English and Englishes in the Philippines: A World Englishes Approach to MTBMLE

Isabel Pefianco Martin, Ateneo de Manila University

Abstract

! In the past two years since DepEd Order 74 (series 2009) was implemented, teacher

training sessions have been conducted that focussed on the development of teaching

strategies and the preparation of instructional materials for teaching in multilingual settings.

One area of utmost concern among basic education teachers, and often a source of anxiety

to both teachers and parents, is how to approach the teaching of English using the first

language (L1). This presentation hopes to address these concerns by proposing a World

Englishes (WE) approach to English language teaching (ELT) in the Philippines.

Introduction

! Just recently, a college freshman who interviewed me for his research paper on

mother-tongue based multilingual education (MTBMLE) asked why I supported its promotion

even it meant possibly losing my job as an English teacher. The question did not surprise me

as it was something that I often encountered whenever teachers, especially English teachers

in Metro Manila, are confronted with this unfamiliar creature that is MTBMLE.

! To many stakeholders of the English language--lawmakers, school administrators,

teachers, and parents--MTBMLE is perceived as a threat. It is specifically perceived to be

anti-English. These perceptions may be traced to beliefs about English that may largely be

considered as myths.

Facts about the English language

! What do we know about the English language? Let’s consider some facts.

Paper presented at the Panel Presentation on ENGAGING ELT IN THE MTBMLE DISCOURSE
2nd Philippine Conference - Workshop on MTBMLE, 16 February 2012, Iloilo City
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• There are approximately 375 million English L1 speakers, 375 million L2 speakers, and

750 million EFL speakers (Graddol 2006). This means that that there are more non-

native than native speakers of the English language. Consequently, there are more non-

native (NNEST) than native teachers of English in the world today.

• There is a massive number of people learning English today. This number may peak at 2

billion within the decade . (Graddol 2006)

• English learners are increasing in number and decreasing in age. (Graddol 2006)

! In addition to the facts presented above, speakers of English may be grouped into

three, following Braj Kachru’s (2006) three concentric circles.

The Expanding Circle:

China, Indonesia, Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Saudi Arabia,
Egypt, South America, Zimbabwe

The Outer Circle:

Bangladesh, Kenya, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Malaysia,
Philippines, India, Singapore, Nigeria

The Inner Circle:

USA, UK, Canada, Australia,
New Zealand

The domains of English in these three groups of speakers are summarized in the following

Table of Functional Domains (Kachru 2006).

FUNCTIONS INNER OUTER EXPANDING

Access codes + + +

Advertising + + +

Corporate trade + + +

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2nd Philippine Conference - Workshop on MTBMLE, 16 February 2012, Iloilo City
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 Development + + +

Government + + -
Linguistic impact + + +

Literary creativity + + +

Literary renaissance + + +

News broadcasting + + +

Newspapers + + +

Scientific higher education + + +

Scientific research + + +

Social interaction + + +

(Kachru 2006)

! What do these realities tell us about English in the world today? First of all, native

speakers of English clearly do not control developments in the language. Kachru writes: “It is

a reality that the sun has already set on the Empire but does not set on the users of

English.” (Kachru 2006) The concentric circle model (first introduced by Kachru in 1985),

which takes a geographical-historical perspective, as well as a functional approach, in

grouping English speakers throughout the world, is considered to have radically challenged

the traditional categories of native and non-native speakers of the language. By doing so, the

model questions the dominance of beliefs that ownership of the language reside among the

native speakers. !

! Second, these realities about the English language tell us that English will behave like

any other language that is dynamic and alive--it will change. And these changes (or

innovations) will be simultaneous and will come from a multitude of sources. The language

will evolve, and has in fact already evolved into different varieties referred to as Englishes.

Paper presented at the Panel Presentation on ENGAGING ELT IN THE MTBMLE DISCOURSE
2nd Philippine Conference - Workshop on MTBMLE, 16 February 2012, Iloilo City
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! These are the fundamental bases of the World Englishes paradigm-- the acceptance of

the reality that the English language is dynamic, multifarious (diverse; having great variety),

and pluricentric (having many centers). The term “World Englishes” was introduced by Indian

sociolinguist Braj Kachru in the 1980s to represent "the functional and formal variations,

divergent sociolinguistic contexts, ranges and varieties of English in creativity, and various

types of acculturation in parts of the Western and non-Western world" (Kachru, 1992, p.2).

Varieties of English

! Kachru tells us that “...in looking at the global contexts of world Englishes, we need a

perspective of variousness.” (Kachru 2006) This perspective of variousness is what World

Englishes scholars have taken when they documented the varieties of English across the

world. Lowenberg (1993), for example, describes “...nativized features in non-native varieties”

or features of non-native varieties which also occur in native varieties of English.

