Rizal vs. Bonifacio debates: silly, irrelevant, nasty
By Marlen V. Ronquillo, The Manila Times

MANILA, December 7, 2013—The silliest debates in the Philippine context have lives longer than Abraham’s. They are totally unnecessary, they are divisive, they pollute and not enrich the national conversation. Yet, there is almost always a season when they are taken up with real intensity, and in some cases, with real vehemence.

The debate on who should be the national hero—Rizal or Bonifacio—is all of these: silly, irrelevant and nasty. The issue of who is the greater hero should find no place in our debates as there has been a special pedestal where we have brought the two, along with the de facto status of Bonifacio as the other national hero.

To the proletariat, the class to which I belong, Bonifacio is the greater hero. The consecration of Bonifacio comes naturally. The greatest hero is the one identified with praxis, the melding of theory and practice. Bonifacio laid down the seminal writings on what a free country would look like and was in many ways the thinker and chief ideologue of the Katipunan.

Also, he was fearless in battle, the charging brown warrior, the one who fought to slay the dragons of the colonization and the damning subservience. You can’t imagine Bonifacio as Rizal, the hero with the overcoat. He will always be the hero with the sleeves rolled up—always ready to do battle with the enemy.

That he was regarded with awe and respect by the intellectuals, professionals and commoners s that joined him in the Katipunan leadership was testament to Bonifacio’s supreme ability to lead—the supremo who was without equal. In that time and place, the most selfless and fearless, and the most committed to the cause, was the natural leader and Bonifacio was the most selfless, the most fearless and the most dedicated.

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Young Blood: Newfound tongue
By Wildflower, Philippine Daily Inquirer

NORWAY, September 28, 2013—I left Australia two years ago convinced that it was horribly stressful to live and settle there. I studied business management, but I was not happy with the course. It was not my passion.

I was a registered nurse before I left the Philippines. Now that is my true calling, but I was really eager to leave the country and spread my wings. I wanted to escape my parents’ shadows, and be free. But youth, for all its freshness and vigor, does not have the wisdom of experience. So I soared and took off. I was full of confidence. I thought that it’s always greener on the other side of the fence. I believed that I could do anything with determination and perseverance, plus passion and a positive outlook in life.

I was partly wrong. When you’re in a lot of stress, you may find that the grass is not always greener, and the sky not bluer, and that no matter how hard you try and how patient you are, the outcome will not always turn out to be the way you expected. And oh, did I tell you that I was also a bit of a perfectionist before?

And so it happened: I got quite frustrated when things went out of control. I could not juggle everything—work, school, church activities. It was a lot for me to handle. So I decided to go back to my parents (just as they expected). I missed home, I missed my family, I missed chilling and doing nothing—I missed my laid-back life.

But once you get used to a very busy life, your body will thirst for it; every bit of your muscles will long for stress and hunger for fatigue. And you’ll feel like you have to obey that thirst and hunger. And since I am a fan of Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, I will answer to those primary needs. So once again I embarked on another journey, this time to Northern Europe—the land of the midnight sun and the fierce Vikings: Norway.

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The lost art of reading
By Marivic A. Somejo, The Manila Times

MANILA, September 6, 2013—Many office managers, Human Resource officers or those people whose task it is to interview and screen job applicants, are one in their observation that young people seem to be less articulate in expressing themselves in the English language.

These young job applicants, mostly fresh graduates, seem to be afflicted with the same “disease”—poor grammar. This should be a surprise, considering that for years, we Filipinos have bragged to the world that we are proficient in the King’s language.

But then, some people, especially those claiming to be nationalists, may say, is English important?

Heck yes, when one aspires to land a decent (and well-paying) job, one that can keep body and soul together.

These days, knowing a smattering of English won’t get a job seeker anywhere. And woe to an applicant who brandishes his atrocious grammar during that all-important job interview. Unless the company he applied with has an extensive program to train prospective employees (even business process outsourcing companies weed out trainees who can’t straighten their English after several weeks of lectures and on-the-job-training), the chances of a job applicant who mangles the English language is nil.

So why the disappointing trend? Why is it that even those who graduated cum laudes can’t seem to polish their English? Why is it that majority of students can’t seem to make their subjects and verbs agree, insert a comma where it belongs, or write a decent composition?

Perhaps this malady can be traced to the laziness of young people to read. These days, children would rather spend time socializing with friends, many of whom they can only talk to or see online. The invasion of tablets, smartphones and laptops had virtually rendered useless those humble and unsophisticated “gadgets” that once taught, entertained and honed the proficiency of earlier generations—books…

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Outtakes: English dictionary to add Pinoy pork barrel-inspired words
By Rene Ciria-Cruz, Philippine Daily Inquirer (Satirical humor)

LONDON, September 6, 2013—Every year the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) adds new words based on evidence of their popular usage.

Sir Alexie Conn, a spokesperson for OED in London, told Outtakes/INQUIRER.net that new words from the Philippines are seriously being considered for inclusion.

Here are just some of the words that reportedly could end up in the OED, to join such illustrious company as “selfie,” “twerk,” “boink.”

Pdafhile—a lawmaker who lusts after fresh Department of Budget Management disbursements from his/her pork barrel allotment

stypend—a pdafhile’s dirty, secret commission from pork funds approved for a fake project or NGO; syn., kickback, pork diem

porquisites—advantages of political office enjoyed by a sitting pdafhile

napolestation—abuse of taxpayers’ money by pdafhiles and well-connected scammers known as janetors or swinedlers

janetor—one who takes taxpayers to the cleaners or cleans out government coffers, often with lapidity; adj., janetorial

lapidity—the speed of acting without cause, e,g., purchasing with pork funds “antidengue innoculants” for Polillo, Quezon, when no cases of dengue fever were reported there

bulokracy—rotten government channels that enable napolestation due to absence of transparency or sunshine law

kuyanymous—adj., being hidden behind the respectable alias of “kuya” used by senator whose ex-president father is now a mayor; see also, “pogilistic”

estradition—natural transfer from father to son of “estradavirus” that triggers “kuyanymous,” eraptive and same-o same-o practices; facilitated by a social secretary who contacts swinedlers

tandacy—the tendency of an elderly former Senate president to “ponceficate”

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Commonness: You’re only as good as your worst quote
By Bong R. Osorio, The Philippine Star

MANILA, September 9, 2013—A passenger ferry collides with a cargo ship and a number of people get hurt or die; an oil spill occurs, negatively affecting the livelihood of the affected towns; or a whistleblower talks about taxpayers’ money being squandered by a greedy few, driving people to march in protest and anger. The situations are all too familiar. Bad news breaks or a crisis occurs, and a spokesperson is thrown in the limelight to face a probing media. He is asked a hard question and he stutters, murmurs a shabby retort or, worse, delivers a preposterous spiel. You can see the anxiety in his countenance. The media faceoff stands on shaky ground.

Crisis communications guru and former reporter Jeff Ansell deals with moments like these in a new book called When the Headline is You: An Insider’s Guide to Handling the Media. In truth, most people react in varying ways when confronted with a potentially damaging question. “They hold their breath, stop listening, feverishly think of what to say, turn negative and defensive, and have an out-of-body experience,” Ansell says. He quickly adds, “To answer a potentially damaging question effectively and with honesty, spokespersons should first of all breathe, ask themselves how they want to come across — honest, trustworthy and accountable — and learn the media techniques to help them find the right words.”

In the tome, the author shares his value-based communications module for working with journalists: understanding how the media works, how to communicate a message effectively, how to build a positive reputation, and how to sail through a crisis while keeping away from repeatedly encountered drawbacks. There are many things communicators can pick up from the book — case stories and media messaging guidelines, among others, but here are key talking points that can be useful in your next meet-up with media:

• Today’s public talks to each other and doesn’t need mainstream media to tell them what or how to think. The practice of traditional public relations imposes messages on stakeholders and counsels spokespeople to ignore questions reporters ask and simply deliver “key messages.” With the advent of social media, those days are through. Instead of talking at stakeholders, corporations now have to listen more than they speak.

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Commonsense: “Thank you, teacher”
By Marichu A. Villanueva, The Philippine Star
 
MANILA, September 9, 2013—Do you know that in a year, a teacher spends 1,200 hours teaching students? I did not know that until I read it from the quick “Guro Inforgraphic” posted at the Department of Education (DepEd) website. This refers only to nationally hired public school teachers of DepEd.

As of last count by DepEd, there are 583,812 public school teachers all over the country, 15.6 percent of whom are male and 84.35 percent female. This number does not include the principals and other teachers serving as school administrators.

Of this total, 52.8 percent have zero to ten years of experience of teaching. This is because, DepEd Secretary Bro. Armin Luistro explained, they have hired more public school teachers for the past three years that have reduced the teachers’ shortage problem in the country.

Over a luncheon gathering he hosted with several editors last week, Luistro told us DepEd is celebrating a month-long observance to honor teachers as heroes and role models.

President Benigno “Noy” Aquino III has signed Proclamation No. 242 that declared September 5 to October 5 of each year as National Teachers’ Month. Naturally, the lead agency here is headed by Secretary Luistro who himself is an educator when he taught religion at De La Salle University (DLSU).

Luistro came with a “Thank you, teacher! My teacher, My Hero” pinned on his white polo shirt. The pin has a picture of a red apple to symbolize the fruit we give to our favorite teacher. He told us the pin was part of the project of Metrobank Foundation to help promote the observance of Teachers’ Month.

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Pinoy Kasi: 181 languages
By Michael L. Tan, Philippine Daily Inquirer

August 29, 2013—August is designated as National Language Month (Buwan ng Wikang Pambansa) because Aug. 19 is the birth anniversary of President Manuel Quezon, who first designated Tagalog as the basis for a national language, way back in 1937.

More than 70 years later, we continue to be linguistic schizophrenics, still debating on whether we should use Filipino or English (some schools even threatening expulsion for violators of “English-only” rules on campuses), and whether we spell the national language Filipino or Pilipino.

I don’t think anyone now denies the need for a national language but there is still resentment, mainly from Cebuano speakers, at “Tagalog imperialism.” Less discussed is the way Filipino, as a national language, has been slow to absorb words from languages other than Tagalog. The original intention, after all, of a national language was to bring in words from different languages in the Philippines.

In the last few years there has been still another twist to our language situation and this is the implementation of Mother Language-Based Multilingual Education, with the Department of Education requiring the use of an area’s mother language up to Grade 3 as the medium of instruction.

The DepEd has designated 17 languages for now that qualify for Mother Language-Based Education. There are actually many more potential mother languages, the total number spoken in the Philippines running to 181, if we are to use the count of the “Ethnologue” of the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL). SIL started out as a missionary group sending out linguists to learn the languages of the world in order to translate the Bible. That mission remains but in the course of their work over several decades, SIL has become a recognized authority on the world’s languages.

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Should language evolve without rules?
By Marne Kilates, Philippine Daily Inquirer

August 19, 2013—Why are we so meticulous with our English and not with our own language?
Some of us who love language—especially English, and that includes me—worshipped at the feet of William Safire when he was living and writing (he passed on in 2009).

Others lament that there are no “Grammar Nazis” for Filipino. They observe the shoddy and inept usage of the language in media and elsewhere and long for someone to point out and correct the errors.

