Filipinos and their reputation as one of the World’s top English Speakers
English as Philippines’ second language propels them in global competitiveness.
Filipinos are known to be good English Speakers. According to Cudoo — a comprehensive lifestyle e-learning platform — the Philippines has an estimated 92 percent of the population who can speak English as second language. This brings them at fourth spot of the world’s largest English Speaking population.
Not only that, the Philippines with its 60.14 score in English Proficiency Index, ranked 2nd on Asia — which is right after Singapore , and ranked 20th out of 100 countries at Education First (EF) website.
These statistics shows how well-versed the Filipino people when it comes to the English Language. But why Filipinos are so familiar with it?
There are many factors regarding this but it all started in the American occupancy way back in 1898. In nearly five decades of American colonization in the archipelagic country, English has been deeply embedded in education, commerce, and the government.
English is well integrated to its education system from elementary up to tertiary level. In fact, almost all learning materials in Math and Science are written in English. Moreover, English as a subject has been a major part of every curriculum in all levels.
The business language of the country is in English. With all kinds of transactions, processes, instructions, etc., are almost all in the English language. Different fields of professionals uses it as their means of communication and even the central government.
The prevalence of the English language in the country opened wide opportunities in the fields of Tourism and Business Processing and Outsourcing (BPO).
From January to May of 2019, the country records a whopping 3.4 million tourist visitors in the country. And according to some notable reviews of these foreign travelers is that Filipinos are not only happy people but also great communicators of the English language.
Foreign investors are drawn to put up their BPOs in the Philippines because of the proficiency of the Filipinos in speaking business level English and the low cost expenditures. In addition, flatworld solutions said that one of the key factors why BPO industry is flourishing in the country is that aside from the Western-accented English of Filipinos — which is significantly more fluent than Indian counterparts — is that Filipinos are more patient and charming when it comes to handling customers.
The Philippines is also exporting significant numbers of professionals around the world which are all fluent in the English language. With these, it’s most likely that Filipinos will gain more recognition about their potentials which will greatly help the country in achieving global competitiveness.
