Friday, January 23, 2009

Paradoxically speaking

Isagani Cruz wrote a short but trenchant post titled "Paradox of Philippine education" a few days ago. It speaks for itself:

I have often wondered why Filipinos who speak bad English, who have no doctorates in English language or linguistics, who have never lived or worked in the USA or UK, who have never taught in the public schools, or whose children do not study in public schools are the most vocal advocates of the exclusive use of the English language as the medium of instruction in all our public schools. On the other hand, Filipino language scholars with American doctorates in linguistics, who speak English as good as if not better than Americans, who have published books and scholarly articles in English in international journals, or who have been in the Department of Education and know the problems of public education firsthand are unanimous in opposing such stupid moves. Only in the Philippines!
Indeed.


1 comments:

Hilda said...

Not related to English but to education in general: when DeGioia's talk gets posted in the Ateneo website, read it. Very thought-provoking keynote this morning.