On the opposite side, one reader irately advised, in capital letters, to “ignore her (meaning me) and let her stew in her ivory tower.”

“Let the language evolve from usage,” the reader continued, “be it invaded by Cebuano, Ilocano, or jejemon… even gayspeak. The idea is to make language inclusive. Language Nazis like Kilates are the very reason why we are a people divided by language.”

As I said, I love lively conversations. But that does not mean I admire the Nazis, even if the other reader meant it as a compliment.

Also, I have no idea what an ivory tower looks like from the inside. I know what damp cement feels like, actually, though I use the little room air-conditioner extremely sparingly, being allergic to bloated electric bills.

And, incidentally, I am a he, and full-bloodedly so. Though I have a beer paunch that shows like bad grammar.

Of course I do not pretend to be a William Safire. I did not like his boss, Richard Nixon, and apart from that, he, Safire, was not just a “Nazi” but a true gadfly in the best sense of the word.
On Facebook, a reader sent me a link to an article on Grammar Pedantry Syndrome (GPS). It was a form of OCD, or obsessive-compulsive disorder, the article said. You know, like washing the hands or making faces frequently.

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“Forced” to be a teacher and yet…
By Leora P. Ferry, Philippine Daily Inquirer

August 19, 2013—Mother, aunt, cousin and godparents opened my eyes to the world of teachers. They always looked poised, dignified, smart—who would not want to be like them?

As a young girl, I lived and breathed with teachers all around me.

In high school, I got the chance to share my time with less-fortunate kids in our place as they attended Sunday school. Girls from private high schools like me were tapped to teach Christian values to them.

I realized teaching was no joke and it took a lot of patience to get an educational message across.
I was a sensation as a Bachelor of Arts in English student. I met great friends, won an essay-writing contest, became a familiar name among liberal arts students, received a university scholarship and even had a native English speaker boyfriend.

My scholarship was very special although it required me to teach speech  three hours every day to freshman and sophomore students, which I enjoyed immensely.

I got to practice my English-speaking skills in the laboratory and correct the students’ use of the language.

Although I had to forget my dream of becoming a lawyer, it never crossed my mind to apply for any teaching position. I took a job as a “sentiment” writer, the one who makes those witty, sometimes cheesy, texts in greeting cards.

I was enjoying the work when a substitute teaching stint  in an all-boys school was offered to me.  Fond memories of being in the classroom gave me the push to accept.

I did not realize that high school boys could be so mean, so inattentive, so judgmental.

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Young Blood: The cost of words
By Nina Domingo, Philippine Daily Inquirer

August 24, 2012—I suppose signing up for the creative writing elective was the closest I had ever gotten to doing anything meaningful with my life. I won’t say it was particularly profound, because scribbling plot twists in the late hours of the night tends not to lead to a greater sense of self-awareness. But I will say it was thought-provoking because exposing your mind to concepts greater than your understanding does.

I came to terms with two things during my time at the creative writing class. The first is that I will never fully grasp how other people think. Up until that point, I’d always assumed that everybody saw things the same way. I was aware that personal experiences molded each of us differently, but I had believed that at the core of every person was a shared flow of thought. The absurdity of the idea had not occurred to me until the issue came up in my writing.

I found that I was continuously injecting myself into my stories, that I was stuck in painting self-portraits. While I eventually found ways to twist a character’s mindset to fit my plot, I was frustrated that I could never go beyond it. Carbon copies can hold your interest only for so long. I could always blame my ignorance on my youth, but I suppose it is more of a failure on my part for not having the imagination to see what is around me.

You should know upfront that my experience did not lead to a sudden surge of faith in people. Do not imagine changed life ambitions or sudden bursts of inspiration, because that is not what happened. What I did was more like taking a microscope, picking up a slide, and analyzing it. I do not mean to say human interaction is something so mechanical, only that it is not something that can change minds so easily…

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There’s the Rub: Stale fish
By Conrado de Quiros, Philippine Daily Inquirer

MANILA, August 6, 2013—I started thinking about it again a couple or so months ago when Quacquarelli Symonds, a British organization specializing in education, released its finding that Philippine universities had fallen way down in Asian rankings. Specifically, I started thinking about it again after several people reacted by saying that the free fall began when schools like the University of the Philippines adopted the bilingual policy, and that they should have stuck to English-only teaching.

“It” of course is the language problem in this country. It has bedeviled us for a long time and will continue to bedevil us for a long time. It is a huge problem, it is a thorny conundrum. To this day, we haven’t found the Alexandrian sword that would slice the knot.

This month being Buwan ng Wika, it’s a good time to spare a thought to it.

The judgment about the decline of Philippine schools owing not to our stars but to our language, or the substitution of Filipino for English in various subjects, is of course specious. It overlooks the fact that UP, the most resolute in the enforcement of the bilingual policy, remained the only Philippine school in the top 100 in Asia, improving marginally from 68th to 67th this year. More to the point, it overlooks the fact that the other Asian countries that are doing far better than us do not have an English-only academic policy. It’s not just that some of them have a bilingual policy as well, it’s that most of them teach in their own languages.

It’s not just common sense, it’s scientific sense. The students who do best in math and the science are those who learned them in their languages. The lessons are immediately understandable, they are immediately learnable. By contrast, Filipino students who are taught math and science in English have to work literally doubly hard to learn them. First they have to learn the language that conveys them, then they have to learn the concepts they contain. Unless of course they are natively English speakers, which some people at UP, Ateneo, La Salle, and Xavier are. That is a tiny fraction of the population.

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Young Blood: Continuing love affair
By Marilag Buenaventura Sadicon, Philippine Daily Inquirer

July 22, 2013—At 16, I had already had my moments of self-revelation. Having an English teacher for a mother shaped the dramatist, the writer, the orator, and the debater in me and helped me realize my capacity for communication.

With my sophomore year in high school came biology. I loved biology, and, not to blow one’s horn, I aced it in all quarters of that year. Consequently, another dream and another path were revealed to me—that of becoming a doctor or a microbiologist. Meanwhile, I was also fascinated with my aunt’s passion for her profession as a speech pathologist, and the enthrallment of becoming one never escaped me. One thing was for sure: At that age, I was already charting a career path for myself, which I guess was natural as I was nearing the next phase of my life—college.

In this moment of great anticipation, I was no less than torn—torn because there were so many choices, and torn apart because my mind and heart clashed and collided, not certain what to choose. With all those epiphanies weighing on me, I never thought it was possible to have one more: my first-ever life-changing experience.

Three summers ago, I made the first step toward loving my country. I learned to love my hometown and my people, and it all happened during the campaign for my sister and my uncle who were running for local offices.

A big part of the campaign entailed going from house to house to introduce the candidates and discuss their platform of government. That part of the campaign experience is what I credit the most for this newly fostered love, mainly because it opened my eyes to the condition of my kababayan. Going from barangay to barangay and from barrio to barrio allowed me to see what and who my hometown of Pinamalayan in Oriental Mindoro really is.

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Ex Libris: Sign language
By Ruel S. De Vera, Philippine Daily Inquirer

MANILA, July 7, 2013—Born of everyday ingenuity and perhaps a hint of either madness or boredom, Filipino signs are an art form by themselves. The signs are also a balancing act between being smart or knowledgeable, and being pilosopo (smart alecky).

Whether clever or naughty, obscure or obvious, these unexpected offspring of the English language and Filipino wit are also serendipitous and ubiquitous, appearing just when and where you weren’t looking—and so much funnier for it.

The obsession with funny Filipino signs and malapropisms is easily embodied in the books which have sprung up to gather these literate jokes in their bosoms. Perhaps the earliest example is “Signs of the Philippines,” by Raymund Floresca, Leslie Ann Murray, Valentino So and Jill Gale De Villa, published in 1970 by D.I.P. Ink. This out-of-print wonder contains cartoon reproductions of signages that the authors found funny.

It was this book that attracted the attention of writer and educator Neni Sta. Romana-Cruz. An American colleague of hers at the International School Manila was looking for a copy of “Signs of the Philippines” because that colleague’s uncle had seen the book while in Manila.

“I told her that I was sure it was out of print,” said Cruz, who had written a series of Philippine pop culture books for Tahanan Books that included “Don’t Take a Bath on Friday: Philippine Superstitions and Folk Beliefs” and “You Know You’re Filipino If… A Pinoy Primer.”

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We are losing our edge in the use of English
By Bobit S. Avila, The Philippine Star

March 26, 2013—I got a lengthy response on my column last Saturday where we discussed the problems of our educational system in this country from Ishmael Calata who is a former Master of the 4th Degree of the K of C in the National Capital Region, where their guiding principles is Patriotism. Here’s his email in full.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Avila. In your column today, the fact that only 949 out of 5,343 lawyer-wannabes passed the last bar examination makes me throw up. It is a very embarrassing news that people around the world have now found an additional reason to laugh at us, Filipinos! I feel sad about this. It is a pathognomonic sign of the very poor educational system that ours now has deteriorated into! And one of the biggest reasons why we have such results in bar and board examinations is the very poor English proficiency of our college graduates.

Do they understand the questions in the exams? Do they have the capability to answer well those questions? Obviously most of them don’t. There was a time when we were a proud nation known as the third largest English speaking people in the world. Students from many parts of Asia came to us to learn the language. But, sorry to say that since our “nationalist” politicians kuno enacted the law that made us turn into the vernacular as the medium of education, English speaking here has become so low that most high school graduates cannot even make a good sentence in English.

The situation has even been exacerbated by TV and movie shows personalities who, as scripted, deride in jest one who speaks English. Example: Among a bunch of billiard personalities doing a commercial about a well-known beer, the second most popular one in the group chided the one who spoke broken English, thus, “Pa ingles ingles ka pa dyan…!” which made all of them break into a ridiculous laughter!

And so, the practice in English speaking has become a shameful thing now within hearing distance of others especially among our youth. Because of this, very soon, we will lose our edge over other Asians in the supply of manpower to the developed countries. Quo vadis, Philippines? Ishmael Calata.”

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Love letter to Filipinos
By David H. Harwell, PhD, Philippine Daily Inquirer

February 17, 2013—I am writing to thank Filipinos for the way you have treated me here, and to pass on a lesson I learned from observing the differences between your culture and mine over the years.

I am an expatriate worker. I refer to myself as an OAW, an overseas American worker, as a bad joke. The work I do involves a lot of traveling and changing locations, and I do it alone, without family. I have been in 21 countries now, not including my own. It was fun at first.  Now, many years later, I am getting tired. The Philippines remains my favorite country of all, though, and I’d like to tell you why before I have to go away again.

I have lived for short periods here, traveled here, and have family and friends here. My own family of origin in the United States is like that of many Americans—not much of a family. Americans do not stay very close to their families, geographically or emotionally, and that is a major mistake. I have long been looking for a home and a family, and the Philippines is the only place I have lived where people honestly seem to understand how important their families are.

I am American and hard-headed. I am a teacher, but it takes me a long time to learn some things. But I’ve been trying, and your culture has been patient in trying to teach me.

In the countries where I’ve lived and worked, all over the Middle East and Asia, it is Filipinos who do all the work and make everything happen. When I am working in a new company abroad, I seek out the Filipino staff when I need help getting something done, and done right.

