MERGED: Modern Education, Literacy and English Proficiency

[TrainerEd]

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Maybe what you mean is in fairness to Cebuanos because "in fairness" is a filipinoism, Same as americans filipinos have accent issues the people in the north have p vs f in the south its long e against short i. But it is true there are a lot of social error we have gron to live with. On the job in a contact center it pays to be understood by the person on the other line.

[BeoR]

Language is easily acquired? I think let's should qualify this. Language proficiency is a skill that demands training and some level education to master.

Yes, it is true that there are other skills that we should enrich ourselves like the technical and professional skills. But if we are to become more globally competitive, then we have to learn and speak good conversational English, which is the language of commerce and business.

Yes, learning conversational english is all that is needed and that has been fed to us since nursery. My point, it is EASY to acquire... we don't need to be masters of the english language to be globally competitive. What we need to do is enhance our skills to be globally competitive... improve our quality... the only thing that the global market cares about is
if we have good products at good price points. If you are referring to the global job market then I feel sorry for you. Exporting our skilled workforce doesn't in any way give our country any long-term benefit. Take for example in the furniture industry. We held a clear advantage over the other asian countries 10 years ago. Right now we are no longer in the top10... what happened? Well, around the same time the government allowed the export of our supervisors thus also exporting our "technical skills" with them. 3 years later the supervisor got fired, came back home, and Vietnam started climbing up the charts.

Nurses for the United States, for instance, do not just take the Nursing Licensure Exam but their English skills are likewise tested.

Language is a tool for effective communication, which is needed in relating to clients and co-workers of a company or health care agency.

There is the word "basic" in that language exam that your are referring to... and you should know that no one needs to master the english language to be effective at communicating in english. All it needs are the "basics"...

Let's stick to our "English advantage", the very skill that makes the hard working and technicall-proficient Filipino workers and professionals more appealing and in demand all over the globe.

Hard working, yes. Technically proficient? Only a handful. Knowing a foreign language does not in any way give us any real advantage. We may be able to tell them that we can do this and that better than Japan for example... but they can and will see that it is not the case. If they can see that our skills are better, then no matter how badly we speak their language, they will always come to us. Have u heard how the chinese, vietnamese, japanese, taiwanese, singaporeans, etc. sound like when they speak english? They speak very bad english. Yet, their countries are globally competitive.

[irangejuice]

Yes, it is true that there are other skills that we should enrich ourselves like the technical and professional skills. But if we are to become more globally competitive, then we have to learn and speak good conversational English, which is the language of commerce and business.

Note text in red.
Other skills? Those fall under the other skills category? So language comes before those then?
You're not an english professor are you? (No pun intended)



Since we're all talking about language here.
Here are some things i've found out while on holiday.
Some New Zealanders find it hard to understand some American accents.
Some stuff you might wanna know when talking to a Kiwi.

1. A B C D E F G Haych I J K iL iM iN O P Q Ah iS T U V W iX Y Zed (that's how they read their alphabet)
2. Ey? Pardon? Oh yeah its nice ey? We're not really supposed to do that ey? But it's nice ey?
3. Seeven (seven), Peencil (pencil), Teen (ten)

[TrainerEd]

each country has a specific accent and within that country they also have accent issues. In the contact center industry it depends also on what your client would be, for example if the client is from the UK or Australia then we teach the Reps to speak with the accent that a client desires. An accent that they consider neutral. For this the American accent norm would be Merriam-webster and for British it would be Oxford.

Case in point the call center agents of Infonxxx speak with a remarkable british accent that is neutral to BBC news standards.

By the way the american accent has more than 15 vowel sounds.

[M@rv|n]

nah! mao jud nang wala jud ko ngaplay ug call center kay wala jud ko ana ilang gitawag ug conversational english

[jay_007]

we preserve our english advantage by putting a small amount of pormallin and put in a coffin... bwehehehe jokejokejoke!

[irangejuice]

@TrainerEd: So you're a trainer, Brit call center or American?

Hmm..talking about accents--What accents do people in iSTORYA.net have?

[maling]

hehehe... conversational english...

[TrainerEd]

@zerone _null American but we do have brit accounts none here in Cebu though. You can ask Maling if he learned anything from my class

[irangejuice]

ic. i'm trying to learn some other accent.. i'm getting pretty bored with my "californian" accent (that's what my previous American supervisor said about my accent). I feel like it's too monotonous.