The End is Near
A sure sign that English language proficiency in the Philippines is fast deteriorating is when even a call centre job market ad has poor grammar...or simply doesn't know what it wants to say. Your Honor, I present the following exhibits:- "preferably graduate of any medical course, but not required"
- "should have good comprehension"
- "interested applications are invited to forward the resume to"
- "we accept walk-in every Saturdays"
Two things are happening here - Filipinos are quickly losing their grasp of the English language (myself included) and we are encroaching on a labor quality problem. If this country doesn't get its act together, we will be largely overtaken by China and India in 2007. I kid you not. This is why many of us take it upon ourselves to sharpen our skills and are happy that our government is finally taking steps to reinstate English as the primary language of education.
I had a very interesting conversation with JR, Marian, Arnel, Dex, and Raymond yesterday morning (yes, morning! It was 3:00AM and we had been together since 5:30PM on Friday). I don't remember how it started, but Arnel posed the question: whose fault is it - the teachers' or the parents'? He made a strong argument for saying it was the government's fault.
We live in a global village, not in an isolated archipelago. And the last thing that any Filipino wants to happen to himself is to lose face, mapahiya. So if I ran the Department of Education, Culture and Sports, I would make changes to bring Filipinos closer to globalization.
- put foreign language classes back in the curriculum, particularly Spanish, starting no later than Grade 3 (the later a foreign language is introduced, the more difficult it becomes to learn). Majority of our country's historical documents and literature were written in Spanish. We should be able to appreciate Jose Rizal's Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo as originally intended. So much is lost in the translation to English and Tagalog. Another business case, so to speak, for Spanish is that almost a third of the world's population speaks Spanish.
- In High School, we can give students the option to learn Chinese (Mandarin), French or Japanese. I actually admire PAREF schools for teaching Latin. It is easier to learn the Romantic languages and find the meaning of a word without a dictionary if one knows Latin. I don't. Some of my friends from Southridge do.
- Apart from learning foreign languages, the history and culture from which these languages originated must be studied as well. At work, we always look back at what has been done to avoid making the same mistakes and in order to do a better job. We should do the same with all aspects of our lives and make history.
- Improve our Math and Science programs. I'm horrible with numbers. Makes one wonder how I get by at work. Hahaha! But we've spending so much time on languages, we've forgotten about basic Math.
- Increase the youth's awareness and appreciation for the arts. Do you know how many Filipinos have never even seen just one part of Luna's Spolarium? Some don't even know what it is.
- Focus on sports that we (our race) can excel in, such as football, gymnastics, racquet sports, swimming, and even boxing. Something that doesn't require height! May nakita na ba kayong Pinoy sa NBA? May napalanunan na ba tayo na basketball game sa Olympics? Wala, diba? But, yes, I'll include basketball because I wouldn't want to alienate tall kids with real potential. You'll never know if they ever make sports history, right?
I can go on and on and on about all this. I need to stop. I wish I had a solution. Peso for your thoughts?
posted by Calai @ 11:35 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home