LOOKING GLASS
Sandy Vargas

Spoken English


Spoken English is considerably taking much of the concerns of foreign employers in English-speaking communities when hiring Filipino workers. To us, this used to be a matter we were bothered least. Our system of education is basically American; why take communication a problem?

Yes, this is true to a limited degree nowadays. Instruction in exclusive schools speaks of it, and not with the greater number of our students who are taught with insurmountable inadequacies. Public education is more or less that.

It all started when non-educators like politicians began to tell educators what to do. Remove this budget and this and that. Do teach this and this and that. And the stupid teacher followed in order not to displease another moron for almost every known personal reason. To cut the story short, both died and left behind was the graduate made in their own likeness.

Mind you, they did not only decrease the units of English in college. They even kicked out speech from some curricula and maintained a practice where any tertiary finisher could teach English. If you were the student, most probably you’d say that apprenticeship in the 18th century would be more productive.

Kidding aside, our trouble with spoken English is our ordinary relationship with the language. Language scientists term it instrumental, that is, there are very limited activities to where we use English. They are, for instance, in the school, in the church, and more scarcely while viewing movies and listening to music and a few others. Good that you participate when majority don’t: that’s the take.

I could remember my friends in the Ateneo would have wonderful time with Shakespearean plays. When off from classes, we’d watch a Yul Brynner, or a Richard Burton, or a Charlton Heston movie. We’d mimic them afterwards, like the “Ten Commandments,” Heston (as Moses): “If there is one more plague on Egypt, it is by your word God will break it, and there will be more crimes throughout the land, so let the people go!” Brynner (as Pharaoh): “Come to me to no more Moses, from the day you see my face, again, you will surely die!” With some others, it made us members of debating teams and candidates in student organizations and helped in our command of the spoken English.

It did not stop there. I fell in love with English and majored on it in my bachelor’s degree, my master’s but not in my doctoral: I reserved it for earning my daily bread. What I’m trying to point out is, you’ll never be fairly good at something unless you make an attachment to it, and spoken English is simply that.

When I taught some Asians as Chinese, Taiwanese, Thais, Koreans and several others in a popular school in Manila they thought I had the “it”. In Australia, I did it to kids in their native language. In the US, not so literate Americans looked at me as special because of my spoken English. You see, you can hide your weakness in this place without being a TNT.

It gives you a sufficient amount of leverage abroad. So, why not start to shape up in that aspect of the language. It could pay much dividends.

Specializing in the American English is the better way. Reading can help you. Speaking requires you to present ideas. Form with no content is like aiming the riffle with no bullet. Aside, you improve form.

From one friend to another, if you’ve some sort of understandability in speech, work on your rhythm. Accentuate stressed syllables and make them recur regularly within a thought group; weaken their unstressed counterparts and obscure their vowels; organize utterance into thought groups by means of pauses; blend the sound within said groups; and, fit the sentence into an intonation pattern. Then practice and practice and practice. Automacity is your final test.