The Philippines: The world's budget

English teacher
By Kate McGeown BBC News, Philippines

12 November 2012

The Philippines is fast becoming the world's low-cost English language teacher - with rapid
increases in overseas students coming to learn English or study in English-speaking
universities.
There might be other countries that people think about as a classic place to learn English,
such as the UK, the US or Australia.
But there is one key reason that they are switching to the Philippines. It's much cheaper. And
in the competitive market for language students, it means the Philippines is attracting people
from countries such as Iran, Libya, Brazil and Russia.
"We have very competitive rates compared with other countries," says English teacher, Jesy
King, citing her school's fees of $500 (313) for a 60-hour class - about a third of the price of
an equivalent course in the US or Canada.
Another major advantage is the accent.
Filipinos speak with a clear American accent - partly because the Philippines was a US
colony for five decades, and partly because so many people here have spent time working in
call centres that cater to a US market.

Call centres
These centres train their staff to sound indistinguishable from Americans, so callers never
realise that the person they're speaking to is on the other side of the world.
Image caption Elizaveta is a Russian student taking courses taught in English in the
Philippines - she says fees are a quarter of courses in Australia or Canada
"I have a background in call centres, so I've learnt to adopt an American accent - it's one of
the pre-requisites when you join," says Jesy King.
Her school, the International Language Academy of Manila, attracts students from all over
the world.
The majority are from Asia - especially Japan, Taiwan and Korea - but in the past few months
she's also taught people from North Africa, South America and the Middle East.

Student numbers are growing rapidly. According to the Philippine Immigration Bureau, more
than 24,000 people have applied for a study permit this year - compared to fewer than 8,000
just four years ago.
The government sees this sector as a golden opportunity for growth.

Increasing demand
"We're geared to accept more and more students," says Cristino Panlilio, the under-secretary
for the Department of Trade and Industry. "I believe the country should come up with more
marketing for this."
And it's not just English language students who are coming to the Philippines - there's also
been a rapid increase in the number of foreigners applying for graduate and post-graduate
courses in all kinds of fields.
Image copyright Reuters Image caption English-speaking workers in Manila take on
outsourced work at home
The main reasons that attract them are, again, the cost - and the fact that, in the country's top
universities, all classes are held in English.
In order to study at a university here, foreigners need a full student visa, and immigration
records show that three times as many foreigners applied for one in 2011 than they did just
three years before.
Dr Alvin Culaba, the executive vice-president of De La Salle - one of the country's top
universities - is confident that the level of teaching in his institution can compete with that
found anywhere in the world.
"Our programmes are very comparable, or sometimes even better, than in the US and
Europe," he says.

Driving a bargain
De La Salle already has a lot of students from China and Japan, but there's recently been an
increase in Europeans.
Elizaveta Leghkaya, a Russian engineering student, is one of them.

GLOBAL ENGLISH

1.55 billion learners of English around the world, says British Council
10.2 million English teachers
Universities are increasingly using English as a medium for teaching
Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands have the best English speakers, according to
EF English Proficiency Index
In China, Disney has become a major provider of English teaching lessons

She looked at courses in Canada, Australia and New Zealand, but the programme at De La
Salle was a quarter of the price of the others.
"Here it's much cheaper, and I'm really confident that the qualification I'll get is just the
same," she says.
She had found other benefits of studying in the Philippines too.
"It's a good experience, as it's a different style of life than I'd get in Europe. It's interesting to
learn the culture. I like to travel here, and go to the beaches and museums."
But studying in the Philippines isn't for the faint-hearted.
Living here means coping with the bureaucracy and corruption, and if you're in Manila, the
heavy pollution.
And then there's the fact that many Filipinos speak a rather different language than the rest of
the English-speaking world.
The Philippines markets itself as being the third largest English-speaking nation - after the
US and the UK - a fact proudly displayed on the Department of Tourism website. And in a
way, that's true. Most people speak at least rudimentary English, and the well-educated speak
it fluently.

Taglish speakers
But a lot of people speak Taglish - a mix of English and the local language Tagalog - which
is often difficult for foreigners to understand.
English signs often have the wrong spellings and the way English words are used is
sometimes uniquely Filipino, with confusing and occasionally unintentionally amusing
results.
Image caption Ice block to ice bloke: The local Tagalog language can be mixed with English
to create some unexpected outcomes
One of the national newspapers used the headline "Police Clueless" for a story about the
police officers not having any specific clues about a case.
Learning Filipino in classroom by immigrants is cases of second (not foreign) language
learning and this will undoubtedly present some challenges to international students but then,
this language is necessary for survival in the society theyre currently living in, this will help
them understand the locals and somehow adjust to the new environment.
But for an increasing number of people, these are small obstacles compared with the benefits
of studying in the Philippines.

The spiralling cost of education in many parts of the world, coupled with the ease of finding
out about foreign courses on the internet, mean that more and more students are deciding to
study abroad.
And English-speaking nations like the Philippines are primed to cash in on this trend.