Your international reputation as employees is that you work hard, don’t complain, and are very capable. If all the Filipinos were to go home from the Middle East, the world would stop…

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English language: Connecting people, improving lives
By Alexandria M. Mordeno, MindaNews.com

MALAYBALAY CITY, March 11, 2013—Look at the world around you right now. It’s beautiful, isn’t it? Now look again and try to imagine what it would be like if it is filled with people who don’t understand what the others are saying because they in speak different tongues. Wouldn’t it be dreadful?

It might even be the cause of another world war. Chaos would be everywhere and soon enough the era of man would fall apart. Fortunately, we have an international language: English.

For years, we have lived quite harmoniously with other races because there is English to accommodate our need for communication. We may not share the same nationality, but at least we share a common language.

The English language has helped in so many ways more than we could even imagine. It has made countless nations prosper. It has brought humanity to great peaks of accomplishment. Through this language we have done life-changing things that have surpassed the expectations of our ancestors. English is a golden string that binds us all.

In this modern world that aims for globalization, being able to speak English is as important as the fuel is to a vehicle. Without that “fuel” progress would be hindered.

Many local companies right now only have people who know how to speak English well. It’s very important especially when you’re dealing with foreign clients. It’s important when you’re welcoming and entertaining tourists visiting the country. English language is imperative if we want our country to attain the progress it’s craving for.

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Return to radio
By Butch Dalisay, The Philippine Star

February 25, 2013—I accepted an unusual invitation for an interview a couple of weeks ago—unusual because of the medium involved, which was radio, specifically DZUP, the on-campus station of the University of the Philippines. DZUP station manager Rose Feliciano asked me to guest on her noontime show so I could talk about the UP Institute of Creative Writing and its flagship programs, and I was happy to oblige — not only because, as UPICW director, it’s my job to promote the institute, but also because I’ve always had a warm spot for radio, and remain a fan of the medium.

For Filipinos weaned on the Internet, radio must seem like a blast from the past, and, in a very real sense, it is. We’re told that the first local radio stations came on the air in June 1922, so we’re just nine years away from celebrating radio’s centennial in the Philippines. While there’s some dispute as to who really invented radio, no one disagrees with the fact that Guglielmo Marconi made the first successful radio transmission in 1895 — when our revolucionarios were just plotting their moves against Spain — and received a British patent for it the year after.

Of course a century’s just a drop in the bucket of human history, but in terms of technology, it’s virtually an eternity. The idea of an invention remaining just as useful after a hundred years boggles the mind, in an age when, say, the floppy disk gave way to the CD, which then gave way to the DVD and then the USB drive, all within the span of a few years. And of course radio today is a far cry from the rasp across the ether that it was at its inception (you can hear a pin drop and bounce off the floor on FM), but the basic idea remains the same — a message is electronically transmitted and received, completing the cycle of communication.

I belong to that generation of Pinoys for whom radio, and not even TV, was our main source of information and entertainment while we were growing up. I remember listening to radio soaps such as Eddie, Junior Detective, Erlinda ng Bataan, and Gabi ng Lagim…

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Personal touch missing in Philippine education
By Peter Wallace, Asia News Network – Thu, Dec 27, 2012

MANILA, December 27, 2012—Fifty-three. That’s the average number of secondary school students in a class in the Philippines; some classes go as high as 80. Almost none (in public schools) go below 30. Yet 30 is about the max a teacher can handle; even that is high, 25 would be ideal.

You don’t teach to 53, you lecture. There cannot be, is not, any individual attention. The child’s unique abilities or lack of them can’t be addressed by the teacher. Individual homework can’t be discussed, let alone read with any degree of depth.

In a large class you learn by rote, you learn just what is taught you; you can’t question, you can’t ask for further explanation. It’s hard to develop independent thinking and initiative.

In other news: Philippines among Asian nations worst hit by disasters in 2012

Fortunately, private schools do limit the numbers, and the difference is stark. Initiative, independent thinking flourish and the result shows up in the top level talent that is available. But it’s the minority. Those from the majority take low-paying, menial jobs where with a more personalised education they could have done better.

And until President Benigno Aquino III came to power they weren’t given enough time to think at all. A 10-year school system kicks you out on the streets at 15. Much too young to face the big, bad world.

The 12 years now introduced leaves only Djibouti and Angola on the outskirts. But that 12-year scheme, desirable as it certainly is, gives a worrying transition adjustment: What do colleges do with no freshmen for two years? Former education undersecretary and Star columnist Isagani Cruz wrote that among the K to 12 Committee’s plans is for the Departement of Education “to lease the facilities of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) for Senior High School classes.” He added that it’s “a good solution for HEIs, because they will still have income even if there are no freshmen or sophomore students.”

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Is plagiarism a crime?
By Isagani Cruz, The Philippine Star

MANILA, September 13, 2012—Much has been said recently about plagiarism. Everyone (even serial plagiarists) knows what it is. It is, simply put, stealing somebody’s idea and pretending that it is your own. It is intellectual theft. It breaks the commandment “Thou shalt not steal.”

It is definitely a sin, but is it a crime?

Let me refer to the law that governs intellectual property, namely, Republic Act No. 8293, known as the “Intellectual Property Code of the Philippines.” It was passed by the Tenth Congress, one of whose members was a certain Vicente Castelo Sotto III.

Chapter 10 of the law talks about the Moral Rights of an author. Section 193 talks of the Scope of Moral Rights, which includes the right “to require that the authorship of the works be attributed to him, in particular, the right that his name, as far as practicable, be indicated in a prominent way on the copies, and in connection with the public use of his work.”

The law clearly provides that the name of the author should be prominently mentioned when his or her work is used publicly. In other words, even if I made a blanket statement that everything I said in a particular work was taken from the work of others, that does not satisfy the requirement of the law. I have to mention the name of the author from which I took my words or ideas.

Section 198 further provides that “the rights of an author under this chapter (Chapter 10) shall last during the lifetime of the author and for fifty (50) years after his death and shall not be assignable or subject to license.” If the author is still alive, I have no choice but to mention his or her name when I take words or ideas from him.

Why ideas? Because plagiarism does not involve only words. It also involves ideas. If I added or altered a word here or there, or even if all my words were different from those of the original author, I would still be committing plagiarism if the idea is the same. This is the main difference between copyright and plagiarism. Copyright protects the expression of an idea or the exact words of the original author. The prohibition against plagiarism protects the idea itself, no matter how it is expressed.

Therefore, using different words or even a different language but expressing the same ideas is plagiarism.

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Something awry at the NCCA
By F. Sionil Jose, The Philippine Star

MANILA, September 3, 2012—People who aren’t familiar with the creative process are in command positions at the National Commission on Culture and the Arts (NCCA), people who have no track record as cultural workers.

They may have the best of intentions, but their myopia, alas, hobbles them. Their plan to have some of the works of our writers made into movies — if they had read these stories they should have excluded most in their filmable list — the narratives are simply dull and bereft of conflict or tension which is the most important element in film.

If I had my way, I would help instead our better directors and scriptwriters. The NCCA may also take a cue or two from South Korea whose government is actively supporting the country’s movie industry in producing those epic historical movies and the addictive telenovelas that have gained global currency.

In this regard, although so many hosannas had been written about Dolphy, let me add to them, recount a meeting with him. Dolphy used to frequent Za’s Café behind my bookshop. One of his children lived in an apartment above the coffee shop and he was often there, partaking of the café’s ensaymada which is the best in Manila.

I approached him once, introduced myself; he said he knew my bookshop. I asked if he ever saw Limelight, starring Charlie Chaplin and Claire Bloom — a moving story of a theater janitor who helps a young ballet dancer achieve her dream. It had such pathos and comedy as only Chaplin could make them. I asked Dolphy if he could do something similar, that I would help gratis with the script. He told me that, indeed, he admired Chaplin very much, and Cantinflas, the Mexican comedian. He studied so many of Chaplin’s films. He said he wanted to elevate his own movies from slapstick, but every time he did, the film did not do well. Is the masa hopeless? At least Dolphy tried. I think the majority of our mainline moviemakers never attempted to put quality plus in their work.

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The day my laptop died
By Randy David, Philippine Daily Inquirer

MANILA, August 19, 2012—As soon as I pressed the power button, the Windows logo appeared on the laptop’s screen with the familiar assurance: “Starting Windows.” But nothing else happened after that. For the first time in its brief mechanical life, my barely one-year-old computer failed to say hello. It was as if it found itself in a daze, desperately grappling with the sudden loss of its own memory. Finally, a blue sky with a little white bird and a twig approaching a faint light appeared on the screen. “Oh no,” I muttered in horror, almost certain that my poor machine had been attacked by a virus. The hard disk drive itself had crashed.

Frantic calls to my daughter Nad, who understands the quirky life of computers far better than I do, helped me boot the sleek black laptop on “safe mode.” She then came over to back up all my files on a USB flash disk. Aghast that I had not taken the precaution of creating a “recovery disk” for use in case of system failure, she promptly made one for me. You can always replace the hard disk, she said, but if you lose your files you may not be able to retrieve them.

In the next few hours, I coaxed my poor ailing laptop into performing a diagnosis of its own state of health. It offered to “defragment” bits of memory belonging to the same files or programs that appear to have been dispersed across different sectors. It checked the condition of the application programs, and, finally, it cued me to check the hard disk. With an air of certainty, it then announced that it had detected errors in its hard disk drive, and offered to repair them.

I was thoroughly impressed by this machine’s capacity for self-analysis and self-healing, and I quietly wished there was a way for the human brain to detect and repair its own occasional malfunctions. But, my hopes were quickly dashed. There is a limit to what even the most sophisticated computer can do once its hard disk is damaged. My computer appears to have reached that limit—it was unable to heal itself. The blue sky and the white bird reappeared, an image I took to mean as signifying that my laptop had passed on to the next world.

The operating system of a computer has been likened to a human being’s nervous system. It is lodged in the computer’s vast circuitry and hard disk, just as the nervous system is controlled from the brain…

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“Society’s going to hell in a handcart and the English language is decaying”
By Tom Chivers, The Telegraph UK

August 8, 2013—Have we really become more selfish, and can we tell it from studying our word use? According to news reports of a study by Patricia Greenfield (no relation, I assume), we have, and we can. Apparently, using the publicly available and utterly brilliant Google Ngrams tool, Prof Greenfield examined more than 1.5 million books and found that the use of words such as “obliged” and “give” has dropped in frequency in English-language books, while words such as “get”, “child”, “unique”, “individual” and “self” have become more common.

I can’t get hold of Prof Greenfield's study so I have to be a bit careful about this, but I’m sceptical. I should note that the stories don’t seem to quite represent her own position: she is quoted as saying that her findings suggest an increase in “individualism” and “materialism”, which isn’t quite the same as “greed” and “self-interest” and “self-centredness”, which is how it has been reported. But even so, I think we should take the findings with something of a pinch of salt.

For instance, she suggests that the fact that “obliged” and “duty” have become less common reveals that we are less bound by these concepts than we used to be. But “much obliged” was once a commonly used phrase for “thank you”, in a way that it rarely is now; that could account for a significant amount of the drop. Likewise, while “duty” has dropped in frequency, “responsibility” has increased (and “obligation”, interestingly, has stayed steady). I think a large amount of the change could simply reflect random changes in word use.

