Education Department keen on 12-year basic education program

CEBU CITY—Despite opposition from various sectors, the Department of Education is determined to implement its plan for a 12-year primary and secondary education program.

The DepEd would soon implement an enhanced 12-year basic education program, seven years for the elementary level and five years in the secondary level, Education Secretary Armin Luistro said Wednesday night.

The new program would roll out a simplified and a competency-driven curriculum that would produce professionally competent and skilled high school graduates of legal age for the country, Luistro noted.

“Our plan is not just about to add years to the current education cycle but to conduct an actual review of the whole curriculum and to come up with a more simplified new basic education program focused on enhancing the competencies of our high school graduates,” he said during the general membership meeting and awards night of the Cebu-based organization Coalition for Better Education held Wednesday night at the Cebu City Sports Club.

This would mean that the irrelevant subjects currently taught in schools would be taken out of the curriculum while new subjects would be incorporated to develop the technical and vocational skills of the students, Luistro explained.

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Evaluators of Philippine textbooks to undergo screening process

MANILA (PNA)—The Department of Education (DepEd) said on Thursday its evaluators of textbooks will undergo a much more stringent screening process, including subjecting them to examinations, to ensure that error-laden textbooks will be a thing of the past.

The move came as the DepEd is winding up a three-day conference with publishers, the National Book Development Board (NDBD) and experts from the academe at the Development Academy of the Philippines (DAP) in Pasig City to come up with measures to resolve the problem that has bedeviled the department for several years.

Socorro Pilor, director of the DepEd Instructional Materials Council Secretariat (IMSC), said evaluators will have to undergo testing to be administered by the National Education Testing and Research Center (NETRC).

“Bago s’ya maging evaluator ng ating mga textbooks kailangang makapasa siya sa pagsusulit na ibibigay ng NETRC. Unless na maipasa na iyon, dun lang siya makakasama sa mga evaluators,” Pilor said in a press briefing last August 5.

Although it was started in 2008, Pilor said they decided to further strengthen the setup.

“Dati kasi yung mga prospective evaluators, magsa-submit lang sila ng mga documents at titingnan din ang experience at educational attainment,” the IMSC chief said.

She said another measure that they would implement is to upload the manuscripts of the textbooks in the Internet so as to better get the ideas and inputs of as many people as possible while at the same time, ensuring that copyright infringement will be curtailed.

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Philippine math team wins 31 medals in Korean competition

MANILA—Young Filipino math wizards made the country proud again by winning a total of 31 medals and 11 merit certificates in the just-concluded Korea International Mathematics Competition (KIMC) in Incheon.

The math wizards, wards of the non-government Mathematics Trainers’ Guild-Philippines, bagged two gold, one silver and 28 bronze medals in the 26-nation competition, according to Dr. Simon Chua, MTG president and head of the Philippine delegation.

That was good enough for a respectable fifth-place finish in the tough contest topped by powerhouse China, followed by Indonesia, Thailand and Hong Kong, said Chua in an e-mail to the INQUIRER early Thursday morning.

The country’s gold medals were won in the team competition by Philippine elementary Team A, composed of the following students: Jason Joseph Fernandez from San Beda College-Alabang; Kaye Janelle Yao from Grace Christian College; Ma. Czarina Angela Lao and Vince Benedict Sy, both from St. Jude Catholic School; and Team B members Andrew Brandon Ong from Chiang Kai Shek College; Austin Edrich Chua from St. Jude Catholic School; Nathaniel Joshua Balete from Philippine Institute of Quezon City; and Raymond Joshua Fadri from San Beda College-Alabang.

All eight students also won individual bronze medals. Their teams also bagged bronze medals in the group contest.

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Governor urges Pangasinenses to use local dialect to save it from extinction

LINGAYEN, Pangasinan—Governor Amado Espino Jr. is vigorously pushing for the use of Pangasinan dialect to avoid it from becoming extinct as studies showed it is becoming a dying dialect.

In his speech before members of  Ulupan na Pansiansay Salitan Pangasinan (UPSP), an organization pushing for continuing use of Pangasinan dialect, during their 10th year anniversary recently, Espino said while the Capitol is the face and heart of the province, “the Pangasinan language is its soul”.

This is the reason why he directed the entire provincial government workforce to use Pangasinan as its official language every flag-raising ceremony on Mondays

The governor admitted that indeed Pangasinan is a dying language and to avoid it going extinct, every Pangasinense should do something about it.

Espino urged Pangasinenses to use the Pangasinan dialect in all local occasions, instead of Tagalog or English. He said every Pangasinense should also practice conversational Pangasinan, or if cannot be avoided, use Tagalog-Pangasinan or English-Pangasinan.

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English language course for graduates

JEDDAH—The Technical and Vocational Training Council in Makkah region has called on graduates from technical and communications colleges to enroll in an intensive English language study course later this year.

