the daytime

I, Ara Katina Herrero, mean no offenses to anyone and only shows my opinions and feelings through written articles. Living in this free world,  everyone has the right to do whatever they want to do, say whatever they want to say, with no offensive acts. I have no intensions to offend anyone, please bear with me. Ü

Being exposed to a new environment and people around me, I have learned how to appreciate my own culture, my people and my country – The Philippines.

When i was younger and was still studying back in The Philippines, I don’t care about singing the national anthem, complaining why our pledge was so long and why must we stand everyday to do the same routine daily. Now i realized, how much such things mean to me.

No one know about it but us. No one knows how the Americans influenced us greatly after conquering The Philippines for 33 years, though such influence made us better speakers, English speakers.

Let me talk about the English in The Philippines.

English has been our medium of instruction in schools, and we’ve been learning it since birth. With our Filipino accent (specifically tagalog), our English became comprehensive since we speak slower and clearer. Teachers do teach their students proper English, in written and oral forms.

I remember, during English period in The Philippines, we had to buy this booklet and do spelling quizzes. It was terrible – so much. I usually get a 2/10 marks. hahaha. Our teacher taught us how to spell words through variables, sounds and syllables.  Grammar is also our thing. We studied how to construct good sentences.

The amazing thing regarding this matter is that, we “all” try to speak English – clear English.

Filipinos use American accent for English, though we are also open with British accent. However, in my opinion, i guess American’s English is better since it’s clearer and more straightforward.

Why am i talking about English? Good question. I can’t stop comparing Singapore’s English to Filipinos’ English.

I was shocked when i got exposed to Singaporeans’ English – singlish. They converse with “lah”, “hor”, “lor” and whatsoever, (from their different racial accents), and when they ask questions, it’s mostly wrong, when we talk about grammar, and shortcut forms of every sentences. Yes it’s singlish, not English, not even a British accent. Let me give one example.

When i was in kindergarten, if we wanted to go to the bathroom, we were told to ask like this: “Teacher, may I go to the toilet?” (since may shows politeness) but in Singapore, students ask their teachers like this: “Can i go toilet?” which is shorter and exclusion or lack of politeness. This is not a big deal, yet.

Another one is, if you are asking for an approval or agreement, you ask: “Is this okay/alright?” yet they ask like this: “can? can?” – redundant plus, grammatically wrong.

Let’s stop about Singlish versus English now. All i want to share is how we study English in The Philippines.

Yes, spelling always existed. The English teacher grabs a dictionary and looks for “difficult” words, asking us to spell it. After 10 or more words of spelling was (in my side) badly done, the teacher would ask us to check every meaning of the words given and then use it in a sentence. Though it was difficult, we learn more and i do miss such surprise spelling quizzes. Everyone will be like.. “aawww!!”. haha..
Every term, we also had declamations, spelling bees, and another one i forgot how’s it called. Anyway, Declamation refers to a contest where, contestants need to memorize a long “story/speech” and act it on stage. Spelling bee was a competition of, students holding a mini blackboard and a chalk, the MC says a “difficult” word and contestants were to spell it out correctly. Another one which i forgot how you call it, a contestant picks up a question and answers the question correctly, with time limit.

I was in the bus when i was thinking about my elementary days back in The Philippines, my high school days, happier and more exciting than what is currently happening to me. I missed my English teachers before, who taught me how to pronounce words perfectly fine for people to understand.

Let’s go back to the Singlish case. When we say “with”, it’s pronounced as “wid” not “wif” as how they pronounce it. Then, i get wrong when i pronounce Black as “blak” not “blek”, Bag as “bug” not “beg”. What i mean is, i use American accent, so my pronunciation can’t be considered as wrong, but considerable right since it’s Americanized. Consideration is appreciated. I am just so not used to speaking British English.

Also, they study through compositions, letter writings and comprehension passages. Yes, it’s all helpful, but let’s focus on comprehension works. You are given passages to read and answer the questions that follows. One example is when they ask you, “In your opinion, ……” you are supposed to answer the question with your opinion. However, why do they look for “keywords” from the passages when they are asking for opinions? I thought opinions are all correct – no right, no wrong answers? Anyway, that’s how it goes.

I just don’t know why must there be “keywords” in every answers, if you can just answer the questions based on your understanding? Even though the word is not there, it should be correct it the “idea” is there. That should be it, but i guess, it is not.

Oh well, after all i said, all i can say is: I am proud to be a Filipino, though discriminated and inferiorized by some, we are all survivors and way better than the others. Admit it, we’re all over the world. haha..

All by, arak3nah.♥