Jose Antonio C. Dasig Prof.

Charity Turano
ELS – 1 T/TH 1:30 – 2:30

A Synthesis of studies pertaining to Philippine English

Research and Articles Utilized:

Philippine English – A case of language drift

by Jonathan Malicsi

Philippine English in the ESL Classroom: A Much Closer Look

by Alejandro S. Bernardo Ph.D.

Prepared by:

Jose Antonio C. Dasig

ELS – 1

February 19, 2020

ELS 1205 T/TH 1:30 – 2:30

Submitted to:

Prof. Charity Turano

Jose Antonio C. Dasig Prof. Charity Turano
ELS – 1 T/TH 1:30 – 2:30

Philippine English in the ESL Classroom: A Much Closer Look

I. Rationale

The research paper discusses frameworks and phenomenon within an educational environment and
evaluates whether the teaching practices here in the Philippines, specifically ESL classrooms, are
adhering to the current paradigm for World English (WE). The research aims to identify essential
areas of English language instruction in the Philippines namely: (1) the current state-prescribed
methods for instructing English – English Language Teaching and Learning (ELTL), (2) the
interaction between the instructor and student within the learning environment, (3) the tests
administered by said instructors to verify the learning. The author aims to see if Philippine English
has solidified its place within the English language instruction and pedagogical practices. He also
seeks to uncover if Philippine English was somehow spoken or mentioned within ESL classroom or if
ever it was even recommended as model for teaching English. The paper insists that for Philippine
English to fully reach a stable point of instruction, it has to be present within the three critical areas
mentioned earlier.

II. Research questions

1. Is Philippine English already a part of the English language teaching model of today’s ESL
classrooms? If so, has it begun to stabilize endonormatively?
2. What strategies can be employed to promote the use of Philippine English alongside the
standard American English?
III. Methodologies

Twenty-four English classes in the three Philippine universities were video- or audio-
recorded by the author for the intentions of (1) identifying the norm(s) that students and teachers
comply to when they converse in English during class and (2) characterizing the English spoken
by educated speakers represented by English teachers and students in Manila. Talks between the
teacher and students were transcribed by the writer and his research assistants after the recording.
Written English tests administered to Grade 11 Senior High School students whose age range
from 15-17 years old were content analyzed to reveal if they assess students’ ability to recognize
and manipulate Standard American English in areas like sentence structure and syntax. Aside
from discerning the competence of the students, the test also aims to find out if the tests
administered promote real-life discourse context and normal language use situation.

IV. Findings
Jose Antonio C. Dasig Prof. Charity Turano
ELS – 1 T/TH 1:30 – 2:30

The analysis revealed that there are peculiar grammatical features which transpired between
the interactions of the teacher and the students. The transcripts reveal a variety of English which
may rightly be termed as educated Philippine variety of English. The paper identified revealed
grammatical structures that are distinct, e.g., right and isn’t it as invariant tag questions, omitted
articles, omitted and peculiar use of prepositions, peculiar order sentence elements and verb tense
usage, double comparison of adjectives, redundancies, zero direct objects for transitive verbs,
among others, also were evident in the analysis. It seems customary for the teaching of a foreign
language that a certain variety be chosen that would in turn provide a linguistic model for the
learners (Preisler, 1999).

Example: Subjective and Objective Cases

1. [S]: Because of her, me (I) and my siblings studied in DLSU, Ateneo, UST, and Assumption.

2. [T]: As far as me (I) and my students are concerned, I believe that friendship is also necessary.

The study also revealed that there is a scarcity of the real – life discourse context within the ELTL
which would showcase the competence of the students. It was also shown that Philippine English
is used in writing the test items alongside the inner circle varieties however Philippine English is
not prescribed when selecting for grammatical and linguistic purposes.

V. Conclusions

What has been found so far is that the World Englishes paradigm and Philippine English
are neither explicitly nor implicitly seen within the K-12 English curriculum framework.
Philippine English does thrive within ESL classrooms and thus it may now find incursion
within formal curriculum document whose main component is to embody and to
communicate course goals and contents such as Philippine English grammar towards
learners. Philippine English has begun and continues to stabilize endonormatively within
ELT classrooms. This is evidenced by the emergence of a local standard embraced by the
vast majority of what makes up an ELT classroom. Sociolinguistic competence also seems to
play a major role towards the application of Philippine English. Sociolinguistic competence
is defined as the knowledge of socio-cultural rules of language and of discourse (Muniandy,
2010). Based on that statement, sociolinguistic competence can be considered as the facility
to construe or interpret the social meaning and implication of the choice of linguistic varieties
and the ability to use language in an appropriate situation.
Jose Antonio C. Dasig Prof. Charity Turano
ELS – 1 T/TH 1:30 – 2:30

Philippine English – A case of language drift

Article summary:

The common belief here in the Philippines is that English is deteriorating and often seen as a case
of indigenization which in turn produce varieties which can qualify as dialects. Philippine English or
Pinoy English, is one such example of this variety. Many would label Philippine English as the broken
English of the entertainment industry or of political personalities, but Malicsi described Philippine
English in his paper as the English of “Educated Filipino professionals”. To further prove his description
accurate, he gave an analysis of the Inauguration speech of former president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
He noted that the writers for the said speech must surely be the best among the Presidential staff could
muster. Unsurprisingly, many peculiarities can be attributed to Philippine English within the speech.
Example:

“In 2001, we opened a solar plant in Cagayan de Oro. Still, Mindanao faced a 100-megawatt gap by this
year.” *The past tense ‘faced’ does not fit in the time frame of the sentence.