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English lessons for unemployed foreigners: how many should we book?

June 27, 2013—The chancellor announced on Wednesday “if you’re not prepared to learn English, your benefits will be cut.” How many benefit claimants can’t speak English and how much money will we save by teaching them?

Of the 7,052 words that George Osborne delivered in the House of Commons yesterday about the government’s plans for 2015-16, just a few caught the attention of many. They were:

From now on, if claimants don’t speak English, they will have to attend language courses until they do. This is a reasonable requirement in this country.

It will help people find work. But if you’re not prepared to learn English, your benefits will be cut.

The chancellor’s comments were followed up by claims from the Treasury that “there were 100,000 jobless foreigners who would face the threat of sanctions if they did not learn English.”

So, time to find out how many people are being targeted by this measure and what the consequences would be.

Check 1: 100,000 people

Of the 4.2 million people in England and Wales who don't have English as their main language, only 726,000 (17%) said they could not speak English well and 138,000 (3%) said they could not speak English at all. Those non-English speakers represent 0.3% of the total population.

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Learn a new language? Forget it...English is spoken so widely it’s pointless
By Frank Barrett, The Mail on Sunday

April 26, 2013—There is absolutely no point in learning a foreign language.

I say this, in English, as someone who spent 10 years learning to speak French, three years on Spanish, five years on Latin (we didn’t actually speak any Latin which was a shame, really) and I have a smattering of Italian, Portuguese, German, Greek and a bit of a Swedish and Danish largely from watching Scandi-noir detective dramas on television.

My French isn’t great but it’s not bad. But I can guarantee that if I go into a shop in Paris and ask for something in French, the shop assistant will – without a blink – simply answer me in English. Usually bad English, worse English – I must say – than my French.

So that was my ten years of learning French; hours sweating over Sartre, Maupassant, Zola and Albert Camus (L’etranger – what was all that about?), simply so I could go into a French shop and be humiliated by a 17-year old girl at the till.

The truth is that really there’s no point in us learning foreign languages because almost everybody you encounter abroad speaks English (albeit rudimentary English) – but in Jordan, where I was recently, their rudimentary English is five million times better than my rudimentary Arabic (actually I only know the Arabic for ‘hello’ and ‘thank you’ – I don’t think, technically, that counts as rudimentary even).

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Migrant English – and why it will only get worse
By Hugh Muir, The Guardian

March 25, 2013—Does it matter if so many people have English as a second language, I asked two weeks ago. It set the cat among the pigeons. Few objected in principle to the idea of bilingualism. But lots raised the botheration of trying to interact with fellow islanders whose English wasn't up to scratch. If this is your worry, reach for strong liquor. It's all going to get much worse.

There was a side room discussion about this at the Commons last week. Two hundred people turned up. Had to be admitted in shifts. And the upshot is that anyone who actually wants to learn English and to obtain citizenship will have a much harder time doing so come October when new rules come into operation. The way it previously worked was that rather than take a citizenship test with little or no chance of passing, those who really struggled with English were entitled to enrol on an English for Speakers of Other Languages (Esol) course that had a citizenship element embedded within it. That seemed sensible. They learned the language and only then were they faced with a hurdle they had some chance of jumping. Under the brilliant new arrangement, they will have to simultaneously pass the citizenship test and the English test at level 3 – the highest entry level. Fewer will opt to play with a deck stacked against them. As the group Action for Esol ruefully observes, this hardly accords with the government's view that the “English language is the cornerstone of  integration”.

But then, the whole thing is a mess, as Heidi Alexander, the Labour MP and Action for Esol supporter, tells me. The Department for Business, Innovation & Skills does its bit through colleges to make migrants employable. It has its own pot of money and agenda. As does the Department of Work and Pensions, which does stuff through Job Centre Plus…

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The three most dangerous words in the English language
By Rhodri Marsden, Independent.co.uk

February 5, 2013—When embroiled in emotional situations, people can have a tendency to repeat dialogue they’ve heard in bad films. As a friend bawls on your shoulder after making some embarrassingly bad life choices, you might find yourself saying, “Look, you have to stop running away from yourself”, despite a clanging bullshit alarm thwacking against the inner wall of your cranium.

During a relationship break-up, it only takes some moody lighting to make repulsive phrases roll off the tongue with bewildering ease. “Which makes what I’m about to say all the more difficult,” is particularly awful.

And then, of course, there’s: “I love you.” We rush like panic-stricken bus-missers to blurt this out to people we like, because when it happens on telly there’s a huge swell of violins, the other person says, “I love you too”, they kiss tenderly and then there’s an advertisement for DulcoEase Stool Softener. We want a piece of this action. But risk is involved. Yes, the other person might say “I love you too” – either because they love you, or because it’s just tidier and less traumatic not to. But not everyone is predisposed to reciting the approved dialogue. As a result, dropping the “I love you” bombshell can leave you dangerously exposed, like wandering on to a battlefield dressed as a fluorescent tank.

Unwelcome responses to “I love you” are many and various, ranging from the patronising (“Oh, that’s sweet”) to heartless acceptance (“Thanks”) to denial (“No you don’t”) to desperate attempts at deflection (“Sorry, I didn’t quite catch that”) to flustered responses generated by a misfiring central nervous system (laughing hysterically, then saying “me no speaka Eeengleesh”.) But these kinds of responses rarely crop up in screenplays…

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The Brit List: Five ways Americans ruined the English language
By Fraser McAlpine, BBCAmerica

January 29, 2013—There’s a phrase used in robotics—the uncanny valley—that describes the problem of building a robot and making it look human. Broadly speaking, the closer to reality you get, the ickier your robot becomes. There’s only so far you can go towards making it a lifelike representation of a real human before the tiny imperfections start to give everyone the creeps, whereas robots that look like, say, C-3PO can be positively cute.

A similar relationship occurs between Britain and America on the topic of communication. As far as the UK is concerned, you’ve got to a point where you can very nearly speak English properly, just like we do, except you keep getting it just wrong enough to give us the willies.

Here are five examples:

1: Pass-Agg Nonsense
For a nation that prides itself on being populated by good-hearted, scrappy people of strong character that are never afraid to speak their minds, there’s an awful lot of passive-aggressive terminology around confrontation in American idiomatic speech. By which I mean, how much protection can there be from the cruel thing you’re about to say, if you preface it with not for nothing, but… or end it with just sayin’? And is just sayin’ supposed to be short for “I’m just saying what everyone is thinking” or “this is just my opinion, deal with it,” because neither one will prevent a fist to the nose. Hope you’re enjoying that freedom of speech.

I can’t even work out what not for nothing, but… is supposed to mean. The sentence “It’s not for nothing that British theatre is considered among the best in the world” makes sense. The sentence “Not for nothing, but you look like a pig in that coat” does not.

2: Curious Sentence Structure And Missing Words
American: I love you. Will you write me?
Brit: Will I write you what, a prescription?
American: No, I mean will you write me?
Brit: A postcard? A poem?
American: I want you to write me.
Brit: You want me to write the word me?
American: No, will you WRITE me?
Brit: WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO WRITE?
American: I just want you to write me!
Brit: GAAAAH! Et cetera.

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Learning French, and the death of languages
By Frank T. Pool, News-Journal.com

LONGVIEW, Texas February 11, 2014—Last week the last native speaker of Klallam, an indigenous language of the Pacific Northwest, died at the age of 103, and John McWhorter questioned why we are still learning French.

McWhorter, writing in The New Republic, suggested that we stop pretending that French is an important language. After being a high-prestige language for a long time, he says “the era of Henry James is long past.” He asks, “One learns French to communicate with … who, exactly?”

English is a pretty arrogant language. I say this in a loving way. It is noteworthy that in the unspoken, unofficial social hierarchy of languages that English-speakers carry around in their heads, only two tongues have ever had more status than English.

Latin was the language of the church, of scholarship and later, briefly, of science. The last major scientific work published in Latin by an English-speaker was Isaac Newton’s “Philosophae Naturalis Principia Mathematica” in 1687.

Latin was a requirement for entry into Ivy League schools. In 1933 Harvard began do de-emphasize Latin requirements. Over the decades, fewer students in prep schools took Latin. Now relatively few students study the language, though they are always among the most interesting kids at any school, and the Latin teachers I have met are uniformly wonderful.

French, though, was the language of the medieval nobility, and later was the way rich and worldly Americans showed their sophistication, particularly in a time when we had an inferiority complex about European culture. As the lovingly acquired tongue of high-status people, it was a prestigious language.

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It’s ridiculous to claim English is “in decline” because of the Mexicans
By Samantha Leal, Latina.com

January 31, 2014—Ay, another day, another ridiculous statement to justify intolerance and mislead the public. Laura Ingraham, a right-wing pundit and Fox News contributor, is apparently operating under the belief that Mexican immigrants are looking to reclaim the western United States, wiping out any signs of English left in their wake.

Speaking on her radio show, Ingraham agreed when a caller said immigrants “have learned to game the system,” but took it even further when the caller remarked that she can’t go into parts of Colorado because she doesn't speak Spanish.

“No, your language is gone,” Ingraham said. “Your language–in fact, your language is not only in decline, the English language, Chris; it’s actually a sign of jingoism.”

For those not familiar, jingoism is a term that means (according to Merriam-Webster): the feelings and beliefs of people who think that their country is always right and who are in favor of aggressive acts against other countries.

This would be the appropriate time to laugh.

Let’s talk facts:

1) English in the United States is not in decline. Nope. Not true.

2) The Spanish language is increasing in use, but funnily enough, not among Hispanics. Si. It’s true. It’s non-Latinos who are picking up Spanish and teaching it to their children, while Latinos, like other immigrant groups before them, have decreased in the usage of their native language…

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To love one’s native language is not a sin
By Emily M. Keeler, Postmedia News
 
November 16, 2013—Every month or so I experience a nightmare in which I can no longer understand the English language. The signifiers have shifted so rapidly that they no longer signify anything at all, at least to me. I carry an iPhone - both in my dream and IRL - and I frequently look up the exact meaning of a word when I'm considering whether to use it. While this is often an illuminating practice in my waking life, in the nightmare the arbitrariness of language is terribly exposed; language loses all authority and I clutch my phone, watching the definitions change so fast I can't even take them in.

The nightmare is rooted not in my fear of loss, or change (or psychoanalysis!), but in the history of the tongue. How will I decide on the words with which to tell you about Tom Howell's The Rude Story of English? If I started at the beginning, like Howell himself tries to do, I might use a translation (transliteration?) of some runes, though that is problematic in and of itself. Although Howell gives a few clear explanations of what the runes may once have meant, the phrase “rfshft” fails to signify much of anything this far down the line.

Look at that, I've already gone and used the wrong words, or maybe used the right words to the wrong effect. Howell tries to start at the beginning, it's true. But I've made it sound like he's failed, and like it's his fault when really there's no blame to be laid - he hasn't failed so much as started at a beginning that can't be traced. The Rude Story of English takes a citation-needed approach, inventing in order to demonstrate what we know - or at least supposed to be true about the language we use, despite its twists and turns and the inscrutability of the many hundreds of years since we first began to turn our tongues inside of English-speaking mouths.

