AEclub's blog

A few days ago I had the good fortune to attend the Philippine Society for Training and Development's Gawad Maestro awards at the beautiful Diamond Hotel. It was a great night, in which Workplace Learning Professionals from a variety of companies were recognized for their skill and expertise.

One of the highlights of the evening was the keynote speaker, Lisa Macuja, a world-renowned prima ballerina, who gave us a wonderful talk about the training and discipline she went through to become who she is today.

The American English Club is going strong. Since we launched in July, more than 1000 new members have joined the club. Many are actively writing, taking quizzes and studying the English lessons available on our website. We have received a lot of wonderful feedback, including comments from one young lady who won an essay contest after studying our lessons. I'm so proud of you, Shiela!

With such a large number of people writing, I have started to notice a few trends. So I'd like to take this opportunity to point out some of the most common errors I see. Many of these are simple careless mistakes, while some involve English grammar rules that you may not be aware of. But they can all be avoided, with a little study.

Whenever Filipinos hear that I teach English, one of the first questions they ask is “If I take your training, will I have an American accent?”

Accent, or “twang” as Filipinos call it, is an interesting thing. You can often recognize a language by the accent, even if you don’t understand the words. And we sometimes consider accent to be the best indicator that a person has mastered a particular language (although that’s not necessarily true).

So what is accent, and more importantly, is it necessary to use an American accent when speaking English?

As we all know, the Philippines has a strong advantage over other countries when it comes to attracting foreign business. That is our English-speaking workforce.

My question is, how long can we keep that advantage?

While we argue over which language to use as the medium of instruction in school, our Asian neighbors are planning and acting. At the national level, they are spending money and developing programs to improve their children’s English skills. They are even importing Filipino English teachers, or sending their students here, for training. Sure, that’s a source of pride right now, but what will we do when we are no longer the best? When those countries no longer turn to us, because they speak better English than we do? It may be a few years down the road, but that day is not as far away as we might think.

When it comes to pronunciation, English can be pretty tricky. And the differences between the way English works and the way Tagalog works can make it even more confusing. Here are a few hints to help you in your quest for great English pronunciation.

The first thing to remember is that, while Tagalog words are pronounced exactly as they are spelled, English doesn't work that way. In English, spelling and pronunciation are only loosely related. This is very important! Unlike Tagalog, English pronunciation is not dictated by spelling.

The Year of English is a series of articles designed to instill a new excitement for learning English in the Philippines. These articles will cover the simple things that Filipinos need to practice, in order to improve their English skills. English is the key to the future.

Every language has rules, and we have to learn those rules to be able to speak any language properly. But sometimes, it's those same complicated rules that make it so difficult to learn a language in the first place.

The Year of English is a series of articles designed to instill a new excitement for learning English in the Philippines. These articles will cover the simple things that Filipinos need to practice, in order to improve their English skills. English is the key to the future.

The Year of English is a series of articles designed to instill a new excitement for learning English in the Philippines. These articles will cover the simple things that Filipinos need to practice, in order to improve their English skills. English is the key to the future.

In the last few articles, we've been talking about tenses. We have talked about the present and the past, and the problems that arise when we don't use the right verb to express them.

The Year of English is a series of articles designed to instill a new excitement for learning English in the Philippines. These articles will cover the simple things that Filipinos need to practice, in order to improve their English skills. English is the key to the future.

The Year of English is a series of articles designed to instill a new excitement for learning English in the Philippines. These articles will cover the simple things that Filipinos need to practice, in order to improve their English skills. English is the key to the future.

Language has three main components: vocabulary (words), pronunciation (sounds) and grammar (rules). We'll talk about vocabulary and pronunciation a little later. In this article, I'd like to talk about grammar.