“Pag-Ibig housing loans increased from….. This year it has experienced an 84% increase in the first four
months alone. Super-heating na.” *overheating, instead of super-heating.

It can be argued that the impact of the former president’s speech towards Pinoy English can be seen in
light of a strong political figure within society towards the development of a variety. English instructors
often tell their pupils to “think in English”, but according to Malicsi, there is no psycholinguistic evidence
that thinking can be done exclusively in a foreign language. The most common response would be a cut –
and – paste mode of English instructions as students would pick – up English words and phrases and
including them into sentences without actually knowing the meaning behind them. Malicsi gave the
CHED Memorandum Order No. 54,s. 2007, or the “Higher Education Act of 1994” as an example for
this.

“….and in order to update the General Education Curriculum to make the same more responsive to the
demands of the next millennium, the Commission approved the revised Syllabus for Filipino 1, Filipino 2,
Filipino 3….”

The peculiar thing about the entire thing is the phrase “next millennium”, used in the year 2007, refers to
the millennium that begins in the year 3001. This would mean that at the time of approval, the revisions
made for college Filipino was 994 years too early. We then find out that this memorandum was simply
Jose Antonio C. Dasig Prof. Charity Turano
ELS – 1 T/TH 1:30 – 2:30

copied from the CHED Memorandum Order No. 59, s. 1996, which refers to “next millennium” as in the
one that began in 2001.

Data was also gathered from the third joint CDCE – CETA National convention in 2004 (Council of
Department Chairs of English and the College English Teachers Association). After all, it is to be
expected that the participants are qualified as “reputable English professionals” here in the Philippines.
Unsurprisingly, the data showed that Philippine English is also prevalent among the professionals.

Example:

Word Participant’s Pronunciation Correct Pronunciation

abroad /ə’bɹowd/ /əˈbrɔd/
various /’vʌɹjUs/ /ˈvɛriəs/
Evaluate /’evʌlwejt/ /ɪˈvæljuˌeɪt/

Malicsi states that the formation of Philippine English can be attributed to the loss of connection towards
native speakers. Learning English has become more focused on learning through dictionaries and less
exposure towards native speakers. Over – reliance towards dictionaries has caused some English teachers
to do – away with words not present within the dictionary. What they don’t account for is that a
dictionary only contains lexicon from a specific time as language changes over time. Reliance on
grammar books is even more problematic, the author states. The general conception about learning
grammar is to learn it in a fast paced manner when in fact they are merely either generalizations on
syntactic and morphological patterns.

According to Malicsi, most English teachers do not even know how to read phonetic transcriptions which
is worsened by the fact that most dictionaries do not contain the common transcription system. This
scarcity of interaction with the native speakers of English has caused a situation wherein Filipinos learn
English from each other. The paper reveals that any new pronunciation, idioms, word usage, sentence
structure, etc. generated by an adult, especially someone who is held in a high regard, can be considered
by society as a model exemplar of English, which in turn gets spread through diffusion. The current plan
of the government to make English as the primary medium of instruction will only intensify the drift. The
students will pick up the English of the math teacher, P.E. teacher, Science teacher etc. If the intent is to
speak good English, it is better to focus on improving English language instruction.

References:
Jose Antonio C. Dasig Prof. Charity Turano
ELS – 1 T/TH 1:30 – 2:30

Arañas, P. (1990). The Philippine variety of English in selected universities in Metro Manila. Philippine
Studies 38, 333-67.

Canagarajah, S. (2006). Changing communicative needs, revised assessment objectives: Testing English
as an international language. Language Assessment Quarterly 3(3), 229–242.

Bernardo, A. (2017). Philippine English in the ESL Classroom: A Much Closer Look. (PDF File)
Retrieved from: https://www.elejournals.com/peslj/philippine-esl-journal-volume-19-july-2017/?
fbclid=IwAR3pkqcWfVhKUgK7MBKEObotrGoup-f4kIOL39ODBImuyaWVS4y43i1eeZg

Malicsi, J. (n.d.) Philippine English: A case of Language Drift. (PDF File) Retrieved from:
http://www.ritsumei.ac.jp/acd/re/k-rsc/lcs/kiyou/pdf_22-1/RitsIILCS_22.1pp29-58_MALICSI.pdf