A matter of survival

For nearly two decades Filipinos have progressively lost their proficiency in English. Now the government is finally moving to stop the slide.

New rules issued by the Department of Education require the teaching of English as a second language starting Grade One. From third grade, English will be the medium of instruction for all mathematics and science subjects. It will also be the medium of instruction in all public and private high schools as well as technical and vocational schools.

There are two problems here. One is that, along with our proficiency in English, we have also lost many of our best English teachers. And it will be hard to recall them from jobs overseas that pay many times more than they can ever hope to earn doing the same work in this country.

The other problem is that we may be perpetuating a spoken English that only Filipinos understand — grammatically and even idiomatically correct, but uniquely Pinoy in pronunciation. It’s unlike the accent of Indians or the "la" that punctuates the sentences of Singaporeans; their correct English pronunciation is still easily discernible, which means they can be understood.

We need language to communicate, and proper pronunciation is crucial. We should be glad that English is not a phonetic language like Mandarin, where different pitches could alter the meaning of a word.

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A foreigner who has been here for several months lamented to me that before coming to Manila, he was advised not to bother learning Tagalog-based Filipino since everyone here speaks some kind of English. "Some kind of English" turned out to be a different language altogether, the expat said.

At least our store clerks, cab drivers, spa personnel, waitresses and other workers in service-oriented industries can get themselves understood.

Problems crop up for more complicated English conversation.

Expats here have pointed out the lack of local TV programs conducted purely in English. A talk show, for example, will start in English. The guest will then start using Filipino, with the host responding with a mix of English and Filipino. About halfway through the program, only Filipino will be spoken.

Even local news shows that are supposed to be in English, expats point out, use video clips of interviews in Filipino without English translations using either subtitles or voice-overs.

We have failed to develop true bilingualism. Instead we switch from Filipino to English and back again in a mish-mash we call Taglish that only we can understand. It’s a lazy way of learning two languages; when we run out of words in one, we switch to the other.

This, unfortunately, won’t do in a global environment. We like to brag about our English proficiency in this part of the world, yet we are actually losing thousands of call-center jobs to India because there aren’t enough Filipinos who can speak correct conversational English.

Once upon a time Asians came here to learn English. Now bad English is becoming our hallmark. And there are few teachers left to undo the damage of years of complacent neglect.

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Efforts are under way to upgrade the English proficiency of teachers especially those in public schools. This is a laudable effort. If you see teachers’ remarks on grading sheets and exam papers in certain public high schools, the atrocious English can depress you.

But we have to acknowledge the limitations of trying to teach a language to adults. Human capability to absorb languages peaks during childhood and tapers off with age. People who relocate to the United States at a mature age, for example, will tell you how tough it is to change old grammatical habits or lose an accent; often the changes never occur at all.

We Filipinos realize the English we have learned is a different language when we go overseas and foreigners, notably native English speakers, cannot understand what we are saying.

The proliferation of DVDs has not helped; now many Filipinos simply rely on the English subtitles rather than struggle to understand what is being said in Hollywood movies.

Listening to English-language pop music doesn’t help either; we simply make sure we sound exactly the same as the original singer and follow the exact same beat so we can get a perfect score in the karaoke machine, without bothering to understand what the lyrics are saying.

Then there are our entertainers, who are the models of our people in speaking English. If they can get by on Taglish with a colegiala lilt, why can’t Juan or Juana de la Cruz?

This is spoken English. Written English is just as bad. It’s a problem that — as readers with good grammar have often pointed out to us — is evident even in the English-language print media, this newspaper (and my articles) included.

The task of learning correct English is so difficult, and the temptation to take the easy way out and rely on Taglish so overwhelming that I can only wish education officials the best of luck in trying to improve the Filipino’s proficiency in English.

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This does not mean abandoning the effort to develop a national language. It’s a work in progress; many English words are being incorporated into Malay-based Tagalog the way we borrowed heavily from Spanish and Chinese. Eventually many Tagalog words will fall into disuse.

Those teaching the national language should make it easier for younger generations by using conversational Filipino rather than the formal version that even native Filipino speakers find difficult to learn. Filipino is one of the toughest subjects in grade school. Really, how often do we use datapwat, subalit and salumpuwit these days?

Developing a national language, however, will have to go hand in hand with learning English, the language of the Information Age and the global economy. And it has to be the right English, not another language that we developed on our own.

It’s not a matter of colonial mentality. It’s a matter of national survival.