The Quest For Multilingual Education In The Philippines

I just thought about that I wrote about the decline of English proficiency among Filipinos. I also remembered about my proposal to prioritizing learning English more while endorsing Nihonggo and Mandarin over Spanish. While I don't want to abolish Spanish classes entirely as an elective but shouldn't we at least endorse both Nihonggo and Mandarin for starters? Maybe we can also add Hangul to the curriculum. Also, Tagalog itself is not the culprit for low English proficiency but rather when overemphasizing on it has become a root problem.

Why I really don't like the song "Ako'y Isang Pinoy" (I'm a Filipino) is because it really tends to discourage the learning of foreign languages especially when it brags, "Ako'y hindi sanay sa wika ng mga banyaga/Ako'y Pinoy na mayroong sariling wika.". Said line means "I'm not proficient in the language of foreigners/I'm a Filipino with my own language." So really since when did Tagalog mastery and proficiency become that important? Also, mentioning the name of Jose Rizal in said song is stupid. Did you know Rizal himself was a polyglot or multilingual? He mastered several foreign languages aside from his native Chinese, Spanish and Tagalog!

So what's important about the quest for Filipino multilingualism? Sure, I can understand if non-English shows are dubbed in Tagalog (but they need to improve their quality of dubbing) but why are English shows dubbed in Tagalog? It has helped contribute to the downfall of Filipino language proficiency if Filipinos are practicing too much Tagalog and none at all with English. Then there's the option of having some shows in their original native language. Then we know that the world is entering into globalization. There's the international market and we do have the opportunity to grab or lose depending on the scenario.

Do you know that non-English speaking people like South Koreans, Chinese and Japanese go to the Philippines to learn English? The opportunity can be severely lost of Filipinos themselves get too busy becoming proficient in Tagalog or any of their native dialects. We need Filipinos to become English teachers to non-English speaking foreigners and to train them to speak English. If these foreigners also want to learn Tagalog or any Filipino dialect -- they can also go ahead and request to be tutored in that field. Then there can be an exchange of learning when Filipinos themselves can also start learning Hangul, Mandarin and Nihonggo in exchange for teaching English.

There's the business world out there to grab when you learn many languages. If Filipinos can learn to speak English and another foreign language -- there's more opportunities to teach non-English speakers how to speak English in other countries or in their home country. There's also the business world because there may be the need to communicate with businessmen who may not be so fluent in English. The cultural exchange potential is there. One may understand English and the other may not. Learning a different language can help one do better in negotiations. Learning a different language can help in reaching the international market. It would be very impressive to see Filipino businessmen speaking Mandarin in trying to establish a Chinese branch or Chinese businessmen speaking good English while trying to establish a branch in English speaking countries.

So why prioritize Tagalog too much? Sure, Tagalog will always be part of the many dialects in the Philippines. But again Tagalog proficiency shouldn't be emphasized too much. I'm not saying we should forget how to speak Tagalog or the other Filipino dialects. It's all about trying to learn new languages and giving Filipinos more opportunities to learn them. You're done learning Tagalog so why not focus more on English and some other languages you can use in the international community?