as a subject, and is not used as a medium of instruction. Learning period is therefore limited as a result of which their graduates used to be deficient in their command of the language. I said "used to be" because these countries, having realized that English is now the global means of communication, have for years embarked on crash programs in English. Now they are better than us in using the language.

In contrast, the Philippines took the opposite move. In 1974 we started (in the name of nationalism) getting crazy with DECS' bilingual education program. This was a crash program alright - but for Pilipino or Tagalog. We phased down our English program by making it the medium of instruction in only three subjects - science, mathematics, and English itself. At the same time we expanded the contact hours for Tagalog by making it the language of instruction in seven subject areas - home economics, industrial arts, social studies, health, physical education and values education, plus Pilipino as a subject.

After a decade of this program what do we get? Carabao English for graduates. Worse, we get also low caliber professionals because poor English begets poor professionals. Until the 1960s our educational system used to be the envy in Asia. Our graduates were sought after both for their professional know-how and English proficiency. But towards the later part of the 1970s, after the inception of the bilingual program in 1974, the quality of instruction started to decline.

Proponents of the bilingual program reason out that it's not the program itself but other factors that have brought down the level of Philippine educational outputs. They cite poor teachers preparation, lack of instructional materials, dearth of textbooks, a cluttered curriculum and others. They have a point here, but they cannot deny that in language learning, exposure is critical. The more hours given to a target language the more effective is the learning process. Moreover, there is such a thing as linguistic interference. Try learning two languages at the same time and you will understand the difficulty experienced by Filipino children, especially the non-Tagalog ones. For these children English and Tagalog are both foreign languages and mastering either one is already an ordeal. But mastering two simultaneously? No wonder most of them come out half-baked users of both languages, but particularly English.

To correct such a defective language program, congressman Eduardo R. Gullas filed a bill (HB 1652) entitled "An Act Providing for the Use of English as a Medium of Instruction in Philippine Schools". Endorsed by more than a hundred congressmen, this proposed legislation once approved may yet prove to be the light at the end of the tunnel in Philippine education. But Tagalog loving congressman are flexing their muscles to block the bill. Joining them are the giant publishers whose business will be adversely affected by the proposed law. Will they succeed?

If they do, carabao English will continue to be a stigma in our educational system.