Why is the Philippines included in the discussion about which country is the world’s BPO/Call Center capital?

Filipinos have many positive qualities that make their country an attractive business outsourcing destination. This article, however, focuses only on what could possibly be on top of that list – their good command of the English language.

There were a few netizens from some parts of the world who, in videos, made fun of the ability of Filipinos to speak in English. Whatever people, through the Internet, have seen in such videos makes them think that it is the truth about the Filipinos’ ability to communicate in English.  There were also foreigners who experienced conversing with drivers, vendors, and bystanders in the streets of Manila or in far-flung tourist destinations in the countryside. They thought the “broken English” they heard from these common people represented the Filipinos’ English proficiency. It is not.

What kind of English do you expect from taxi and jeepney drivers in the Philippines? Do you expect street and sidewalk vendors and bystanders, who might not have even completed elementary education due to financial constraints, to speak impeccable English?

Those common people, not well-educated as they are, at least, can carry out a conversation in English, “broken” it may be. They understand what native English speakers tell them. They can give the latter information and directions they need. You are barely scratching the surface of Filipino English proficiency when you talk to them. You need to dig deeper. One has to visit the halls of the academic community of the Philippines and stay in the lounges of the country’s business sector in order to have a more informed evaluation of the speaking, writing, reading, and listening skills of the inhabitants of the island country.

It is safe to assume that the English proficiency level of the Filipinos occupying the lower stations in society is from “low intermediate” to “high intermediate.” The higher the level of proficiency of the Filipinos become when they at least finish high school. Once they receive a college diploma, they have acquired lower and higher-order English thinking skills. They can remember and understand materials written in English. They can apply what they learned, analyze, and evaluate them. In terms of language, they can create… write sentences, paragraphs, and essays. Students in the tertiary level in the Philippines are required to write reaction papers and term papers in English while pursuing their degree, and, in most universities and colleges, before they are allowed to graduate, they need to present a thesis.

It is no longer surprising that Filipinos perform well in surveys conducted to test proficiency (of non-native English speakers).

Source: https://hbr.org/2016/11/research-companies-and-industries-lack-english-skills

For example, in a survey held (among countries not considered native English speaking) 2016, the Philippines ranked 7^th in the world (1^st in Asia) in workforce English proficiency.

The Philippines also received a strong rating in another 2016 survey among countries best at English as a second language. The Philippines is 13th overall and 3rd in Asia, where first and second placers are Singapore and Malaysia.¹

The fact that Filipinos are good at English is hard to dispute.

How do you think would English being the official language in Philippine schools (from pre-school to tertiary levels… including graduate school) affect their proficiency in the language? (I chose not to expound on this but leave the analysis to you.)

Filipino children, as early as the age of 5 or even younger, start their training in the English language. And if their parents are professionals or belong to wealthy families, they would hear English and Filipino sounds even before they go to school. Even in the simplest neighborhoods in the Philippines, it is not surprising to hear people speaking in households in English. Having been a former colony of the USA, English has assimilated deep into Filipino culture.

The Filipinos are bilingual and multilingual people. Filipino and English are the two official languages. Ninety-two percent (92%) of the 103 million Filipinos can speak English as a second language.²

Filipinos start to write and speak in English at an early age. English is heard and read everywhere in the Philippines. As mentioned earlier, it is the language used in schools. Almost all subjects are taught in English.  Even the business community has it as the official language. It is in English that all communication in business and government is done. Most of the newspapers (all major broadsheets actually) are also written in the said language.

That is the kind of exposure to the English language that Filipinos are getting. It started more than a century ago when the United States of America annexed the Philippines and made it their colonial outpost in the Pacific. The Americans established the public education system in the island country and used English as the medium of instruction to gradually supplant Spanish as the second language of Filipinos.

Some netizens and self-proclaimed language experts usually make fun of the Filipino accent in English.

It is hard to understand why there are some who make accents a big deal. In communication, it is the pronunciation that counts, not the accent.

“Pronunciation can be good or bad, but the accent is accent, and there isn’t a good or bad accent really.”³

There’s no such thing as a right or wrong accent.

Source: https://www.britishcouncil.org/voices-magazine/what-does-your-accent-say-about-you

A recent study (Putting accent in its place: Rethinking obstacles to communication) explored the relationships among accentedness, comprehensibility, and intelligibility.⁴ The study concludes that accent, comprehensibility, and intelligibility are partially independent constructs and that simply altering accent will not necessarily affect the other two. In fact, communication obstacles are often based on things other than accent, but because of its extreme salience, accent is given more weight than it deserves.

On the contrary, there is evidence coming out that accent itself could be a barrier to effective communication.

An article entitled “Native English speakers are the world’s worst communicators” asserted, “…often you have a boardroom full of people from different countries communicating in English and all understanding each other, and then suddenly  the American or Brit walks into the room, and nobody can understand them.”⁵

The article also explains that “Native speakers are at a disadvantage when you are in a lingua franca situation, where English is being used as a common denominator. It’s the native English speakers that are having difficulty understanding and making themselves understood.”

What makes native English speakers difficult to understand? Is it their accent? So, is ACCENT getting in the way of INTELLIGIBILITY and COMPREHENSIBILITY?

It’s great that the Filipino’s English accent is (as generally described) neutral.

This could be one reason the Philippines is fast becoming if not yet, the world’s BPO/Call Center capital. They can be clearly understood by both native and non-native English speakers.

The main goal of communication is understanding, not to sound fancy by copying somebody else’s accent. But if Filipinos want to mimic somebody’s way of producing vowel and consonant sounds and diphthongs, they can easily do it. What works in favor of Filipinos in terms of learning English is that they are no strangers to the language.

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1. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/11/which-countries-are-best-at-english-as-a-second-language
2. http://www.k-international.com/blog/countries-with-the-most-english-speakers/
3. Gordon Scruton (http://gordonscruton.blogspot.kr/2012/11/accent-vs-pronunciation.html)
4. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/language-teaching/article/putting-accent-in-its-place-rethinking-obstacles-to-communication/11D7A6BB87C915E074F50DE01FB7995F
5. http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20161028-native-english-speakers-are-the-worlds-worst-communicators