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Buzzfeed: The Virality of Evil
By Evgeny Morozov, Slate.com

October 28, 2013—The idea that electronic media would bring the world together is not particularly original—remember Marshall McLuhan’s “global village”?—but its proponents have always been hazy on the details. Are we to celebrate the fact that the “Gangnam Style,” a satire of South Korean hipster lifestyle, has garnered roughly 1.8 billion views on YouTube when most viewers probably never got the joke?

Thanks to social media, ideas can now spread at rapid-fire speed. Just look at “Kony2012,” last year’s ill-fated viral campaign to hunt the Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony. Alas, the speed doesn’t easily translate into action: Instead of deep engagement with an issue by a dozen committed people, we get rather shallow engagement by a few million—and in ways that might undermine efforts to promote global awareness about a problem like guerrilla warfare in Africa. Such viral campaigns might work for highly targeted interventions like fund-raising, but anything beyond that is tricky.

The latest innovation in digital cosmopolitanism comes from BuzzFeed, a site that has rapidly become one of the most visited online properties. In August 2013, BuzzFeed had 85 million visitors, three times more than just a year ago; by next year, it expects to become one of the most popular sites in the world.
By and large, BuzzFeed’s stories are written to be shared—the site used to prominently display the slogan “The Viral Web in Real-Time”—which explains why, according to one recent study, its stories receive more shares on Facebook than stories by any other site, including those of the New York Times and the Guardian. (A typical BuzzFeed story: 10 quotations, with pictures of Kanye West and Freddie Mercury, presented in a quiz-like format under the headline “Who Said It: Kanye West Or Freddie Mercury?”)

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English can’t be blamed for all the ills of this country
By Vivek V. Narayan, TheHindu.com
 
The increasing disparities in the country cannot be wished away by blaming English as its roots are far more deep-seated and lie in social realities

It is true that in India, speaking only English is often the surest sign of privilege. Post-liberalisation, the service sector boom has indeed led to the mushrooming of English-language classes all over the country. While these starting points of Sanjay Srivastava’s article in The Hindu (April 3, 2013, Op-Ed, “Alphabetical order to discrimination”) cannot be contested, the assumptions he makes are alarmingly similar to those sold by the very English-language classes he attacks: that the reason for the destitution of the lower classes is an inability to acquire English! While the sellers of English argue that therefore the lower classes must acquire the language post-haste, Srivastava argues that these “hapless victims” must not be subjected to “a soul-destroying system of measuring competence and skill.”

In thus erecting the straw man of English, Srivastava’s arguments mislead on many counts.

One, he isolates language from its social realities. Two, by failing to define “vernacular,” he does not consider how vernacular/regional languages have a history of standardisation that has denied the existence of dialects based on regional, caste, religious differences. Three, he ignores powerful Dalit critiques of the vernacular vs English debates. Four, he places undue faith in the powers of English to transcend caste/class barriers! Five, he perpetuates the rural-urban divide that plagues studies of contemporary India.

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New-age slang enters the dictionary
By Parinatha Sampath, The Times of India

May 4, 2013—Recently, a legal issue in Sweden might have landed the state in trouble, but it also brought to notice neologisms in the English Language.

The Language Council of Sweden, responsible for the addition of official new words to the Swedish lexicon, decided to include “ogooglebar” as a new word, defining it as “something that cannot be found on the web using a search engine.” However, since a particular search engine took offence and requested the state to withdraw this decision, the state agreed. Taking off from this issue, Bangalore Times pens down some recent interesting additions in the English dictionaries. While most of the additions are words that youngsters and, to some extent, even adults are familiar with, there are some others that require a little thinking...

Celebrities are instrumental in coming up with words and phrases through repetitive usage and some even make their way into the local lingo and eventually dictionaries. We decided to turn the tables and ask celebrities to guess the meanings of a few new inclusions. When DJ Rohit Barker was quizzed on what he thinks the word “crunk” could mean, he says, “Well, maybe it's a kind of dance, way of dressing or undressing.” Well, the word is defined as a “very excited or full of energy.”

When actress Jennifer Kotwal—who says her father is often baffled by the words she uses—was asked what she thought the word “bezzie” could mean, re-conforming the word, she says, “I have no clue. It sounds like some fruit-flavoured candy. ‘Bezzie’ in the dictionary has been defined as 'denoting a person's best or closest friend.”

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Japan should take English lessons from the Philippines
By Amy Chavez, Japan Times

December 27, 2013—I’ve just come back from a two-week trip to the Philippines, where English is an official language along with the local Filipino language.

English was brought to the Philippines during the 1896-1946 American occupation and it still enjoys official status. This does not mean that everyone understands or speaks English, but it does mean that exposure to the language is so widespread that those who do speak it can communicate quite fluently. I was also impressed that people who had never stepped outside the Philippines were nevertheless fluent in English.

How can a nation acquire a second language so proficiently despite some claims that as many as 27.8 percent of Filipino school-age children either don’t attend, or never finish, elementary school?

It’s all in the approach to learning English. The Philippines not only teaches English in its schools but also provides its population with another tool crucial to language acquisition: exposure.

In all parts of the country, English signs abound, and they are not there for foreign tourists. “Don’t block the driveway,” say signs on the roads in Cebu. “House for sale,” informs a signboard in front of a dwelling in the countryside. Company logos, road signs and advertisements are in English. (Think about it: Are any of those things taught in a regular textbook-based English-language class?) As a result, most Filipinos learn English both inside and outside the classroom. It is not just about teaching English in schools but learning it through life experience too.

When I stepped into a taxi in Manila, the driver was listening to a radio program that featured two pundits discussing a recent bus accident in both official languages. The discussion took place in Filipino, with the commentator repeating the arguments and conclusions in English. This not only encourages English acquisition; it also allows people like me, an English-only speaker, to understand the conversations and issues in the program. While the bus accident may have been newsworthy enough to make it into the mainstream English news, I never could have hoped to hear such in-depth analysis of the event from a local point of view in the way this radio program allowed me to.

I should mention that the commentator used natural English, not the slow, instructional English you often hear in Japan that is used specifically for teaching. Rather than being an English language-learning radio program, this was regular radio reporting in the Philippines.

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Research for teaching English? What’s the point?
By Mike Guest, The Japan News

November 11, 2013—My father-in-law couldn’t understand. He’s from the countryside, and the Kyushu countryside at that, perhaps the most down-to-earth demographic in Japan. Sure, he could understand a specialist attending a conference about advances in agriculture or new policies for rural development. But my case was different. I had told him that I was going abroad to attend and present at a research conference for English teachers.

A research conference for English teachers? What’s the sense in that? “If you’re a teacher, aren’t you supposed to already know enough about English and then just teach it?”

This notion is not just a product of unfamiliarity with the academic world. Medical professors and researchers at my own university have also often expressed perplexity as to what kind of research can be undertaken by English teachers. New pharmaceutical developments sure, advanced operation techniques, of course—going to conferences to present, network or learn about these makes perfect sense. But English? As one online commentator put it, “What do university English ‘researchers’ do anyway? Do they look under a microscope and discover a new verb? Do they go out into the field and tame wild grammar?”

These are reasonable questions. After all, English seems like a set subject. Vocabulary and grammar, the alleged cores of the language, appear to be established. It’s not as if someone is going to come up with a mathematical formula showing that the subject-verb-object pattern is actually invalid or that the word “car” is in fact an adjective. How can anything new be discovered through English research?

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Try adding specialist teachers
By Chris Clancy (letter-writer), Japan Times

April 28, 2013—The April 23 article “LDP looks to double JET Program’s ranks in three years” leaves this reader feeling it’s time to reassess English education in Japan. Increasing the number of Japan Exchange and Teaching participants twofold is not the answer.

The Japanese have long believed that anyone who speaks a foreign language somehow qualifies to teach it. Many participating JET Assistant Language Teacher (ALT) participants come to Japan as recent college graduates with little to no work experience, much less teaching experience. This is OK for the exchange aspect of JET, yet it does little to improve English ability among students.

Most ALTs return to their home countries after their JET experience, yet many continue teaching in Japan. The English teaching market here has become saturated as a result. Myriad private English conversation schools exist across the nation. This works against the English teaching profession in that the over-abundance of English speakers has resulted in low remuneration offered by these schools, staffing agencies and boards of education.

Decreasing the size of JET would likely benefit the profession.

Rerouting money saved from JET so that Japanese teachers of English can be sent abroad to improve their skills is often viewed as beneficial. However, Japan has been sending individuals and teams abroad for a long time now, and the most that these people usually do with whatever knowledge, insight or improved foreign-language communicative abilities they’ve gained abroad once they return to Japan is adapt them to fit traditional approaches.

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Learning language through nonsense– Japanese author of “Unusable English” speaks
By Philip Kendall, RocketNews24.com

January 20, 2013—Fantastic octopus wiring!

My brother has been observing the slugs since he got divorced.

Let’s start from where we left off yesterday. Get down on all fours.

No, these aren’t the ramblings of a man with concussion; these are genuine excerpts from Twitter feed and study guide “Non-essential English Vocabulary: Words that will never come up in tests,” a language resource for Japanese students of English that presents entirely useless but infinitely memorable phrases.

With more than 40,000 Twitter followers so far, Twitter feed curator and author Nakayama-san (otherwise known as @NISE_TOEIC)’s cheeky tweets are clearly resonating with English learners here in Japan, but why, when the rest of the nation is busy with earnest study, would someone take the time to create a Twitter account dedicated entirely to unusable English? Japanese website Excite Bit sat down with the Nakayama-san to pick up a few study tips and learn little more about the thinking behind the bizarre project.

Since I began my own personal foray into the Japanese language and bumped my head countless times on grammar, kanji readings and pronunciation, all sticking out in front of me like tree branches in a pitch-black forest, I’ve come to realize that – for me at least – learning whole phrases is infinitely easier than memorizing a list of words that you’ve never met before in your life…

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Transparency needed in press conferences
By Bill Tieleman, Vancouver.24Hours

VANCOUVER, January 27, 2014—We pride ourselves on being a transparent organization, open to all — potential members, curious onlookers, researchers et al. — Canadian Ethnic Media Association

Is it discrimination to hold ethnic-media-only news conferences where English-language journalists are deliberately excluded – or just political pandering?

Vancouver is one of the world’s most integrated and diverse cities, yet we still see ethnic media segregation.

Why do some ethnic media get invites while others seen to be more critical in their coverage are excluded?

And do so-called mainstream media perpetuate the need for politicians to meet separately with ethnic journalists because issues concerning their communities simply aren’t news to English-language outlets?

Tough questions, all prompted by 24 hours Vancouver’s Jeremy Nuttall, who broke the national story that Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper held a secret and lengthy news conference in Vancouver this month – but only for invited ethnic media. Christy Clark is no different as the B.C. premier held an “ethnic media roundtable” last week that was crashed by 10 English-language media outlets after 24 hours Vancouver publicized it.

Still, Clark’s communication director Ben Chin told media that he didn’t “think” the ethnic-only events would change in the future.

New Democrat Leader Adrian Dix also held an Asian-media only “newser” this month, but allowed 24 hours Vancouver to attend when a request was made.