• I was in charge of all correspondences. (Ghana)

• Pick up your chalks. (Singapore)

• Throughout your life you get nuisances. (Uganda)

• That way the forms would be filled and processed within ten minutes, rather than have the

passengers fill up all the details while at the checkpoint. (Malaysia)

• We shall discuss about that later (Nigeria)

• They discussed about the mistakes and emphasized on the need for greater care.

(Singapore)

• She lives in 6th Avenue. (Singapore)

• The geography alone—7,000 islands—it destroys mobility. (Philippines)

• My friend wants to go down the bus. (Philippines)

Paper presented at the Panel Presentation on ENGAGING ELT IN THE MTBMLE DISCOURSE
2nd Philippine Conference - Workshop on MTBMLE, 16 February 2012, Iloilo City
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! In the Philippines, non-native features of a Philippine variety of English have also been

documented by Maria Lourdes Bautista of De La Salle University-Manila. The following are

features of educated Philippine English as recorded by Bautista (2000):

Subject-verb agreement

• Liquidity problems of rural banks on a massive scale is [are] being experienced for the

first time. (intervening prepositional phrase or expression category)

• The audience await [awaits] the swordfights eagerly... (special noun)

• The shortest path, as well as the distance, are [is] easily obtained with standard graph

theory algorithms. (intervening prepositional phrase or expression category)

Articles

• * [A] Majority of the public school teachers do not want to serve as poll officials in the

May elections... (This feature has become standard in PE)

• A [Ø] World Bank research on agro-biotechnology development in the Philippines said

there is a lack of... (Also a feature of PE that has become standard)

Prepositions

• This results to [in] a better quality of life.

• The solution cannot consist in [of] a purely technological measure.

• On [In] many instances, officers run out of patience and rule out further negotiations as

unnecessary.

• However, even if the company disposes * [of] its properties, there may be no buyer...

Verb tenses

• The temperature readings oscillate [oscillated] from as low as 41.8 degrees Celsius with

a differential gap of about 1.6 degrees Celsius when the set point was at 40 degrees.

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2nd Philippine Conference - Workshop on MTBMLE, 16 February 2012, Iloilo City
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• But it was only in 1510 that a more authentic epidemic has been [was] described.

• All the Spaniards had disappeared. It is [was] as if they were never there [had never

been].

! Other than non-native features of the grammar of Philippine English, scholars have

also documented lexical innovations. These are found in the Anvil-Macquarie Dictionary of

Philippine English for High Schools (2002), as well as in the works of Kingsley Bolton and

Susan Butler (2004)

Lexical innovations

• academician noun Philippine English a teacher in a college, university, or institution of

higher education.  NOTE This word is from the French acadèmicien.

• advanced adjective Philippine English Informal (of a watch, clock, etc.) fast: My watch is

advanced.

• bedspacer noun Philippine English someone who stays in a dormitory or shared room

of a board house but does not take meals there.

• dirty kitchen noun Philippine English a kitchen for everyday use or use by maids, as

opposed to a kitchen used for show or by the owner of the house.

• dormmate noun Philippine English someone who stays in the same dormitory as you

do.

• holdupper noun Philippine English someone who commits a hold-up or robbery.

• marketing noun Philippine English shopping for food and daily needs: My mother does

the marketing after school.  NOTE In Standard American English, shopping would be

used for definition 2.

Paper presented at the Panel Presentation on ENGAGING ELT IN THE MTBMLE DISCOURSE
2nd Philippine Conference - Workshop on MTBMLE, 16 February 2012, Iloilo City
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• presidentiable noun Philippine English a likely presidential candidate, someone well

qualified for the presidency: Who do you think are the presidentiables for the next

elections?

• In an ambush interview, the President cautioned his critics against pursuing moves to

‘incite’ a ‘revolution’ to protest his possible acquittal. (2002 PDI, January 17)

• Who knows? You may even avoid getting high blood from a city snarled to a standstill

by traffic. (2002 PDI, February 9)

The WE Approach to Teaching and Learning English

! The pluralistic nature of the English language poses many challenges to teaching

English (ELT). How then must English be taught following the WE paradigm? And what is the

place of WE in MTBMLE in the Philippines?

! A first step in taking a WE approach to ELT in the Philippines is to resist myths that

persist about the English language. Kachru (1995) describes the following myths that we may

be guilty.

1. The Interlocutor Myth: We learn English to communicate with native speakers

2. The Monoculture Myth: English is learned to understand American or British culture

3. The Model Dependency Myth: Only American or British varieties are taught and learned

throughout the world.

