I found this article online, and I thought about sharing it with everyone.  There are indeed many reasons why we fail to master the English language because of our own culture and upbringing.

When I was young, I moved to Hawaii, and that is how I learned how to speak English.  Unfortunately, I was not accepted by the local Filipino community there, and my very first best friend was a Caucasian kid, Kevin.  But within a few years, my mastery of the language exceeded the locals, who spoke pidgin mainly.  In fact, I became their class president, tutor, newspaper editor-in-chief, debate team captain, and many more.  But I can clearly remember how other Filipinos made fun of my accent and grammar.  The Filipinos can be the hardest, and easiest, to please!

I wanted to get rid of my Filipino accent.  I abhorred it.  I even tried denying who I was.  But my experience with culture and diversity helped me to overcome my eschewed perspectives.  I began to love my Filipino culture, and I thought that the Filipino accent was “cool.”  The accent gives us a cultural flavor, but learning the American accent is helpful as well.

Please read the article below for some extra tips and strategies.

English the Filipino way

By Antonio Aboitiz
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 22:06:00 01/03/2009

Filed Under: Language, People

MANILA, Philippines—The ubiquity of the English language in these islands is a bittersweet reality of our culture.

The entire world is scrambling to learn the planet’s current lingua franca while we, who had it thrust upon us for better or worse, are coming dangerously close to losing our fated headstart because of a variety of complex factors.

One of these factors is the fact that many of us who do not pronounce the words like the people on the pirated DVDs everyone purchases (piracy is a crime!) are very intimidated by this inability, and therefore become frustrated or ashamed and give up. This is something that must be smashed. Not the DVDs, but the stigma and teasing that can come along with bad diction.

Making fun

The perpetuation of the national pastime of making fun of someone’s English abilities should be ended. That is because we have our own English. It is Filipino English, and it is as valid—if not more so—than the English spoken by say, Australia or Canada, nations whose populations are but a fraction of ours.

We are supposedly the third largest English-speaking nation in the world. However, that all depends on how you define fluency. If you take the number of speakers of English as a second language, we probably rank around that.

English is a difficult language to learn. It has many rules, but also has almost as many exceptions and is fantastically non-phonetic (why is knife spelled with a k?). Its earliest evolution from its Germanic base, running into long and bloody backs and forths with the Romans, Vikings, then the French, then a liberal spiking of words obtained from conquered lands belies the history of the incredible islands from which the language bursts forth and itself conquered the world.

There may be more speakers of Chinese, but their geographic scope and influence around the globe cannot rival that of English.

This is THE language of international business, diplomacy, aviation, science, entertainment, and the World Wide Web.

English was brought to us by Americans, who started our public school system (an educated citizenry is a pre-requisite to true democracy) and left us speaking lots of good English. That is, until we decided to make Pilipino the national language in 1936 (check the preface on your kid’s Balarila) and the Bagong Lipunan tried desperately to force it as a medium of instruction.

We have our own English. We say comfortable the way it is spelled, not as “cumftabul” the way an American would. We use the word “already” as no one else does. “It is ready already” “it is finished already” this is pure Filipino-English. An Australian or an American would likely say simply “it’s done.” We say “for a while”—what exactly does that mean? I take it to mean, “when it’s ready already.” Again other English speakers might say “just a moment” or “just a sec”—but they mean the same thing really. The British and their Commonwealth members use “take away” Americans, “to go” Filipinos say “take home”—or at least used to.

God help you if you ask for the “CR” in any other English-speaking nation. But hey, we’ve also contributed to the English language in general: “boondocks” is a corruption of bundok.

The very difficulty and inconsistency of the English language—its fluidity and ability to invent and co-opt words—lies at the heart of the creative potential it imbibes to those who speak it.

Our ability to comprehend English is a trump card that we have to develop further and play to the hilt.

It makes courting foreign investments easier, makes tourism more attractive, adds to the “by the grace of God” advantages we have—great natural wealth in terms of biodiversity and minerals, strategic crossroads location, and more importantly, truly friendly, caring people who have a great sense of humor.

English is a living language, just as our own languages are. We also co-opt other words and usage as they come into our lives and become ubiquitous, and unavoidable. Its evolution is not determined by scholars and laid down as the law of the land.

Evolution

This just tells me we are primed and ready to evolve our language at the pace this world now demands of everyone: fast. We share some of those built-in ethno-linguistic evolutionary characteristics that gives English its creative advantage.

Back to the pronunciation aspect. I believe one great advantage we have in the growing field of business process outsourcing/information communications technology/call centers—is that we are not grating to the native English speaker’s ear, the Americans and British folk who are our major call center customers.

You outsource that to someone from India, or Singapore, or Hong Kong, and their accents will not be as pleasing to those customer’s ears as our own accents which we make such fun of.

Let’s not lose our aces. We’ve already done that with a few of the good cards we had already been dealt.

I have several suggestions to keep our edge in English:

1. Keep speaking English and continue to use it as a medium of instruction. Take what we want from either of the other two largest English-speaking nations but be consistent in our textbooks, particularly in spelling and grammar.

