English Proficiency

Related Foreign Studies

Language proficiency or linguistic proficiency is the ability of an individual to speak or perform in an acquired language. As theories vary among pedagogues as to what constitutes proficiency, there is little consistency as to how different organizations classify it. Additionally, fluency and language competence are generally recognized as being related, but separate controversial subjects. In predominant frameworks in the United States, proficient speakers demonstrate both accuracy and fluency, and use a variety of discourse strategies. Thus, native speakers of a language can be fluent without being considered proficient.
Organizations
ACTFL
The American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) distinguishes between proficiency and performance. In part, ACTFL's definition of proficiency is derived from mandates issued by the US government, declaring that a limited English proficient student is one who comes from a non-English background and "who has sufficient difficulty speaking, reading, writing, or understanding the English language and whose difficulties may deny such an individual the opportunity to learn successfully in classrooms where the language of instruction is English or to participate fully in our society."
ACTFL views "performance" as being the combined effect of all three modes of communication: interpretive, interpersonal, and presentational

Related Foreign Literature

The low levels of English proficiency among university students nowadays becoming a hot issue among academic thinkers. This is because the students’ English language skills are not being developed during their higher education experience. Thus, reflects negatively on the quality of higher education and its graduates. The factors low English proficiency among most learners are due to two factors; internal factors such as no confident when using English, negative attitude towards the English language and external factor like the limited opportunities to use English outside the classroom.
Most learners have lack of confidence when using English language. For example, the person that has low self-confidence may refuse to use the language in publics. Anna Freud once said “I was always looking outside myself for strength and confidence but it comes from within. It is there all the time.” This shown that confident levels are decreasing when the learners are lack of self-confidence to use this language. They are afraid to be wrong and prejudiced about it.
The second reason is the negative attitudes towards the English language. For information, attitude has been defined as the inclination to act or to be in a state of ‘readiness’ to act (Gagne, 1985). The learners just learnt English for pass the examination not using it as their second language. Students in university generally find it difficult to maintain their interest in English language learning as English is not seen as important for their immediate needs other than to pass their examination. A lot of negative attitudes build up from unfamiliarity with the culture of the target language (Tucker and lambert, 1973). Malay students from small towns or rural places usually grown up in a situation that English is unimportant language, not like their speaking homes language, Bahasa Melayu.

Related Local Studies

April 19, 2006

English proficiency declining in Philippines: survey+
(Japan Economic Newswire Via Thomson Dialog News Edge)MANILA, April
19 (Kyodo) _ More and more Filipinos can neither converse nor understand English, the language widely seen as a ticket to a better life in the Philippines, despite a national policy requiring public schools to use English as the medium of instruction, according to a nationwide survey.

English proficiency in the Philippines has dropped significantly in more than a decade with only 32 percent of respondents saying they speak English, down from 54 percent in
2000 and 56 percent in 1993, pollster Social Weather Stations said Tuesday.
About 65 percent of the respondents said they understand spoken English, 12 percentage points lower than previous surveys, while 14 percent said they are incompetent in
English, 7 points higher than the 2000 and 1993 surveys.
"A declining trend was also observed in all aspects of English proficiency," including reading, writing and thinking in English, the survey said.
About 65 percent said they read English, a drop from 76 percent in 2000 and 73 percent in 1993, while those who write in English shrunk to 48 percent from 61 percent and 59 percent in the last two surveys, respectively.

Respondents who claimed they think in English dwindled to 27 percent from 44 percent in 2000 and 42 percent in 1993.
English proficiency is perceived as one of the Philippines' key advantages in the global market as it tries to compete with India in the multi-billion-dollar business process outsourcing industry.
It claims to be the third largest English-speaking country in the world after the United
States and Britain.
But growing evidence points to the country's deteriorating English proficiency, affecting its bid to handle back-office administrative work and verbal inquiries from customers mainly in the United States.
Call centers hire less than 5 percent of 100 applicants because of inadequate English skills, a recent study by the Call Center Association of the Philippines showed.
The 2000 Philippine Human Development Report of the United Nations said would-be.

Related Local Literature

English nowadays is considered as the universal language; for which it is understood by almost all countries around the world. It is used by most people as their second language. First, it is a way of communication in business, negotiations & especially in academics. It plays an important role in the basic education, particularly to speaking and writing (Kumar, 2009). English proficiency must be treated as an additional skill. In reality, a country needs to build familiarity, friendship and collaborate with other countries as well. It is the government’s obligation to give good quality of education to be able to work and communicate in a wider and competitive world (Alave, 2006).

English proficiency pertains to the ability to speak, read and write in English. To be considered as truly proficient, you should have an advanced skill in this. We know that English is the universal language, to communicate to those people in other countries; you have to speak in English so they will understand what you are saying.

We all know that lately, our country, Philippines is known for being English proficient of its citizen. But, this advantage is being eroded by other rising competitions with declining mastery of some college graduates. Just recently, a language test was taken by IDP Education Pty. Ltd. Philippines which showed that our country is no longer the top English-speaking country in Asia. This may be so because some students nowadays do not even try to enhance their English skill.

Philippines has lately been failing to fulfil its duties, particularly to provide good quality of education on English. According to Salazar (2007), this can clearly be seen in the decline of the English proficiency rate at the March 2006 SWS survey where only two out of three Filipino adults said that they understood and could read English in the March 2006 compared to the September 2000 survey. Also, youth is now affected by this low english proficiency.