Affordable and Bargain English American Accent in the Philippines

 

Study and have fun in the Philippines. The High Quality Education, High Quality Teaching, the most affordable English, Cheapest in price but good quality English American Accent in the Philippines. Much cheaper lessons and a convincing US accent are bringing an increasing number of students to learn English in the Philippines

The Philippines: The world's budget English teacher

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. (See the link of the list of featured universities here http://is.gd/eJ97Wo)

There might be other countries that people think about as a classic place to learn English, such as the United Kingdom, the USA 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 centers that cater to a US market.

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

Call centers

These centers train their staff to sound indistinguishable from Americans, so callers never realize that the person they're speaking to is on the other side of the world.

"I have a background in call centers, 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 majorities 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.

Outsourced work being carried out at home in Manila: The Philippines benefits from having one of the biggest English-speaking populations in the world

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.

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. (see more information here http://is.gd/9x9wyO)

Dr. Alvin Culaba, the executive vice-president of De La Salle University- 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 programs are very comparable, or sometimes even better, than in the USA and Europe," he says.

Driving a bargain

De La Salle University 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.

She looked at courses in Canada, Australia and New Zealand, but the program at De La Salle University in the Philippines 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 USA and the United Kingdom (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 in Manila 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.

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.

For a foreign student trying to learn English, this will undoubtedly present some challenges.

But for an increasing number of people, these are small obstacles compared with the benefits of studying in the Philippines.

The spiraling 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. 

Read more in BBC News

BBC News (http://is.gd/RHmiwN) 

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Philippines Gives "the Last Warning" to Middle East for Violations

The Philippine reform program package ensures protection of maids include a minimum $400 monthly wage. Pinay maid at work

Filipino maid industry 'could die soon' as agencies flout rules

Dubai:The industry of supplying Filipino housemaids to the UAE is in danger of dying, an official from an association of Philippine recruitment agencies said at a tripartite meeting held in Dubai.

Commenting on the precarious situation on Saturday, the official warned that foreign placement agencies (FPAs) in the country must abide by the regulations set by the Philippines government,

The meeting was part of the goodwill mission of the Coalition of Licensed Agencies for Domestic Workers (CLADS) to the UAE, Qatar, and Kuwait to decide if the industry will continue or will be decimated by continuous violations of the rules regarding employing Filipino maids.

"We came here to urge our foreign counterparts to fully implement the law especially on the salary of the housemaids. If they will not abide by the $400 minimum wage, we will not supply housemaids here. We are serious about this and we will police our ranks," Estrelita Hizon, CLADS chairman, told Gulf News.

The Philippine reform programme package ensures protection of maids include a minimum $400(Dh1,468) monthly wage, a minimum age deployment of 23, no placement fees among others.

It was introduced late 2006 but the Philippine labour secretary began strictly implementing it in August this year.

As a result, many erring Philippine agencies have been slapped with preventive suspensions and blacklistings.

"Nowadays, it's very risky to be in this industry because POEA [Philippine Overseas Employment Agency] suspends agencies even at a hint of a violation of the rules. So we really need to follow the law from the first letter down to the last," Hizon added.

Philippine labour attaché Delmer Cruz said as per POEA figures, the UAE has posted a sharp increase in deployment of maids for the past three years, following Hong Kong and Singapore.

But since the number of runaway cases went up from 775 in 2011, averaging more than 100 new cases every month, to 725 just from January to October 2012, his office was forced to limit the job orders to 30 per agency.

He likewise held in abeyance the job orders of those agencies who have been lax on regulations or had cases of runaway maids.

In response, the almost 100 FPAs that attended the meeting signed a joint resolution to agree to strictly implement the reform package but urged their Philippine counterparts to 'forgive and forget' and raise back the number of job orders to 100 as they are already at a risk of losing their business. They pledged to form an association similar to CLADS next week to better address these issues.

"Having 30 job orders will not solve anything. Before it was 100, then it became 50, now it's 30. We are losing money now just by renewing our licence with the Ministry of Labour, with Chamber of Commerce, bank guarantees and other fees," Ahmad Hatim, Al Nasr Service Company in Sharjah, told Gulf News. Other FPAs said the reason they could not implement the reform package was that unaccredited recruitment agencies offer lower salaries for housemaids and therefore make competition tougher.

"By hook or by crook we will implement it, but the Philippine government must also clamp down on the over 200 unaccredited labour supply agencies as they are the ones causing problems," Shoukat Ali from Al Sanabil Manpower in Ajman, said.

"There are those consultancy agencies here that supply maids when in fact they do not have the license for that. Our business is affected very badly," Geraldine Quizon, Operation Manager, Bin Hadda Labour Supply & Recruitment Services, said. (http://is.gd/lWIXqV)

Gulfnews 

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Australian troops may join US-Filipino Balikatan exercises in West Philippine Sea

Philippine officials have said Aust troops may join Filipino and US troops in large scale combat exercises.

Aust troops may join US-Filipino exercises

Philippine defense officials say they have discussed the possibility of Australian forces joining large-scale combat exercises between Filipino and American troops in the country.

The Australian forces' possible inclusion in the annual "Balikatan" exercises, which involve thousands of American and Filipino troops, would expand the US-Philippine drills that have infuriated China whenever they were held in the past near the South China Sea.

China and five other Asian countries have been locked in territorial disputes in the potentially oil-rich region.

Filipino and Australian defense officials discussed the proposal in a recent meeting in Manila.

The two countries have sought to considerably expand joint military exercises since the Philippine Senate ratified in July the Status of Visiting Forces Agreement, which allows Australian forces to join combat exercises in the Philippines.

The Philippines has a similar 1999 pact with the United States, which is a treaty ally.

American and Philippine forces hold large-scale combat exercises in the country every year.

Hundreds of American counterterrorism troops have been allowed to stay in the country's volatile south since 2002 to train Filipino soldiers battling al-Qaeda-linked militants.

Philippine defense department spokesman Peter Paul Galvez said the proposal to include Australia in the "Balikatan" exercises was at a preliminary stage and would need to be discussed with the US military.

Philippine Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin told The Associated Press early this month that Australian Defense Minister Stephen Smith plans to visit early next year to discuss joint field exercises that would include training in natural disasters and containing terrorism and other threats.

The presence of foreign troops is a sensitive issue in the Philippines, a former American colony.

The Philippine Constitution forbids foreign troops from being permanently based in the country, and the Senate must ratify agreements governing temporary visits by outside forces. (http://is.gd/r12Ycq)

The Australian News

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