2. DO NOT make fun of someone’s pronunciation unless it is constructive.

3. DO NOT fear ridicule. That person making fun of your English, well, you could probably run circles around them in your own dialect.

4. Keep speaking your home dialect, teach it to your children, and present it as a language class in school. While English may be slowly changing some of our already fractured-culture nation’s heritage, we will never ever give up our identity and cultural characteristics. Don’t worry, we will still be Filipino.

5. Remember that each dialect we lose, we lose a complete worldview. So the old languages must somehow find a way to survive or they will perish forever.

6. Keep it to a minimum with the silly acronyms. We are just plain crazy about those. Some are unavoidable (it’s a waste of time to say “Subscriber Identity Module card” rather than the omnipresent “SIM card”). For your own sake, don’t use the silly acronym unless you know what it stands for. This acronym insanity permeates business, nongovernmental organizations, cooperatives, civil society, government (“Epira—what’s that? Such silliness because if they called Republic Act No. 9136 the “Industry Reform Act for Power and Electricity” instead of the “Electric Power Industry Reform Act” we might be calling it “I RAPE”), education, religion, etc.

Numbers game

7. Remind those arrogant enough to challenge our English that on many terms, we win because we have the numbers. The United Kingdom herself only has about 60 million people, and even those guys can’t agree on the proper pronunciation of words.

8. At some point in time, our own Noah Webster will create a Filipino Dictionary of the English Language. When that happens we will have truly come of age as another birthing place for this unique modern language.

(Aboitiz recently retired from the Aboitiz Group of Companies and is current chairman of the Visayas regional committee of the Philippine Business for Social Progress.)

I have celebrated Halloween here in the Philippines for the last three years.  During the first party, I was with my friends at a condominium at the Prince Plaza next to Greenbelt.  There were less than ten of us then.  I was a goth or the Crow lookalike.  Last year, the party was held at my friend Dan’s house in Dasmarinas Village here in Makati.  I was a simple security guard.  There were about 20 to 30 of us there.

This year, it was a much bigger party, with 70 ghosts, goblins, monsters, vampires, warriors, goddesses, witches, devils, princesses, and more.  We had so much food and beer.  We had a DJ complete with smoke, laser, and lights.  We partied the night away.

We had games: The Ship is Sinking, Simon Says, and Speed Dating.

The winners of the contests received Php 3,000 for 1st, Php 2,000 for 2nd, and Php 1000 for 3rd.

It was also an international affair.  We had about 50 Filipinos and 20 friends from S. Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia, Ireland, UK, Australia, US, and more.

Next year, we hope to have an even bigger party.  How about 100?

Here are some pictures.  We have many more at our main website forum or gallery at www.aiepro.org.

Have you ever experienced being a teacher’s pet? What is a teacher’s pet? A teacher’s pet is a teacher’s favorite student.

When I was younger, I always thought that it was unfair when teachers and students became close to each other. Maybe I was jealous or maybe I thought that these students got higher grades or better treatment than the other students, but I felt that it just wasn’t right.

Well… that was then…and now I finally understand why, now that I’m an educator myself.

It’s hard not to become close to some students after spending time getting to know each other.

I love teaching and some students have become very special to me. One of them is the older sister I’ve never had. Her name is Kaye. She was one of my one on one students and I really miss her. She’s very busy being a businesswoman and a mother and she travels a lot outside the country. We haven’t seen each other for a few months now, but we do try to keep in touch. We even went to Seoul together last March and that trip was so fun and amazing!

We met with another one on one student of mine, Moo and his friends, who live in Seoul.I miss them both but regardless of distance and time, both of them will always be special to me.

This is AIEPRO’s official blogsite.

The American Institute, located in Makati City/Manila, is the Philippines’ leading service provider of English training and career development, specializing in American Accent, Conversation Fluency, Critical Thinking, Confidence Building, Grammar, Writing, and Test Preparations (TOEFL, IELTS). We have revolutionized and innovated English language learning in the Philippines by offering specialized courses that will not only teach you how to speak English well, but also to think critically and analytically; you will not find any English learning institution with higher standards and better staffed than we are. Our goal is simple: to provide only the best English learning experience to help you or your company reach your personal and professional goals.

Our clients are from all over the world; they are executives, professionals, and students from Japan, South Korea, China, Indonesia, Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, Sweden, Sri Lanka, Ukraine, Germany, Turkey, Italy, and Spain. Here in the Philippines, we have consulted with not only corporate groups and call centers, but also with business professionals who are seeking to improve their critical thinking skills, confidence level, and of course, speech and communication skills, recent college graduates who are preparing for their call center interviews, and school teachers who are applying for positions abroad. Simply put, we are both the professionals’ and students’ choice.

Because we administer the highest educational standards, our graduates are poised, knowledgeable, and very confident; they excel in interviews, are awarded promotions, and become social and corporate leaders. Once you meet with us, you will find that American Institute for English Proficiency (AIEP), Philippines is very different than other schools here in the Philippines in that we are extremely professional and friendly as well as innovative and qualitative. Our English Language Specialists are Americans and Filipino-Americans with extensive backgrounds in English language training, corporate training and management, and personality development. Now is the time to take charge of your future. We invite you to call or visit us today.