Shameless English!

Ever since elementary, I have been encouraged to speak in English. During grade school, whenever one is caught speaking in Tagalog, she has to wear the huge nametag which says: NOT SPEAKING IN ENGLISH. (Class officers then seem to take joy in other people's despair)

During college, right at the gate of our school was a huge sign which says: THIS IS AN ENGLISH SPEAKING CAMPUS. (They really tried to convince themselves that it was)

Perhaps we could give the credit to these efforts of our school authorities why Filipinos are good in speaking English, which makes us a really cool Asian country for tourists. Some of us could even speak with twang (Yeah! Ah yeah! Yeah yeah yeah!). But perhaps this is also the reason why most Filipinos find it hard to speak in pure Filipino when conversing with others. such as:

"Pare, go lang ako sa CR"
"Join ako, Pare"
"Hihihi... ok."

I guess asking students to speak in English is already a part of our culture, of our education system. And in a school somewhere in Pangasinan, a friend of mine took a photo of this very interesting sign to encourage students to speak in English.

Fearless! Guiltless! Shameless! :)