4. The Cassandra Myth: Diversification and variation are symptoms of linguistic decay.

! Elsewhere, I have argued that in the Philippines, we have our own set of language

myths (Martin 2010), as follows:

1. If you don’t know English, you simply don’t know!

2. English cures all economic ailments.

Paper presented at the Panel Presentation on ENGAGING ELT IN THE MTBMLE DISCOURSE
2nd Philippine Conference - Workshop on MTBMLE, 16 February 2012, Iloilo City
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3. American English is the only correct English.

4. English and the Philippine languages are languages in opposition.

! These myths are obstacles to achieving effective teaching and learning of English in

the Philippines. MTBMLE, by promoting the use of first languages in developing literacy, is a

form of resistance to these myths.

! In a recent publication entitled “How to Have a Guilt-free Life Using Cantonese in the

English Class,” Merrill Swain, Andy Kirkpatrick, and Jim Cummins (2011) argue that the

“planned use of the L1 when teaching English supports and enhances the learning of

English.” Specifically, they recommend the following strategies for teaching English using the

L1:

1. Make content comprehensible by building from the known, providing translations for

difficult grammar and vocabulary, and using cross-linguistic comparisons when necessary

2. Focus of student process and product in task completion. This means that using both the

L1 (Cantonese) and English may prove to be useful during the process of performing a

task, activity, or project. However, English should be used to the extent possible in

performing the final product.

3. For classroom routines such as giving instructions for activities, opening, transitioning and

closing lessons, and maintaining discipline, English should be used.

! A. Suresh Canagarajah, in discussing the place of World Englishes in teaching

composition, also asks the question that teachers immersed in the WE discourse are often

confronted with: “If it is important ... to develop proficiency in the range of new Englishes

gaining importance in contemporary society, how do we proceed with pedagogical

practice?” (Canagarajah 2006) He recommends “redefining (our) teaching activity” as follows:

Paper presented at the Panel Presentation on ENGAGING ELT IN THE MTBMLE DISCOURSE
2nd Philippine Conference - Workshop on MTBMLE, 16 February 2012, Iloilo City
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 Not WE WE

Developing mastery of a single “target Striving for competence in a repertoire

language” of codes and discourses

Joining a speech community Shuttling between communities in

contextually relevant ways

Focusing on correctness Approaching “error” as the learner’s

active negotiation and exploration of
choices and possibilities

Teaching grammatical rules in a Teaching communicative strategies

normative and abstract way (creative ways to negotiate norms in
diverse contexts)

What Canagarajah describes above corresponds to the “polymodel” concept that Kachru talks

about in the following quote:

“In discussing English as an international and intranational language it is difficult

to raise the question of choice of model. The local, national, and international
users of English...raise questions about the validity of didactic models, those
which emphasize a monomodel approach to the teaching of English. One has to
be realistic about such questions and aim at a dynamic approach, based on a
polymodel concept. The choice of a model cannot be separated from the
functions of the language. (italics mine)” (Kachru in Baumgardner 2006)

! This polymodel concept is the same concept that Kirkpatrick describes as the

“multilingual model” (2010) in his book “English as a lingua franca in ASEAN: A Multilingual

Model”. In advocating linguistic and cultural diversity in Asia, Kirkpatrick makes the following

recommendations about teaching English:

1. English must be introduced only after fluency and literacy in the first language are

developed, and this need not be in the early levels of primary schooling;

2. English should be introduced as a subject, with English as a medium of instruction (MOI)

delayed until secondary school; and

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3. Schools in the ASEAN region must not neglect the teaching of local languages, even with

the presence of the national language, a regional lingua franca, and a second language

(English) in the school curriculum.

Conclusion

! What I have attempted in this presentation, which I hope I was successful at doing,

was to demonstrate that MTBMLE and ELT are complementary. Still, whether one adopts

MTBMLE or not, the teaching of English, in whatever context, must take into account the

nature of the language as dynamic, multifarious, and pluricentric. Teachers of English are

challenged to take a more critical stance in approaching the language, as well as in adopting

more creative strategies in teaching it.

REFERENCE LIST

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! Publishing Inc.

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Bolton, Kingsley and Butler, Susan. (2004) Dictionaries and the stratification of vocabulary:

! towards a new lexicography for Philippine English. World Englishes, 23 (1), pp.

! 91-112.

Canagarajah, A. Suresh (2006) The Place of World Englishes in Composition: Pluralization

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2nd Philippine Conference - Workshop on MTBMLE, 16 February 2012, Iloilo City
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