The House bill proposing to put back English as the medium of instruction in all grade schools, particularly public schools, has spawned a wide debate.
In 1901, three years after Admiral Dewey sailed into Manila Bay to rout an aged Spanish armada, 540 Americans arrived on the military transport ?Thomas.?
The Thomasites, as they are fondly remembered in history, were the first batch of teachers to transform the Philippines eventually into the third largest English-speaking country in the whole world, next only to the United States and the United Kingdom.
In 1933, when I enrolled in first grade (there was no pre-school then), and up to my high school graduation in 1947 (my schooling was interrupted by the Japanese occupation), English was the sole medium of instruction. Looking back, I would not have survived Physics without being fluent in English.
After the United States granted us independence in 1946, nationalist fervor swept the country. To shed our American past (no longer were we to be known as America?s little brown brothers), Pilipino (Tagalog, really) became the national language and the medium of instruction in public grade schools.
It is only in high school when English becomes the medium again. By this time, it is too late.
English is an extremely difficult language to master. I constantly have to grapple with the proper use of the past participle. What is a gerund?
Spelling is a huge problem. George Bernard Shaw wrote that ?fish? could be spelled ?ghoti? ? ?gh? as in ?enough,? ?o? as in ?women,? and ?ti? as in ?nation.?
To maintain mastery of the language, you have to use it constantly. I met a Taiwanese who was a Chinese-English translator in Beijing during World War II. But, in Taiwan, he found very little use for English. He lost his fluency.
Now, the world has turned around once again. Fifty years ago, an insurance agent could earn a decent living with a smattering of English. Today, he would not stand a chance against well-dressed, well-coifed lady college graduates who make their sales presentations with laptops.
You cannot work in an insurance office unless you have a good command of oral and written English. English is the worldwide language of insurance and reinsurance. Insurance policies, the Insurance Code, implementing rules and regulations and jurisprudence are all in English.
Mastery of the English language opens the wide world of the Internet. Information technology is a boundless treasure trove.
In a frantic try to catch up, China has hired a million foreigners to teach English. Even India has launched a crash course to widen English fluency. South Koreans flock to the Philippines for a three-year stay to learn English.
Fortunately, the Philippines is a classless society. The poorest kid in the most distant barrio has access to education. If he is bright enough, there are scholarships available at every level, up to doctorate.
Of course, you could be fluent in English but still be a clod. This is why I encourage my grandchildren to read widely.
Timmy, who is in sixth grade in Colegio de Sta. Rosa, where the nuns insist on English as the medium of instruction, has read all the Harry Potter books. Not only that, when she met a strange word, she looked it up in the dictionary. When she enters high school, I will introduce her to the wonderful world of Charles Dickens, Sir Walter Scott and Robert Louis Stevenson.
By all means, let us put back English as the sole medium of instructions in all levels. So what if there will be problems? Let us solve the problems as they crop up.