The council is targeting students who graduated from colleges in Makkah, Jeddah, Taif and Qunfudah during the last three years.

The council asked those who were interested to register via the General Organization For Technical and Vocational Training’s website or by e-mail. It said that the deadline for registration was Aug. 4.

Council chairman Rashid ibn Muhammad Al-Zahrani said the course, which starts on Nov. 15, will run for 21 weeks, during which students will be paid a monthly salary of SR1,000. Pupils will study from 5 p.m. to 11 p.m.

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Bombay High Court seeks solution to language problem

NAGPUR—The Nagpur bench of Bombay High Court has asked the Maharashtra government if it can adopt the Canadian model of publishing verdicts for the benefit of applicants of the consumer courts in the state. In Canada, the verdicts are published in English and French on a single page with just a vertical line dividing the two for the benefit of the applicants and respondents.

A division bench comprising justices Sharad Bobde and Arun Chaudhari asked government pleader Nitin Sambre to explore the possibility of such a model being adopted in the state consumer courts, where the rulings would be published in English and Marathi. The judges remarked that in Canada every court decision is always in two languages. It has French in one column and English in the other column. There is very little scope for confusion when this method is used to draft court papers, it said.

The high court directives came while hearing a petition field by Ajay Tiwari, who has challenged the government's decision about making Marathi compulsory in the consumer courts. He moved the high court after one of his cases was rejected by the consumer court as it was in Hindi. Bhanudas Kulkarni was the counsel for the petitioner.

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Now showing in India: English movies with subtitles
Insiya Amir, TNN, Aug 1, 2010, 12.12am IST

Have you recently watched an English language movie in a theatre? It will, most likely, have English subtitles. Ludicrous though that may sound, housewife Chandra Sengupta, 45, says she is happy with this. Sengupta manages to catch almost every Hollywood blockbuster but confesses she can’t always understand the dialogue “due to the difficult-to-decipher accent, at times, the words are inaudible and incomprehensible.”

Sengupta’s cry for help seems to have been heard. When she watched two recent films, “Invictus” and “Inception”, she was overjoyed to find they had subtitles. Sengupta has a point, admits Denzil Dias, deputy managing director, theatrical, Warner Bros Pictures (India), which distributed “Invictus” and “Inception”.

“In both the movies, the accent was difficult to understand for most Indian viewers. As a result, they were missing out on crucial dialogue and losing the essence of the film. Therefore, we introduced subtitles and will continue to do so for all our forthcoming films,” he says.

Warner Bros is trumpeting its new policy on subtitling. “For “Inception”, we are offering both the subtitled and the non subtitled versions and have left it to the audiences to decide which they would like to watch,” says Dias. He adds that of the 240 prints released for “Inception”, the 53 subtitled ones accounted for roughly 35% of box-office earnings.

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Irony of English test for Canadian visa not lost on English professors

Two English professors have criticized the recent Canadian immigration requirement for English language tests, arguing that the inflexibility of the system creates unnecessary red tape.

The requirement to take an English test for all Canadian Visa applications is being challenged in the High Court.

American Sara Landreth has a PhD in English literature and has been hired to teach English literature at the University of Ottawa, but her Canadian Visa application will not be processed unless she submits to a CA$280 English language test. Her husband, James Brooke-Smith, a British citizen who also holds a PhD in English literature, will also have to take the test.

The change was only made last month by a ministerial instruction signed by Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney.

Critics say the change runs over Canadian immigration law, which states that applicants don’t have to write the test if they can provide other evidence, in writing, of their proficiency in an official language.

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A touch of Steel in the linguistic renaissance
By Julie Ash, The Dominion Post

Growing up in Otaki, Te Huinga Reo Selby-Rickit thought all Maori were fluent in te reo. The 21-year-old – who plays netball for the Southern Steel – grew up speaking Maori at home and at school, attending Otaki’s Te Kura Kaupapa Maori o Te Rito and Te Wharekura o Te Rito.

“When I was growing up, everyone around me was speaking Maori, so I just thought every Maori spoke Maori. It wasn’t until I got older I realised there actually wasn't that many.”

Selby-Rickit and her four siblings – Miriama, Te Paea, Ngarongo and Manaaki – were all educated at kura kaupapa, where everything – including maths and science – was taught in te reo and lines were handed out as punishment for uttering a single word of English.

It wasn’t until they reached intermediate school age that English was introduced into their curriculum. “It was fine at school because you spoke Maori, but when you went out in public it was hard,” she says.

“I was OK at English but often muddled up words. It was very awkward and I didn’t really want to talk. I remember at the time thinking why didn't my parents send me to an English-speaking school?”

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Comprehensive lessons to be introduced to improve English skills

The Education Department will commence comprehensive English Speaking and listening lessons for over 500,000 schoolchildren and private candidates who sit for the GCE (Ordinary Level) Examination from December 2012.

