Fishy See; Fishy Do

Monkey see; Monkey do

            Filipinos have long been known for our dexterity, pliant as the bamboo, flexible in many ways. While this easy-to-cope attitude has helped our ancestors survive through generations, it has also been used to our disadvantage, and it sometimes aids our detriment.

The Spanish conquerors discovered the presence of sub-cultural dialects among the provinces they colonized and used this to their advantage. Even the Center of the Filipino Language acknowledges this fact by creating different divisions dedicated to studying the different languages of the Philippines and the dialects which come from them. Other divisions also study the lexicography of the language(s) and how they will work with modernization and each of its sibling languages.

However, to this day, we have not achieved a one country-one-language status. In Luzon alone, aside from Tagalog, we have Kapampangan, Ilocano; the Visayas has Hiligaynon, Karay-a, Waray, Cebuano while Mindanao has a mix of Chabacano, Hiligaynon and Cebuano. It is good that Filipino is a language taught as part of our nationwide curriculum; amusing in a way because we become “Filipino” only when in a foreign land when Filipino is used as the main language among our countrymen. The question that comes to my mind is: Does language unite a people? If we choose to have a common language will it improve our state of mind? If given a choice of a language to use and master do you think the Filipinos will choose Filipino? I personally will choose to master the English language, not for lack of patriotism or loyalty but for the practical fact that you stand a step higher when you speak good English here or elsewhere.

As previously mentioned, our dexterity has allowed us survival, but has also earned us a monkey see-monkey do attitude. A specific example would be Language teaching in our country.

Our educators and their educators before them have not had or lack the proper training for teaching the English language. As such, we have become monkeys, “ape”-ing the language, memorizing instead of knowing and understanding its proper use.

A personal and concrete experience I have is in trying to learn the language of Math. I believe that the language of math is no different from a foreign language—it has its own terminology, syntax, and context. From the fifth grade, I had difficulty with grasping its functions. My teachers were not much help because they would merely have us memorize what to do, but never really explained why it was done. I could replicate formulae and problems to the last exponent, but I never knew what they did, what they meant, or even what each number was called. And the result is the well-known phenomena among students; the “WHERE DID THAT COME FROM” phenomena.