Teaching Philippine English in schools

THE legitimacy of Philippine English has been well-established. Descriptions of its linguistic structure are adequate, and even more are being prepared by linguists. However, the more urgent endeavor is for people to truly understand what this emerging variety of English in the Philippines really is and be aware of its linguistic features. Filipinos must know how to speak a legitimate variety of English, one that is not anything less than American English or British English. They must also be able to identify how it is like: its sounds, vocabulary and grammar. This can only be achieved by teaching Philippine English in schools.

Fortuitously, there is the very exemplary model for teaching Philippine English, designed by Prof. Alejandro Bernardo of the University of Santo Tomas. He has been developing this model since his doctoral dissertation research project in 2013, and until now, he has one of the most robust pedagogical approaches to teaching a new variety of English. I also personally admire his work and have so much respect for his scholarship. He has published extensively on this topic and many others; thus, I consider him one of the leading linguists in the Philippines.

Prof. Bernardo offers what he calls a “Philippine English-aware method for teaching English.” This method, which he developed, involves five stages where teachers gradually raise awareness of Philippine English and other varieties of the language. Here is his description of his model, taken from his chapter in the handbook of Philippine English, or PhE, published by Routledge last year:

Stage 1: Notice — Students are made to notice the distinctive features of PhE. Teachers direct students’ attention to grammatical, lexical or phonological items that significantly differ from American English or British English.

Stage 2: Compare — Teachers lead the students to compare and contrast idiosyncratic PhE phonological, syntactic or lexical features with American English or British English, highlighting that the differences are acceptable and not strange.

Stage 3: Comment — The teacher comments that the distinctive features are not errors and abnormalities; they are innovations that are allowed and permissible in formal and informal discourses.

Stage 4: Encourage — Teachers encourage learners to use the local variety in formal and informal discourses without uncertainties, hesitations, or fear of being penalized, laughed at, or frowned at.

Stage 5: Familiarize — Teachers encourage students to be familiar with other established varieties of English and train them to shuttle from one variety to another to effect more successful communication.

One more thing we must celebrate is the revised basic education curriculum made public last year, which says: “Anchored on the language framework of the K-12 (Kindergarten to Grade 12) curriculum, the enhanced English curriculum reflects the dynamic nature of the language and to distinguish Philippine English from the English of, not one of and not for, the native speakers.” The Philippines is perhaps the first country to mention a local variety in the national curriculum and call attention to its legitimacy through the classroom. Certainly, the work of Prof. Bernardo is invaluable in advancing the status of Philippine English not only in the Philippines but also in the community of English-using nations.

Ariane Macalinga Borlongan is one of the leading scholars on English in the Philippines and is also doing pioneering work on language in the context of migration. He is the youngest to earn a doctorate in linguistics — at age 23 — from De La Salle University. He has had several teaching and research positions in Germany, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Poland and Singapore. He is presently an associate professor of sociolinguistics at the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies in Japan.