1. To have a venue where members can express themselves in the English language.
2. To be abreast on using English as a second language.
This is speculative but I will hazard an opinion.
I was kind of surprised about the English Night, but I enjoyed it. However, I suggest that the board should review its policy on this matter.
In my observation of the English Night, many members had the difficulty to express themselves in English. I understand that fully well, because their mother tongue is in the vernacular (Tagalog). Thus, the period was spent as a joking time, which could be a waste of time in tackling vital agenda.
To tackle a vital agenda a free flow of expressed ideas will come not from English but from the vernacular in which English is added. Thus, this will be vernacular + English. Our educational system by law recognizes the English and Filipino combination of teaching.
Statistically, most of the members grew up with the native vernacular as their native tongue, thus they can express their communicative competence in Tagalog.
In a theory of communication, one express well a particular meaning or message via the lingua franca, that is what is used as a custom, Tagalog.
Definitely, the English night will not be able to meet its goal expectation, rather it can only retard the communicative competence of the members since most of them use the vernacular which is Tagalog.
The tendency of the English night is to dissuade people from attending the said night.
This night I observed that when the English night was lifted, member participation in the discussion became alive and it increased.
My suggestion here is that abolish the said policy and place a learning process on English. Thus, you can invite resource person to teach English as a mode of communication. I think most of the members should be given training on vocabulary, sentence construction, pronunciation, listening and writing in English. If the Club is going to embark on this training, then it will be for the benefit of the Club members.
As the members learn slowly then they will be able to use English as second language.
Having a penalty is a dis-incentive for members to participate on a communicative process. Thus, this policy should be reviewed. Instead of a penalty in-place, a learning environment should be provided. A penalty is always a threat, thus, members are not going to attend a particular session. You can check the attendance for an empirical study.
Hooray when you learn English, but the best route to learn English is our knowledge of the vernacular.
Anybody can learn English as a second language, but it takes constant study and usage of the said language.
This is my expressed opinion.
Thank you for your time.
Prof. AL Leonidas
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In the next post, I will respond to Prof. Al’s concerns.
Stay tuned and magical,
Leodini
Not surprisingly, every first Wednesday night, most members fall silent, adopting the old Chinese saying, “No talk, no mistake”. As a result, it seems Johnny English has attended the meeting and put a gun on everyone’s head demanding silence and order in the room.
I agree with your thoughts on English night in that there should have been no penalty assigned to you if you were not aware of the rules on English night.
However there are a few members of IMC who do not speak Tagalog and welcome the one week a month which they can also be involved and understand what is being spoken in the group. These members including myself who travels 4 hours each week one way to faithfully attend even though we get very little out of each meeting.
I know in fact that almost all the members of IMC speak English rather well and your assumption that they do not attend because they can not express themselves in English is not correct. Having Tagalog nights the rest of the month does not dissuade us non Tagalog speaking members from attending faithfully.
I would hope that the club could reach out to us Foreigners in our membership so we too can be a part of the conversation and understand what is being talked about during the meetings as we try to gain understanding of the Tagalog language as well.
Respectfully,
Chaplain Steve
Magic With A Message
Hi Steve,
Thank you for your suggestion. I’ll bring this up in the officers’ meeting, so we can find ways to involve every member in the discussion. I think it’s just a matter of striking the correct balance between Tagalog and English in the conduct of the meeting.
Stay magical,
Leodini