For the foreign student, learning English is only a means to an end. The option to learn English enhances his/her chances of landing a high-end job in his/her homeland. For the Filipino, on the other hand, mastery of the English language becomes essential for survival in an environment where English proficiency does not necessarily mean having a competitive edge in employment.
BY MIKAEL ANGELO S. FRANCISCO
Philippine Collegian
Posted by Bulatlat
October 7-13, 2007
Foreign students arrive, fresh from their home countries. Every artifact, object, and piece of literature becomes a grammar lesson as they are quick to notice that just about everything, from road signs to instruction manuals, are printed in English. They are elated about being in the Philippines, known as a country conducive for learning English.
Taste Test
Most of these students rely on student exchange programs from their respective governments or universities in order to study in the Philippines. The rest, meanwhile, had to pay with their own resources. Kim Hyo Jin (Rika), 21, and Lee Sang Seo (Mancer), 24, hailing from South Korea and taking up journalism, got a scholarship made possible through a partnership between Hallym University and University of the Philippines-Diliman (UP Diliman).
As an international corporation offering education for foreign students proclaims, affordable overseas degrees and tuition fees, economical accommodation and living expenses, inexpensive travel cost, and student-assisted visa application all serve to market the Philippines to prospective students from other countries as “the place to be.”
To be able to study in UP, foreign students must pay the university the appropriate education development fee (EDF) per semester.
The EDF ranges from US$30 for undergraduate resident aliens to US$500 for non-resident aliens taking up graduate studies. Despite the EDF, foreign students, apparently, still find the cost of education relatively cheaper.
According to the Department of Tourism, the Philippines is the world’s third largest English-speaking nation. It is not surprising, then, that the country has become a haven for foreigners seeking to hone their English speaking skills. “My purpose of visiting is to improve my English,” says Rika with a smile, doing her best to pronounce the words properly. Says Mancer, “[Studying] English here is very cheap. I try to study English [as well as Philippine] culture and [its people’s] lifestyle.”
Slip of the tongue
The fluency of Filipinos in the English language is rooted in the years following the colonization of the Philippines by the Americans. According to Prof. Gonzalo Campoamor III, as early as 1901, free public and secular education were made available by Americans as a subtle means to further their influence. English was used as both the medium of instruction and the language in which textbooks were written to train the Filipinos to be fluent in the colonizers’ mother tongue. The American government eventually handed the educated Filipinos the proverbial keys to the city. Since then, Filipinos have boasted of their fluency in the native language of the American people.
The Philippines thus became an alternative to other countries that offer more expensive English education. According to Hannah, a Korean student taking up tourism, “[the] Philippines has [a] good educational system for studying English.” The Philippines becomes a steppingstone for foreign students on their way to succeed in an Americanized world market, where English has become the medium for business and trade.
For the foreign student, learning English is only a means to an end. The option to learn English enhances his/her chances of landing a high-end job in his/her homeland. For the Filipino, on the other hand, mastery of the English language becomes essential for survival in an environment where English proficiency does not necessarily mean having a competitive edge in employment.
