Para ‘di barok alam! Eduardo Gullas urges DepEd: Adopt Singapore’s style of teaching English

Cebu Rep. Eduardo Gullas urged the Department of Education (DepEd) to adopt the method of teaching being used by Singapore to improve the English proficiency in local public schools.

Gullas said the long-term goal of DepEd should be to match the English proficiency of students in Singapore who have been excelling consistently in global reading, mathematical and scientific literacy assessments.

“Our children deserve every opportunity to learn and grow so they can achieve the highest standard of living for themselves,” said Gullas adding that English is not only the common language, but also the language of business and technology.

He said millions of middle-class families in China, South Korea and other countries have been investing a lot of money to prepare their children in English as a second language, even hiring them English-speaking nannies and online tutors.

As soon as the COVID-19 crisis is resolved, Gullas wants DepEd to send a small group of Filipino teachers to Singapore for a three-month immersion in Singapore to find out what Singapore is doing that the Philippine government is not doing in our public school system.

“Upon their return, we expect them to help DepEd find ways to improve both our teaching of English as a subject matter, and our use of English as medium of instruction in other curriculum content,” Gullas said.

He said DepEd san select one each in every region.

In Singapore, students are taught all subject matter with English as the medium of instruction.

The official mother tongue of every student – Mandarin Chinese for Chinese, Malay for Malays and Tamil for ethnically Tamil Indians – is taught as a second language.

Gullas has been pushing for the greater use of English as the medium of instruction, and for the teaching of English as a subject matter in every grade and high school level.

In the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), 15-year-olds from the Philippines performed the worst among 78 countries in reading literacy and second-lowest in both mathematical and scientific literacy.

Source: Latest Politics News Today (Politics.com.ph)