Whenever your Chair Wrecker writes about the issue of re-imposing English as the medium of instruction here, spirited responses are generated.
Many of those who support the view that English should be taught only as subjects but not imposed as the medium of instruction are from the academe. They understand the impact of language in the learning process. They know that a people will learn more when taught in the language they are most familiar with.
They know that what is important is that we produce world-class farmers, technicians, craftsmen, engineers, doctors, nurses, scientists, laborers and so forth who can compete with the best in the world. English to world-class workers is at best an added advantage. But what is essential is the core competence in the real task or service that they provide.
A physicist who speaks the Queen’s English but cannot put together the most basic of elements is useless and will likely land in a call center.
Also, among those who support that view are the nationalists who know only too well that a country cannot possibly internalize its full sense of nationhood when a foreign language is imposed on its people as the medium of instruction.
Don’t be surprised that many Filipinos still entertain the illusion that they are Americans. The pretense with the language allows the maintenance of this illusion in the Filipino colonial mentality. If you want to talk like a Yank, soon you’ll think that you’re a Yank.
In a Youth Study in 2001, an abnormally high number of our young people openly wished that they were Americans or British. This mindset is easily reflected in a lot of the advertising materials that are directed towards young people.
Many of those who oppose the view — in other words they are for imposing English as medium of instruction — do so for all the wrong reasons.
Some of them think that without English proficiency, Filipinos cannot land jobs here and overseas. They fail to see that the language is secondary to the job competence.
Some of them mistake the current efforts of the Chinese, South Koreans and other Asian nationals to learn English as the key to acquiring the competitive edge. They think that if we learn English ahead of the Chinese, South Koreans and other Asian nationals - then we will beat them. This is fallacious thinking that mistakes the cart for the horse.
How can you beat them when you don’t even have their level of job competence — something which they acquired by learning their skills in the language they are most familiar with? Can a Filipino speaking the Queen’s English be considered better than the Chinese who makes double the quantity of products that the Filipino makes in an hour?
Filipinos fail to understand that many Europeans are bilingual but none of the European countries ever adopted a foreign language as their medium of instruction. Go to Holland and you’ll be surprised that it’s easier to converse with the Dutch in English than you can converse with the Brits if you were in England. And it’s worse if you ever get as far as Bonnie Scotland.
Easily 60% of British variations of the English language cannot be understood by Filipinos and we are not alone. In Scotland, a MacGregor clansman of mine was speaking a variation of English that I mistook for what is called broad Scots.
As I was missing three of every five words that he said, I requested him: “Freddie, kindly speak to me in English.” He answered me: “Boot I’m spaykin tae ye in mae best English (that’s how it sounded).” And he has not even started to drink a wee dram yet!
The Dutch speak good English but they never imposed English as their medium of instruction. They simply taught English as a subject. We should do the same because imposing English as medium of instruction will further propagate the exclusive character of our society. It will further aggravate the disadvantage of the poor who cannot possibly be taught properly when this foreign language is imposed on them as the medium of instruction.
Instead of hastening their learning of technical skills that can land them good jobs, we will be imposing another learning impediment as we will force them to learn in a language that over 70% of our public school teachers cannot speak, much less teach with.
To improve proficiency in English, all we must do is teach our pupils in elementary and high school English composition and grammar subjects and possibly literature. But the medium of instruction must be the language they are most familiar with.
Some of those who oppose this express parochial mindsets, especially those in the Visayas. They resent being taught in Filipino which they continue to call Tagalog. They fail to learn from the Chinese who adopted Mandarin — the language of the capital — as their national language from among the 11 Sinitic languages, 64 dialects and 64 sub-dialects.
We have already made great strides with Filipino. Are we to retrograde just to accommodate the parochial views of some Filipinos who cannot seem to shed their tribal colors and don the national colors?
Over 30 years ago, there was a vibrant Visayan movie industry in the South. But you don’t see that now because Filipino is already spoken nationwide.
Even the MILF spokesmen speak good Filipino.
WHEN Congress resumes on Jan. 19, the House of Representatives is expected to be engulfed in a war of words—or languages—over the passage of House Bill 5619, the proposed Act Strengthening and Enhancing the Use of English as the Medium of Instruction. Authored by Cebu Rep. Eduardo Gullas, the bill seeks to junk the bilingual policy adopted by the old education department in 1974, during the Marcos era. The policy sought to make the “nation competent in the use of English and Filipino.” Gullas’ measure seeks “the reinstatement of English as medium of instruction” in Philippine basic education.
It is easy to sympathize with Gullas; apparently, there are many who are ruing the Filipinos’ loss of English proficiency and they blame this on the bilingual policy. But it is one thing to lament the loss of our English proficiency, and another to dictate that it be made the medium of instruction in our schools.
To be sure, the state should be in the business of looking for the best way to effectively transmit knowledge in its education system. But studies across the board show that the mother tongue is the best conveyor of instruction.
To some extent, the Gullas bill recognizes the above. It gives schools the option to use English, Filipino or the regional language as the teaching language from pre-school up to Grade 3. But from the intermediate grades up to high school, English will be the teaching language, except in Filipino as a course.
Just the same, the bill’s “English myopia” is hegemonic, and overlooks scientific evidence showing the mother tongue to be the best medium of instruction. For example, a study showed that non-native American children who were schooled for six years in their first language, before they were taught completely in English, scored in their Science and Mathematics—as well as English—tests higher than the average native English pupil. In contrast, non-native English students who began education completely in English learned the least English and scored lowest in their academic subjects.
All these findings should show that no science or reason propels the campaign for the reinstitution of English as instruction language in our schools—except for that uniquely Filipino science-—hiya or loss of face, the reverse of which is another uniquely Filipino science—yabang or conceit. Perhaps confronted by Melanie Marquez and other Philippine beauty queens and pretenders who, during question-and-answer portions, add to the rich vocabulary of English by their unwitting and very hilarious answers; and perhaps feeling guilty and embarrassed because their children speak their yaya’s “Barok” English, some lawmakers now like to efface the atrocious English around them, including their own, by mandating that everyone speak the King’s English. But this gesture is at best aristocratic pretension.
At the least, Gullas et al. are driven by other considerations in seeking to restore English, but these considerations hardly have anything to do with hastening learning or the absorption of lessons by our students. They may have more to do with their distaste of the Tagalog-based Filipino and their resistance to Manila imperialism. (Filipino promoters may protest that Filipino is democratic and is drawn from all the major regional languages, not just Tagalog, but they should recognize that the suspicion against it by the provinces remains widespread. In any case, even Filipino promoters quarrel among themselves on which word or coinage to incorporate in the new vocabulary, and their Babel-like quarrel may take another eon to resolve.)
Gullas et al. also want English proficiency because of the global scheme of things, such as the decided advantage of Filipino manpower abroad due to their English know-how and the relative prestige accorded to nations that speak English. But since Filipinos get the lower end of skills in global manpower, what level of English proficiency should they really have? To be sure, many Filipina maids abroad can speak English even better than their masters.
In the end, even if Filipinos had indeed reached the nadir of English proficiency, it has nothing to do with the bilingual policy or the rise of the regional languages. It has more to do with the poor system of instruction: defective textbooks, poor language instructionals, poor (or total lack of) facilities, incompetent teachers and education planners, corruption and mismanagement. We may have English as the sole medium of instruction at all levels of education, but the Filipinos will continue to speak and write the most dreadful English as long as the system of instruction keeps submitting a hideous report card.
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