Teacher’s shoes

After all I’ve said, I believe there’s no other work as fulfilling as teaching our students. There’s this saying that I agree with: “Though there are bad things that are happening, still, good things are as infinite as the raindrops when it’s raining.” For me, teaching is like being in love. You are in ecstasy. You feel great the whole time even if you’ve had a bad day. You know you are fulfilled but you can’t describe it, no words can truly capture what you’re feeling inside. Even if you’re tired as hell.

Yeah, there’s no money in teaching—but the everyday connection with our students is just so priceless. Even if we gathered all the money in the whole wide world, it will never have value compared to what we undergo and are about to undergo. We may never be rich in our job, but our lives are getting richer every day.  Read the source opinion in the Philippine Inquirer at this link

http://opinion.inquirer.net/59821/teachers-shoes

For Filipinos, English proficiency is fading sadly...

For example, those doctors, nurses, seamen, teachers, domestic helpers (and really just college graduates in general) who speak English well have an edge on the rest and are able to work abroad, thanks largely to their competency in English. They help make Philippine migrant workers one of the largest migrant worker groups in the world. Indeed, the more than 10 million Filipino workers abroad have managed to prop up the Philippine economy by sending some $16 billion back home to their families last year, amounting to the fourth largest level of total remittances in the world, and accounting for almost 12 percent of the country’s entire GDP. Indeed, remittances from overseas workers have time and again made it possible for the country to survive many crises, and they will perhaps help it weather the current financial crisis.

Since the economy depends on the ofw and the call centers for a major part of its spending power,,,,,its like the ostrich has stuck his head in the sand ignoring English is the economic driver of the the country!

Call-center agents, Filipinos chatting on their headsets to inquiring English-speaking customers half a world away, were supposed to provide the answer to the Philippines’ economy. They could be drawn from the country’s famously large pool of English speakers to tap into the lucrative offshoring and outsourcing (O&O) market.

But employers in the industry say they now have to reject 95 of 100 job applicants because their English proficiency is inadequate.

A country where spoken English once ranked as an official language has seen its collective proficiency slide over the years, even as the economic importance of the english has grown. The decline stems in part from nationalist campaigns to promote Filipino and from inattention in schools, which the government is taking steps to undo.

Employers say it is increasingly difficult to find people with adequate English, and some O&O employers think the labor supply has dried up.

English once dominated

The shortage is ironic given that the Philippines once boasted, with some justification, of being the world’s third largest Anglophone country.


If students’ math and science scores are poor, their performance in English is even worse.
“If we do not supply the demand, then we will lose our business,” Garcia says. “We will always need the English language.”  Teachers please take note too!


Read the complete articles here at this link
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-Pacific/2010/0510/For-Filipinos-English-proficiency-is-fading


http://english.safe-democracy.org/2009/01/21/the-philippines-still-grappling-with-english/