This is all wrong…

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Word for Word: Book prizes can be a fishy business
By Anakana Schofield, Irish Times
  
August 19, 2013—When I learned I’d been shortlisted for the Amazon.ca First Novel Award for my debut novel, Malarky, and would be travelling to Toronto for the award event, I immediately invited everyone in Toronto who had ever done me a favour.

As I don’t know many people in Toronto, this included a woman working in the Bloor Street Mac makeup shop I’d met once. Sadly, she did not reply.

Happily, I gathered a further four women to join me. My entire focus for that event was on the snacks we would be served on the night. I would anticipate them, study them and live tweet them.

I’m a vocal critic of book-prize culture. In Canada, being shortlisted for a prize has become almost the only way of finding any volume of readers (beyond, say, blood relatives and God’s great 83 people who buy literary fiction), and I’m fearful of the truncating effect this has on our reading. Thus I was surprised to find my book nominated for two of them.

As Malarky is an episodic, form-challenging novel that explores grief and sexuality, I was convinced it hadn’t a flat hope on a hill of winning. So I happily set aside my philosophical opposition and let my speculative taste buds take over.

I sent several dispatches to my publisher and the event co-ordinator, asking about the food and whether – please, please – they could have some without flour. They replied that, yes, they could oblige this gluten-allergic shorty, but were more concerned about travel arrangements and making sure the writers would all be available for a television slot at 7am the next day, because whoever won the prize would be interviewed.

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English proficiency needed in the globalizing world
By Kim Seong-kon, The Korea Herald

July 10, 2012—In Korea many people tend to mistake English professors for language and grammar instructors. That is why whenever people discover I am an English professor, they begin to ask many questions about what they can do to study and learn English. It never occurs to them that I am a scholar of English literature, not an English teacher. Even if they knew however, they would think, “English literature is written in the English language, so what difference does it make?”

One of the questions people ask me most frequently is, “How can I master English?” or “What’s the shortcut to learning English?” But as an English literature scholar, I am unsure of what to tell them. Though I am inclined to respond, “To be honest, I don’t know,” I do not want to disappoint them, especially after seeing their faces full of expectation. So I always try to conjure up something to satisfy their curiosity.

Most of the time, I tell those people, “There’s no shortcut to mastering English. I can only give you a piece of advice out of my own experience.” Then I provide them with three answers, which I believe are the most effective ways to learn a foreign language: enjoyment, motivation and immersion.

The importance of enjoyment in language acquisition cannot be stressed enough. You should learn English with pleasure, not pain. If you are a movie buff, for example, watching movies and television dramas is an excellent way to learn English. If you like music, listening to pop songs is another effective way to improve your English. If computer games are your thing, you can also learn English by playing games. I learned English by watching movies and listening to pop songs, both of which were my personal favorite pastimes.

Since then, 50 years have passed and now my own daughter speaks fluent Japanese thanks to her indulgence in Japanese games, animations and comics. Although no one forced her to study Japanese, she naturally acquired the foreign language while joyfully playing games, watching animations and reading comic books.

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Advice to foreign tourists: Don’t expect English-language service
By Olena Goncharova, Kyiv Post

Foreigners coming for the Euro 2012 football championships had better make room in their suitcases for a Ukrainian or Russian language guidebook. They’re going to need it, judging from this Ukrainian’s attempt to get around the city with a friend, both of us pretending to know only English. We visited theaters and cinemas, bookstores and cafes in order to find out who could communicate with us, and ranked the experience. In general, it was a disappointing one.

Although English is widely taught in schools from early childhood, the world’s most widely spoken language still hasn’t sunk in enough for many Ukrainians to be able to have even an elementary conversation.

So if you can read this, thank a teacher.

First we went to Taras Shevchenko National Opera House, a logical stop for a foreign tourist, and bought a ticket. After 10 minutes of queuing, one man tried to cut in front of us. He made the booking clerk nervous. The man’s mood brightened considerably after he heard us speaking English, and he began to smile.

“Hello! Do you speak English? We would like to buy two tickets for Iolanta on April 11,” I asked the clerk.

“On the 11th?” he asked in response.

Then he turned to the woman standing behind him. They started to point at the poster and asked us whether we want a ticket for April 11. We assured him that was the case and asked about the prices in the third row.

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Lessons in a common language
By Alicia Clegg, Financial Times
 
April 18, 2012—It is hard to imagine Gina Qiao, Lenovo’s talkative head of human resources, at a loss for words. But when her employer announced, following its acquisition of IBM’s personal computer division in 2005, that it was adopting English as the company language in place of Mandarin, she was speechless.

“It was the toughest time of my whole life,” she recalls in rapid accented English, punctuated by the occasional malapropism and mixed-up tense. “I couldn’t communicate. I couldn’t express my ideas. Because I couldn’t say anything, I just felt maybe I am not so smart.”

The feelings of frustration and loss of confidence that threw Ms Qiao off her stride are an increasingly unfortunate feature of a global marketplace that has elected English as the de facto language of international exchange. As managers create teams that straddle national borders, knit together companies that are merging and look for ways to speed up the sharing of knowhow, their attempts to impose a common language on a multilingual workforce can create winners and losers.

During a language transition, bilinguals are often called on to act as intermediaries linking headquarters and local operations, which puts them in a privileged position and can lead to job offers. But for those forced to master a whole new vocabulary and grammar just to hold down the job that they were already doing, a language change can feel like a professional step backwards from which it is hard to imagine ever recovering.

“(Companies) very much underestimate the psychological stress that a language change can cause,” says Rebecca Piekkari, professor of international business at Finland’s Aalto University.
In some cases this may be because the cosmopolitan elites that run them speak several languages already and mistakenly assume that their subordinates do too…

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Learning English language in Thailand: Hype or necessity?
By Kuldeep Nagi, NationMultimedia.com

April 2, 2012—Lately there has been increasing debate about the status of English language in Thai society. Many arguments are made for and against the relevance of English language and its usefulness. Arguments made by Thai politicians take us back and forth about the role of English language and distracts us away from the realities of this new century. This nationalistic faction believes that imposing English language on Thai people is against their culture, heritage and their unique identity. The same group also argues that Thailand was never colonized so why bother to learn English. For them English is the language of the British colonies. It has no place in Thai society. Some others with a myopic vision believe that Thai peoples hould not be made to feel insecure and inferior because of all the hype about importance of learning English.

It is an historical fact that in the 17th century the British did not go around the world to impose their language; they went places with an intention to do trade. Later, they forcibly occupied many countries in Africa and Asia. And of course they occupied North America and USA as well. In their more than 300 years of history in Africa and Asia they conquered many countries. It was followed by the creation of their own system of education, transport, communication and governance…

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It’s English but not always as we know it
By Stewart Riddle, NewZealandHerald.co.nz

Jun 13, 2013—English is rapidly becoming a lingua franca in international communication for commerce and trade, education, science, international relations and tourism.

It is the fastest growing language in the world, with more people speaking English than ever before. School children in India and China are learning English at a staggering rate as their countries emphasize the importance of English as a ticket to participating in the global economy.

So why then do we continue to link this evolving internationalizing language with a small island in Europe that once upon a time controlled the world?

Perhaps it is about time we got rid of the “English” and start calling it something else - international, standard or common language?

It is important to understand that there is not one English language; there are many. In fact, in Australia we don't even speak and write English. We use Standard Australian English, which is not the same English that you might find in the United Kingdom, the United States, India or China.

There are countless blends, pidgins, creoles and mixed English languages. At the same time that English is becoming the language of internationalization, it is also becoming localized in different parts of the world as multiple world Englishes flourish.

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English: the linguistic equivalent of rock’n’roll
By Toby Manhire, The Internaut

February 13, 2013—More often than not, the domination of the English language in international discourse is put down to an accident of history. But for leading German commentator Alan Posener, that’s only part of it.

“There are many reasons for its dominance,” writes Posener, who was born and in part bred in Britain, in Die Welt (and translated at the terrific WorldCrunch site), “the heritage of the British Empire, and the post-world-war economic hegemony and cultural influence – ranging from Mickey Mouse and Marilyn Monroe to Elvis Presley and Snoop Dogg – of the United States.”

But it’s more than that.

The main reason is the elasticity of the language and the broad-mindedness it communicates. If English grammar is rudimentary, the linguistic equivalent of rock’ n’ roll, the English vocabulary is huge. There are very few things that can’t be expressed in English, and if it can’t be said in English then a word is lifted from another language – like “kindergarten,” for example. If it doesn’t exist in English and a word isn’t lifted from another language, it’s because what it represents doesn’t make sense to thinking shaped by the English language: a case in point, Schicksalsgemeinschaft (companions in fate).

Posener points to a new German novel which imagines a world in which the first world war had never happened, and German had become the universal tongue of science, academia, politics and so on.
It’s not an altogether implausible scenario, he says, but in respect of the language, at least, the world could count itself fortunate.

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English translations of Chinese laws? Don’t call us.
By Dan Harris, ChinaLawBlog.com

May 27, 2013—Pretty much every week someone asks me for an English translation of a Chinese law or cites one to me as an explanation for a decision they made or are contemplating.

China’s laws are too precise/too vague/too changing/too real world/too dependent on regulations to use English language translations of one or two laws for making final decisions. An English language translation can in many cases give you a good “feel” for a situation or a starting point for how to proceed, but the risk of that translation being very wrong or just enough wrong to make a big (or even just a little difference) is just too great for you to rely on it without more.

And every year or so we get a company comes to us as a new client seeking our help in getting them out of some sort of trouble they find themselves in with the Chinese government for having accidentally violated some law due to a mediocre translation or one that simply did not include all of the laws and regulations on the subject.  In figuring out how to legally proceed in China, in many instances even a good translation is not nearly enough because decisions on how to proceed might require interpretations of local regulations or even knowledge of local quirks. Many times one of our China-based lawyers (or even one of our China lawyers in the US) will get on the phone and call a government official (or two) to get their views on how the relevant government body interprets/enforces particular laws/regulations and/or treats particular situations.  Chinese government officials are virtually always willing to talk these things out and they are often surprisingly helpful, even if they do not always provide the expected or desired answer.

So what do I tell those who ask me for English language translations of Chinese laws?  I send them the following form email:

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The Chinese language contract is what matters
By Dan Harris, GlobalSources.com

April 26, 2013—One of my favorite “trix” employed against American companies doing business in China is the dual language contract, where the English language version is silent on which language controls. We often see this from companies that come to us for the first time with a contractual problem.

Dual language contracts can be incredibly dangerous. If you have a contract in both English and in Chinese, which language controls? Well, if both of the languages say that one language controls, that one language will control. So for example, if both the English language and the Chinese language versions say that the Chinese language version controls, then the Chinese language version will in fact control. Similarly, if both versions say that the English language version controls, then the English language version will control. These are the easy and safe examples.

It is everything else that so often gets American and British and Canadian and Australian companies in huge trouble.

If you have an English language contract and a Chinese language contract that are both silent as to which version controls, the Chinese language version will control in a Chinese court and in a Chinese arbitration. So what this means is that if your English language contract says that a product must be strong enough to withstand 500 pounds of pressure and your Chinese language contract says that the product need only be strong enough to withstand 300 pounds of pressure and neither contract version says which controls, the Chinese version will control and the product need only be strong enough to withstand 300 pounds of pressure.

