Lost in Translation - Pagmumunimuni sa Epol Apple
Here in the Philippines such a big fuss is made out of the issue of which language to use in education. A lot of the "elders" claim that our education in English should be reinforced since it is our main "selling point" as a people to a global labor market seeking workers who speak and understand English. Even Manila’s Mayor Lito Atienza has his own strictly-English rule being enforced on all of the city’s public schools.
Hence, even though we’ve exported labor from the time of the Galleon Trade (the first US immigrants being Filipinos who’ve jumped ship off the coast of California), we’re exporting even more people. Based on the 2004 elections there are 3 million OFWs who were hired for their ability to speak and understand English. Locally the call-center industry, catering mainly to US-based companies, has been the only "sunshine" industry, generating thousands of jobs and millions of dollars every year.
English instruction of the sciences and humanities has been the paradigm of the country’s educational system for the past 90 years, if anyone ever took notice. What bothers me is that we’re still a "third world" or "developing country" or whatever obnoxious idiom the rich countries invent for a poverty-stricken place. Furthermore, we continue to be one of the countries were students’ aptitude in the sciences stand lowest. Whoever insists that "English is the solution" fails to see this big picture.
Focusing English to get employed by a multinational company doesn’t solve the poverty problem — it merely becomes a short term solution to a long term problem. It trains Filipinos, rather efficiently, to become blue-collar workers with menial jobs (as in the cases of domestic helpers and seafarers) to highly paid-white collar workers (as in the case customer service representatives), the operative word being "worker." Moreover, the kind of English that Filipinos learn, oftentimes, only allow them to communicate at the basic (or for call center agents, cosmetic) level rather than have a truly deep and functional grasp of the English language.
Now I’m not going to say that we should get rid of the way English is taught. Hell no, that would be detrimental to us since we will lose a significant "advantage" over other people. But we should understand that while the Germans, Japanese, and Koreans are now rigorously studying English themselves (a lot of Koreans even go here in Manila or even Bacolod to study English), they’re doing that so as to be able to talk business in an English-dominated global market economy, as opposed to Filipinos who study English so that they could be hired by multinational companies and talk well with their expat boss.
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If some of you were wondering, it was only in 1998 when I was only able to write fairly well in Filipino. That was the year I joined Ang Pahayagang Plaridel of the De La Salle University. Back then I thought that I didn’t deserve respect as a person if I did not acknowledge who I truly was — a Filipino — in my use of language, both in speaking and writing. I could say that back then I could write fairly well in English. I just told myself I can only be called a writer if I wrote well in both languages.
April 22nd, 2005 at 9:21 pm
Interesting thoughts, Jon.
Indeed when it comes to development: language is not the main issue, it is the economic structure. Just look at Japan, South Korea, and China — strong economies that are only learning English today.
It is high time for the Philippine economy to focus on technology-intensive manufacturing industry that would adress the problem of redistribution in the country, and would hence usher in the long-term goal of social development. This is the development strategy of the strong Asian economies such as China, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, and the rest of the developed world. (Although I have reservations and contentions on the respective labour policies of these economies.)
Bonn
http://agoodgame.blogspot.com
April 23rd, 2005 at 3:36 pm
Bonn,
While technology is one of the things that may solve the problem, would you believe me if I said that one of the root causes of corruption is language or the inability to comprehend it?
One of my mother’s student’s researches in early elementary education hinted at this. She was conducting studies of math comprehension among 1st grade students.
She composed her test questions in English. She would diligently recite the instructions to the students in English. She initially claimed that the children did understand, simply because when she asked “Did you understand the instructions?” the response was “Yeeessss ma’am” and when she asked “Are there any questions?”, the students would say “Nooooo ma`am.” Sounds familiar?
As it turned out the children did not understand the instructions, and they certainly did not understand the question presented. A lot of them were just fidgeting, not knowing what to do. One of the students then approached the teacher and pestered her to tell him that his answer was correct.
Now because this is a research she wasn’t supposed to say if the answer was right or wrong, but because of the stubborness of the student she eventually gave in and said “yes.”
Immediately, the student walked back to his seat, and the other students crowded around him and copied the answer.
Yes we’re talking about first grade students in a public school who are learning how to cheat at the age of 7 or 8.
For fear of admitting that they did not understand English, the students resorted to cheating.
Now we know that cheating in the classroom leads on to other things or prepares the mindset to accept such things, don’t we?