Education Minister Bandula Gunawardena told the Junior Observer that the main objective of this programme is to improve the speaking, listening and understanding skills of the English language of the younger generation in the country.

He said that according to statistics, many of today's children will have to face lots of obstacles without a proper knowledge of the English Language as well as knowledge of Information Technology (IT).

The Minister said over 60 per cent of the teachers who are attached to national schools and Provincial schools have already been given training in communicative English.

"The main task of these teachers is to prepare their students for the English listening and speaking examinations commencing in the country for the first time from 2012,".The National Evaluation and Testing Service (NETS) of the Department of Examinations has planned to evaluate students' skills through the school based Assessment system.

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Literacy level to double with Jolly Phonics

Though the English language has been proven to be the most complicated language with 26 letters and 42 sounds, children stand a better chance of learning to read and write it using the Jolly Phonics, a system whereby children are taught structured blending of words.

Coding is how one works things out from a symbol or words, and due to the complexity of the English language, it really needs to be taught in the simplest style – the art of blending words,

Sue Lloyd discovered that by teaching children to carefully listen to the sounds in the words, identify the sounds and relate them to the letters, pupils who were previously demonstrating difficulty in reading and writing had significant improvements in abilities.

After many years of research, Lloyd, a teacher of over 30 years, was encouraged to compile The Phonics Handbook, a commercial sequential and phonics programme designed to teach children to read at an early age, which was published in 1992 and has subsequently been sold in many countries.

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“No English, no job” for some Japanese office workers

TOKYO—In a bid to plug dwindling domestic consumption by tapping into overseas markets, some of Japan's big-name retailers are telling their employees to start speaking English—or find another job. As Japan’s population shrinks, the country’s retailers are increasingly looking to boost sales by expanding abroad and some firms are waking up to the necessity of being able to speak the global language of business in order to succeed overseas.

Rakuten, Japan’s biggest online retailer, plans to make English the firm’s official language, while Fast Retailing, operator of the Uniqlo apparel chain, wants to make English more common in its offices by 2012 and plans to test its employees for proficiency. “It’s about stopping being a Japanese company. We will become a world company,” Rakuten CEO Hiroshi Mikitani said last week at a news conference in Tokyo—conducted almost entirely in English.

Employees at Rakuten, which hopes overseas sales will eventually account for 70 percent of all transactions made through its websites, will need to master English by 2012 to avoid facing the sack. “No English, no job,” Mikitani told the Asahi newspaper.

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Walt Disney to expand English language training schools in China

The Walt Disney Company announced that it is going ahead with plans to expand their English language training programs in China. The company, which currently operates 11 schools throughout the country, hopes to open 140 more over the next five years.

Russell Hampton, the president of Disney Publishing Worldwide, said that the language schools are part of a broader initiative to expand the company’s presence in one of the world’s most rapidly growing economies, a plan that will also include the opening of the first Disney theme park in mainland China. He estimates that by 2015 the program will generate over $100 million in revenue while teaching English to 150,000 students.

However, he also recognized that the nature of the schools present a unique opportunity to help the company gain exposure with Chinese consumers. In a recent interview he was quoted as saying that, “We wouldn’t enter this business just to use it as a marketing tool…But there’s no doubt that a side benefit is broader exposure (for) the rich heritage of Disney story-telling.”

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Minister calls English language learning key

JAKARTA—Countries in the Asia-Pacific region must promote English proficiency as a way to deal with globalization, Coordinating Minister for People’s Welfare Agung Laksono said on Tuesday.

Agung said that to keep pace with the rest of the world, educators in developing Asia-Pacific countries were faced with the challenge to shape graduates to be competent citizens of an inter­national community.

“Schools and universities are expected to produce graduates who are familiar with other cultural values and histories, languages and institutions,” he said.

Agung was speaking at the opening of the first general assembly of the Forum of Asia Pacific Parliamentarians for Education (FASPPED) in Jakarta.

Indonesia, Agung said, had been facing a debate concerning English as one of the main requirements for students.

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Never a dull moment
By Kang Soon Chen, TheStar.com.my

The teaching of the English language can be challenging but it does not mean there should be no fun.

This is what was discussed at the 19th Malaysian English Language Teaching Association (Melta) International Conference 2010.

Themed “Transformations in English Language Education: Vision, Innovation, Implementation,” the conference drew academics and teachers alike to a roundtable on ways to bring English Language Teaching (ELT) to a whole new level.

The conference brought together around 300 educators from around the world.
Officiated by Raja Zarith Sofiah Almarhum Sultan Idris Shah, the conference was set to the right precedent with the Johor Ruler’s consort putting her faith in teachers to increase students’ proficiency in the language.

“When I studied English at pre-school and primary school, my English teachers were all Malaysians. “They taught me well, because even before I went to secondary school in England, I could speak, read and write in English quite fluently,” said Raja Zarith, who is also the patron of Melta, in her royal lecture.

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