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Language support for newcomers at risk of being traded off
Prof. Chris Davison and Dr. Michael Michell, Sidney Morning Herald

SIDNEY, June 10, 2013—While politicians proudly proclaim the achievements of our multicultural state at local community events, the NSW government is quietly dismantling a key plank of multiculturalism since its inception in the 1970s—the dedicated statewide funding and provision of English language services to migrant and refugee students in state government schools.

The English as a second language program provides specialist ESL teacher support to newly arrived and ongoing English language learners in public primary and secondary schools across the state. It now comprises 896 teaching positions staffed by about 1600 specialist ESL teachers, supporting more than 130,000 migrant and refugee students.

Under the government’s Local Schools, Local Decisions (LSLD) reform, the ESL program is about to undergo a fundamental change. The NSW Department of Education and Communities is moving to replace these state-wide arrangements for ESL teaching positions to schools.

Under the LSLD policy, school principals will have complete discretion over the use of ESL resources within their funding allocation, including ''trading-off'' teacher positions when determining a mix of staff within their school budgets. The policy threatens to take public education back 40 years, to a time when refugee and migrant students were left to ''sink or swim'' in classrooms.

Given what’s at stake for English language learners, one would expect the government would proceed with caution. And there is no shortage of cautionary tales.

Implementation of similar school-based management policies in Victoria in the 1990s under the Kennett government resulted in long-term erosion of ESL services.

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Language needs gatekeepers but change is inevitable
By Warwick McFadyen, WAToday.com

February 3, 2013—“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”

“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”

“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master – that’s all.”

(From Through the Looking Glass, Lewis Carroll)

Like, you go Humpty Dumpty. You were one revolutionary egg in the free-ranging field of etymology. Never mind master of the universe, you were master of the lexiconverse. Your exchange with the innocent Alice came to life this week through the letters page of The Age.

Over the past fortnight or more, the page has been pummeled with the voices of the outraged, the despairing and resigned. There’s nothing new in this, and no it’s not about our politicians or public transport. It’s about our language, or rather the pet hates of the writers towards the overused and the overwrought members of English.

Humpty rather forcefully tells Alice he gives a word the meaning he chooses. You can’t avoid the ovoid’s directness, but was he right? Apparently not, perusing the comments. We’re not a happy little bunch of Vegemites at all.

It goes without saying, if you will, that having gotten this far, some persons might want closure on back-to-back impacts on the language. But having said that, at this point in time, the enormity of the currently and constantly dumbing down of how we speak is actually incredible…

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What is the role of the English-language Saudi media?
By Dahham Al-Enizi, Al-Sharq

November 07, 2013—According to statistics, there are at least nine million expatriates in the Kingdom including at least five million non-Arabs. A quarter or more of these are fluent in English, and undoubtedly, they follow the local English language media. This may be the only source of information they have on what is going on around them as far as local culture, news and government decisions are concerned. There are three English-language media outlets in Saudi Arabia, the two newspapers Saudi Gazette and Arab News and Saudi TV Channel Two.

The two newspapers and the TV channel know the importance of presenting news and should be providing details of local events.  However, this is not always the case. The 4th Conference for Saudi Litterateurs held in Madinah in late August is an example. I was one of the guests at the three-day conference. I read the two newspapers daily in the hope that I would find news about this important  literary and cultural event. However, all I found was one picture on the inauguration ceremony and two lines indicating that there was a conference for men of letters in Madinah under the auspices of the Emir of the region and in the presence of the Minister of Culture and Information. This was all that was published!

The newspapers did not provide enough space to cover the conference, the participants, the subjects tabled, the recommendations or any information that could be presented to English-speaking readers despite the importance of the conference. Even Channel Two did not provide sufficient attention to this cultural event.

Furthermore, when several women in Al-Qassim region staged a demonstration demanding the release of detainees being held on terror charges, a story was published stating only that there had been a demonstration. The story said that security men dealt with the situation as required, but it did not deal with the reasons for the demonstration in the way that Arabic newspapers did.

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Teach us English but without its cultural values
By Dr. Khalid Al-Seghayer, SaudiGazette.com

January 29, 2013—Recently, some local Arabic newspapers reported that some Saudi families had registered strong complaints about a Saudi university’s including inappropriate pictures and the components of Western culture in selected English textbooks. This, again, revives the controversial issue of teaching the English language along with or without the English culture in which it operates. As a result, educational stakeholders who are responsible for English programs, especially in the higher education sector, mandate that international publishing companies produce what are called Middle Eastern English textbook versions for use in the Kingdom.

The view of those who call for not incorporating cultural elements in the teaching of English is that teaching cultural values is a form of cultural invasion or, more accurately, a form of linguistic globalization that emanates from cultural globalization. These individuals feel that teaching Western values to Saudi students will result in eroding their identity. Those opposed to the teaching of English culture instead call for including only Islamic and local cultural values in textbooks used by English programs in the Kingdom. In examining this highly sensitive linguistic topic, two questions need to be asked: What is so significant about teaching culture, and why is culture such an important element to consider in the foreign language classroom?

Let us first state what most language educators believe and then answer the aforementioned questions. It appears that culture, as an ingrained set of behaviors and modes of perception, is highly important in foreign language learning. Language is a part of culture, and culture is a part of language; the two are intricately interwoven so that one cannot separate the two without losing the significance of either language or culture.

The world in which we live requires people who can communicate effectively in at least one other language and who have related cultural insights and understanding. This cannot take place unless the culture of the language being taught is fully integrated in the curriculum in a systematically planned way.

Without cultural insight and skill, even fluent speakers can seriously misinterpret messages they have read, and the messages they intend to communicate can be misunderstood…

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English literary works by Asian authors growing steadily
By Pramod Kanakath, JakartaGlobe.com

February 28, 2013—Literary works written and published in English by Asian authors are growing at a steady rate. Does this speak anything of the collective English language skills of non-native speakers in Asia as we have entered the second decade of the 21st century? Are literature and language complementary?

While literature is growing, English still remains an alien language to an unaccountable multitude across Asia. Literary figures apart, there is a so-called gentry who may pride themselves on being excellent listeners, speakers, readers and writers in the global language. This group is mainly formed of academics, businessmen and employees from private companies.

In some countries like India and in Southeast Asia, English literacy is also a touchstone to determine one’s cosmopolitan identity. But the man on the street is yet to wear the international identity uniform. 

At the same time, there are some countries where English only rises to the occasion, purely demanded by situations. A bank official I talked to in a southeast Asian country struggled every moment during our conversation over a transaction. A street vendor in a touristy area in the same country did not just talk but even spoke to me about local cultures in clear though grammatically inaccurate English. The latter deals with foreign tourists and needs to twist his jaw differently to suit the Anglo-Saxon delivery.

The capability of learning English effectively depends a lot on the structure of the vernacular tongue of every community in Asia. Speakers of Indo-European family of languages tend to pick up English words and sentences easily as its structure is identical with that of their own languages.

However, the absence of different tenses, different word order (e.g. adjective after the noun unlike in English) and other linguistic variations make it difficult for some in southeast Asia to make a smooth conversation…

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English language and higher education
By Francis Robinson, The Express Tribune

March 12, 2013—For over 30 years, I have been engaging with graduate historians from Pakistan.

Some have been students, who have come to work with me for a PhD or DPhil, in the universities of London or Oxford. Some have been scholars already in post in Pakistan’s universities, who have been funded by the excellent Higher Education Commission (HEC) scheme, which enables university staff to develop their research skills.

A few already have PhDs, but many do not; they come for periods of three, six or 12 months. Others, I have encountered as the international external examiner of their PhD dissertation submitted to a Pakistan university.

I regret to say that with a few honourable exceptions, the English of this PhD work is poor, and on occasion, unacceptable.

There will be sentences without main verbs; with poor punctuation; sentences which contradict the meaning of what has gone before; words incorrectly used; a general failure to understand the use of the definite and indefinite article; and a general inability to carry an idea from sentence to sentence through a paragraph.

The outcome is language through which meaning can often only hazily be discerned. Sometimes it cannot be discerned at all.

The object of a PhD dissertation is for the candidate to be able to demonstrate that he/she commands a field or sub-field of knowledge and is able, by doing research in primary sources, to contribute to that field with new ideas and/or new facts.

These contributions will generally be made in the framework of an argument that creates an overall context in which these contributions can be understood. Command of English and its niceties is essential to be able to achieve this end.

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Challenges of teaching English

April 24, 2013—Unlike the hard sciences, the teaching of English in schools has to be the work of much ardour.

It is not a question of dealing with equations or formulas but with conveying feelings and registering emotions. That's why English cannot be taught dispassionately.

A teacher of English has to be moved by empathy and emotions.

Over the past 22 years, I have worked with, met and observed scores of good, dedicated English Language teachers but whenever talk turns to the subject of poor teaching, fingers inevitably get pointed at a teacher’s race, level of education or years of teaching experience.

Truth is, good teaching has more to do with a teacher's personality, character, attitude, values, personal beliefs and intelligence than anything else.

Yes, a good English Language teacher is an organised person. Her lessons are well-planned, her preparation thorough and her teaching progresses from simple to the complex and abstract.
She is aware that teaching is her core business and she takes it seriously.

I have, in fact, seen English language teachers teach with such attention to detail that it is as if their lives depended on it!

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Oh My English!
By Ratnavathy Ragunathan, FMT news

March 26, 2013—It’ss happening all over again. The government intends to bring in 375 native speaking teachers to teach in schools here.

Disclaimer 1: Facts can be boring, but it is pivotal when wanting to make a change in the nation. If you wish to be a part of the change, then go ahead and read what I have got to say.

Disclaimer 2: There are some brilliant and wonderful native speaking teachers out there, who are doing an amazing job in raising the standards of English Language Teaching (ELT) around the globe. Sadly, none of them are here in our country.

Now, speaking of teaching. The teaching world can sometimes be oh-so-daunting. I understand this with utmost totality as I belong to it myself. On one hand, we, teachers, aspire to be experts in what we do. On the other hand, we are faced with the constraints of time in juggling between a myriad of tasks; marking, lesson planning, classroom management, periodical assessment and progress reports, meeting expectations (that which of learners, parents and the educational institution that we are affiliated with) and trust me, the list just goes on and on. Oh, have I not mentioned the non-teaching tasks as well? Yes, drop that into the “teacher’s hat” too!

Teaching is never a piece of cake and things can get a notch higher if you teach at public schools in Malaysia.

As serious as the above may sound, I believe that Malaysian English teachers these days have more to worry about as the current time witnesses them facing a bigger challenge looming over their profession – the demand to be able to meet globalised teaching standards.

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The joy of language barriers
By Shirley Wade, HuffingtonPost.com

April 22, 2013—I am living in a distinctly exciting, frustrating, and creativity-enhancing environment. As a Fulbright Scholar applicant, I applied for a country where I would not need to be fluent in another language. I was awarded my first choice—the Republic of Georgia. Now that I am here, I am immersed in the Georgian language. I decided to attempt learning not only this language but also the unique Georgian alphabet, for this is such a rich environment in which to learn. Moreover, I am teaching Georgians who are working at becoming more adept at speaking and writing English. This has presented me with some wonderful experiences, most of which I never anticipated.

