Filipino and English

In the current (now old) General Education Curriculum for all college students, there are Filipino and English language subjects. In the new General Education Curriculum (GEC), there is no subject devoted only to Filipino or to English.

The disappearance has to do with the K to 12 reform. With only ten years of basic education in the past, students were generally deficient in either Filipino or English language skills (or both). That is why college teachers used to teach remedial, high school level courses. Starting 2018, there will no longer be any necessity to teach remedial language subjects in college, for two reasons: first, the Filipino and English subjects from Grades 1 to 10 have been revised for greater effectiveness, and second, each college student will have had two more years to prepare for using both languages for academic purposes.

Starting 2018, no student will be admitted to college without having satisfied the College Readiness Standards (CRS). The CRS specifies, for example, that incoming freshmen should already be able to “write a research paper in English of at least 1,000 words, with proper documentation of all sources” and “a research paper in Filipino of at least five pages showing critical thinking about a contemporary issue.” These two requirements clearly raise the bar for high school graduates. They should be ready to handle college-level courses without having to worry about their command of both languages.

There are, however, certain language skills that are not in the K to 12 curriculum. These include specialized uses of language, such as those needed for graduate education or the workplace.

The fifth of the eight new required subjects in the revised GEC, therefore, is about language. Called “Purposive Communication / Malayuning Komunikasyon,” it is described as “Writing, speaking, and presenting to different audiences and for various purposes / Pagsulat, pagsasalita, at paglalahad para sa iba’t ibang madla at iba’t ibang layunin.”

The Appendix of CMO 20, series of 2013, adds: “The five skills of communication (listening, speaking, reading, writing, viewing) are studied and simulated in advanced academic settings, such as conversing intelligently on a subject of import, reporting on group work and/or assignments, writing and delivering a formal speech, writing minutes of meetings and similar documents, preparing a research or technical paper, and making an audio-visual or web-based presentation. In the process, the criteria for effective communication are discussed and used as the basis of peer evaluation of communication exercises in the class as well as for judging communication techniques used by public officials, educators, industry leaders, churches, and private individuals. The purpose of these combined activities is to enable students to practice strategies of communication with a clear purpose and audience in mind, guided by the criteria of effective communication and the appropriate language.

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“At the end of the course, students should be able to listen, comprehend, critique, and respond to live or recorded conversations, speak in public with confidence, explain extended texts in their own words using examples and other aids to bolster their explanation, write texts ranging from a simple report to a full-length technical or research paper (scientific, social science, or literary, depending on the student’s major), and prepare an audio-visual or web-based presentation on an assigned topic.”

Note that there is no mention of what language to use in class. Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) will have to decide what language or languages their students need to succeed in their fields.

A simple example is medicine. Students taking a nursing or a pre-med course cannot confine themselves to English. Most Filipino patients – particularly the poor who need medical care most – do not speak English to their doctors or nurses. Doctors and nurses have to know all the vernacular words (Tagalog if they work in the Tagalog area, Cebuano if in the Cebuano-speaking area, etc.) for parts of the body and for different kinds of pain (hapdi, kirot, sakit, hapdos, antak, aplas, etc.). They have to be able to explain what exactly is happening to the body of their patient in a language the patient can understand. On the other hand, they also need to be able to read international journal articles written in English, if they want to know the latest ways of curing diseases. In the Purposive Communication course for future medical doctors or nurses, therefore, medical vocabulary in English, Filipino, and vernacular languages has to be taught.

Another example is creative writing. Creative writing in the Philippines today is bilingual. Writers read and write in English and Filipino, Filipino and Bicolano, English and Cebuano, and various other combinations. Just take our living National Artists: Bienvenido Lumbera and Virgilio Almario both write in Tagalog, Filipino, and English. F. Sionil Jose writes in English, but he reads and writes about books in Tagalog, Filipino, and Ilocano. Students majoring in creative writing need to learn to write in more than one language.

Similarly, students aiming for law school have to be good in both Filipino and English, if they are going to understand what their future clients will be saying. Similarly, mass communication and business students have to master both Filipino and English.

It really all depends on the students. Therefore, it would be a mistake for HEIs to assign “Purposive Communication” only to monolingual departments of Filipino or English. (To be continued) –Isagani Cruz (The Philippine Star)