When I first arrived in Georgia, I was limited to a few words - hello and thank you. To be honest, there were times I mixed them up. Gamarjobat (hello) sounded very similar to Gmadlobt (thank you) to me, especially if I tried to speak quickly. Now, I rarely mix them up, but the Georgian letters comprising “hello” and “thank you” still appear as squiggly lines until I get out my Georgian alphabet flashcards and look closely at the individual letters. Even as I stumbled with the words at first, my native Georgian speaking neighbors, shopkeepers, taxi drivers, and colleagues were friendly and forgiving to me.

Without speaking a word, my husband and I are recognized as foreigners. With our Irish heritage and its accompanying lighter coloring, our different style of clothing, and our mannerisms, we stand out as different from the norm. This can be endearing. It is not uncommon for us to be followed by school children when we are walking through the streets of the city. They want to practice their English that they are learning in school. We ask them elementary phrases such as “ How are you?” to which they reply, “I am fine, thank you, and you?” They smile and seem proud of their abilities as we engage them in simple conversations. The widespread teaching of English in Georgian schools has proven to be very convenient for us as well. Indeed, when we encounter problems with our rental house, our non-English speaking landlady sends for a neighborhood teenager to serve as a translator.

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Government-driven EFL training: Is Mongolia left behind?
By Jerick Aguilar, MongolNews.mn

April 23, 2013—Mongolia is an example of an EFL, or English as a Foreign Language, country.  The first and official language here is Mongolian, and English is just one of the foreign languages that Mongolians speak aside from Russian, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, etc. In comparison, there are also ESL, or English as a Second Language, countries.  The United Arab Emirates is an example where Arabic is the official language, yet most, if not all, of its citizens and residents speak English.

Another EFL country is Tunisia where the government has implemented a national training initiative that targets its jobless youth for enhanced skills training.  There was a time when unemployment was chronic in Tunisia, reportedly at around 30 percent, and many experts believe that this was one of the major reasons that contributed to the recent revolution there.

The Tunisian government has a “free education for all” policy which has, on one hand, enabled thousands of students to receive university degrees over the past years.  On the other, many of them have not acquired key skills that employers are seeking. The educational system has been producing graduates for the sake of producing them, so quality has been compromised by quantity.

Particularly with big local companies and multinational corporations in Tunisia, one of their job requirements is for a potential employee to have adequate skills in English.  Unfortunately, such demand has not been met by the already huge supply of university graduates in the country. The Tunisian government, thus, wanted to address this skills gap. Launched in 2006, this national program, aimed at helping unemployed university graduates, sets out to provide them training in the English language as well as in information technology.

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Franglais row: Is the English language conquering France?
By Agnes Poirier, BBC.co.uk

The French parliament is debating a new road map for French universities, which includes the proposal of allowing courses to be taught in English. For some, this amounts to a betrayal of the national language and, more specifically, of a particular way at looking at the world—for others it’s just accepting the inevitable.

It all started with a faux-pas—to use a French phrase commonly borrowed by English-speakers.

On 20 March, when French higher education minister Genevieve Fioraso unveiled the proposed road map, she mentioned that there were only 3,000 Indian students in France.

In order to attract more foreign students, she added, French universities would have to start offering courses taught in English.

“We must teach in English or there will only remain in France a handful of experts discussing Proust around the table,” she said.

But Proust was an unfortunate choice. The author is actually one of France’s best literary exports and the reason why many students in the world take up French at university.

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Composites: German language and “Things Fall Apart”
By Jalees Rehman, M.D., HuffingtonPost.com

May 29, 2013—”Shorter sentences and simple words!” was the battle cry of all my English teachers. Their comments and corrections of our English-language essays and homework assignments were very predictable. Apparently, they had all sworn allegiance to the same secret Fraternal Order of Syntax Police. I am sure that students of the English language all over the world have heard similar advice from their teachers, but English teachers at German schools excel in their diligent use of linguistic guillotines to chop up sentences and words. The problem is that they have to teach English to students who think, write and breathe in German, the lego of languages.

Lego blocks invite the observer to grab them and build marvelously creative and complex structures. The German language similarly invites its users to construct composite words and composite sentences. A virtually unlimited number of composite nouns can be created in German, begetting new words which consist of two, three or more components with meanings that extend far beyond the sum of their parts. The famous composite German word “Schadenfreude” is now used worldwide to describe the shameful emotion of joy when observing harm befall others. It combines “Schaden” (harm or damage) and “Freude” (joy), and its allure lies in the honest labeling of a guilty pleasure and the inherent tension of combining two seemingly discordant words.

The lego-like qualities of German can also be easily applied to how sentences are structured. Commas are a German writer’s best friends. A German sentence can contain numerous clauses and sub-clauses, weaving a quilt of truths, tangents and tangential truths, all combined into the serpentine splendor of a single sentence. Readers may not enjoy navigating their way through such verschachtelt sentences, but writers take great pleasure in envisioning a reader who unwraps a sentence as if opening a matryoshka doll only to find that the last word of a mammoth sentence negates its fore-shadowed meaning.

Even though our teachers indulged such playfulness when we wrote in German, they were all the more harsh when it came to our English assignments. They knew that we had a hankering for creating long sentences, so they returned them to us covered in red ink markings, indicative of their syntactic fervor…

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English-language tests fail to clarify teachers’ proficiency
Editorial, South China Morning Post

May 27, 2013—The latest outcome of a test for local teachers has again put the issue of English-language proficiency in the spotlight. While the pass rates for reading and listening skills remain relatively high, at 89 and 78 per cent, performance in the written exam leaves a lot to be desired. Only 45.2 per cent of the 1,357 candidates passed the test, though that is better than last year’s pass rate of 38.5 per cent. The result for the oral exam is not reassuring either, with a pass rate of 52 per cent, two points up from 2012.

Whether the results should be a cause for concern is open to debate. The alarmist would say the poor performance is evidence of declining English proficiency among the younger generation. It may even be tempting to blame the teachers. If they are proved to be unqualified to teach, students can hardly be expected to speak and write properly.

Teacher groups, however, contend that the results are misleading. The exam is open to teachers and those who want to join the profession. While it is true that only those who pass the exam are qualified to teach, it remains unclear whether the results reflect the standard of serving or of would-be teachers. As the exam has been in place for more than a decade, it can be argued that most serving teachers would have either passed or have been screened out. Those sitting the exam in recent years are probably the ones aspiring to teach. The high percentage of failure shows that the test is an effective tool for keeping the incompetent away from the classroom.

Regrettably, it is difficult to prove which argument is valid without further information. The government is still reluctant to disclose the profile of the candidates in the exam each year, making meaningful analysis difficult, if not impossible. The public is left wondering what to make of the exam results.

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Our standards of English language going down the drain
By Wangari Buku (letter to editor), Nation.co.ke

NAIROBI, May 27, 2013—For some years now, I have watched with dismay as our standards of English go down the drain.

From broadcast to print and social media to work place and conversations, our command of spoken and written English is wanting. Our children are taught a mediocre version, and are exposed to too much TV and read less, and so cannot express themselves articulately in English, even after university and beyond.

Take newspapers. There are spelling mistakes and grammatical errors, with some sentences reading like a nursery school child’s first attempt at grammar. Example: “...no any evidence...” Even the news crawling at the bottom of TV screens is often mis-spelt.

But pronunciation and diction by news anchors beats them all, starting with the irritating use of the word “august”, pronounced “augaast” by news casters to describe Parliament, whereas it should be pronounced in the same way as the month August!

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English has stolen from too many cultures to count
By Matthew du Plessis, Mail & Guardian

SOUTH AFRICA, June 14, 2013—If language is wine upon the lips, as Virginia Woolf once told her husband over a bottle of Blue Nun, English in SA must be a bottle of Tassenberg: a blight upon the tongue, to some; to others, a luxury. And enough of it should see you all the way through varsity.

English has always been a bastard tongue, stealing and ­stolen from too many cultures to count. Frankensteined on a faraway island from the blood and phlegm of wave upon wave of foreign invaders, it fed first on the words of its oppressors, then their ambitions. And then it escaped, and set about the ­business of empire.

English had exhausted itself of its colonial ambitions by the time it found me, and was in the process of being sold off for parts.

Growing up in the Eighties I was vaguely aware that the only language I knew was only grudgingly tolerated by the establishment as a necessary nuisance. Had you suggested that there were nine or more other languages that were decidedly worse off in South Africa, I’d have laughed (politely, always politely) and then run off to see if I could find the simulcast dub for Rabobi on Radio 2000.

But that was the business of the outside world, and for the longest time the English language and the fictions it has proved so good at conjuring served to insulate me from any of the harsher realities that waited rather literally just beyond the doorstep: The house I grew up in in Port Elizabeth was barely a hop, skip and a jump away from where Steve Biko was detained by the security police before being tortured and taken to Pretoria to die. Of any of this I had not even the slightest inkling, in my insulated world. The police station itself barely registered; more important was the library across the road. The greatest indignity I felt as a child was being denied permission to borrow more than five books at a time.

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Advanced Norwegian is sometimes better than English
By M. Michael Brady, TheForeigner.no
 
Native Norwegians may occasionally tell English-speakers learning their language that Norwegian is the superior language. They say this is because it has words not found in English.

But that’s true of almost all language pairs, because seldom do two languages have one-to-one correspondence between their vocabularies.

Norwegian does have some handy words not found in English, though. The terms for relationships within families tend to be more specific. For example, the English word “cousin” for the child of an aunt or uncle is problematic because it’s not gender specific. Norwegian has two words: kusine for a female cousin and fetter for a male one.

Likewise, actions sometimes are more easily described in Norwegian.

A Norwegian contractor might lament “streiken forsinket bygningen” – the exact equivalent of an English-speaking contractor remarking that “the strike delayed construction” – but Norwegian has an advantage in expressing the opposite of something happening earlier than expected.
The opposite of forsinke (“delay”) is forsere. There’s no direct equivalent in English, so an English speaker must use an explanatory phrase to express what can be said in one word in Norwegian.

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Broken English, Broken Graduates
By the Editors, Leadership.ng

October 29, 2013—At the passing-out parade of the last batch of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), the Kano State coordinator of the scheme, Mr Sanusi Abdulrasheed, disclosed that about 89 per cent of corps members could not write good application or communicate effectively in English. Rather, the NYSC administrator said, the corps members, a majority of whom hold a first degree or its equivalent, prefer to communicate in “broken English,” a variant of the language that linguists refer to as “pidgin.” Of course, it does not conform to standard usage and not acceptable in academic curriculum.

Ordinarily, Abdulrasheed’s statement could have been regarded as another red herring or an exaggerated opinion of some critics of the state of affairs in Nigeria. But he said the finding was revealed in a research undertaken by the NYSC management nationwide. Revelation of this embarrassing trend, therefore, came from a credible source.

It is no news that the nation’s education system is in a shambles. It is also discomforting that most fresh graduates are no longer employable. This indictment is not only for the corps members. Their schools, the society and the government should share in the embarrassing verdict. A system that shuts down schools for a half of the academic year cannot produce quality graduates. A student that is ill-equipped with the grammar of the official language of communication is bound to code-switch and make largely ungrammatical expressions. It has been found that most of the tutorials in our institutions are delivered in unorthodox English. Some teachers are equally guilty, if truly mastery of English was a pre-requisite for appointing them.

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