GOVERNOR'S DIRECTORY

Region I, Region II, Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR), Region III, Region IV-A, Region IV-B, Region V, Region VI, Region VII, Region VIII, Region IX, Region X, Region XI, Region XII, CARAGA, Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM)

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Comval Gov. Uy: Good English ticket to sure employment

ONE DAY, ONE ENGLISH SENTENCE. Governor Arturo T. Uy encourage students in Compostela Valley to speak and learn at least one English sentence each day to improve their command and proficiency of this global language. The visit is part of the Governor’s weekly tour to public schools (elementary and high schools) to inspire the new generation on how to prepare themselves for the future. (Photo by M. Apit, IDS Comval)

“A sentence a day is the road to English proficiency.”

If this sound like a line mouthed by an English teacher before her class, you are wrong.

This is the mantra that Compostela Valley Governor Arturo “Chiongkee” Uy has been repeatedly reciting before public high school students during personal visits to classrooms that he has intensified in wake of a recent experience.

“A call center outfit offered our province 10 slots for jobs and had our new high school graduates take the exams,” he said. “We were proud the company had given us the chance—so we enlisted the top 50 of our fresh high school graduates who were provincial government scholars,” recalled Gov. Uy.

The rest of the story was better forgotten. Only 2 passed the test, and the rest of the slots were given to other provinces.

Call centers of course require proficiency in English, and Gov. Uy immediately saw the problem: If the students failed, shall we train the guns on their English teachers?

But the governor’s answer to his own query was a big No.

“I thought there was a need for our English teachers—who are hardworking— to have refresher courses to keep up with the times,” he said. Blaming them would be unfair, he said adding, “Compostela Valley is not alone in poor performances in government public school assessment tests or in job recruitments”—a reality that he said is also faced by other provincial areas.

The blame game is not in the book of the governor, who considers education as the best legacy that he could leave to his constituents.

To tackle poor English among public school students by the horn, Gov. Uy dug up for funds to send 22 English teachers (2 each from public schools in the province’s 11 municipalities) to the University of Philippines-Mindanao (UPMin) in Bago Oshiro, Davao City to enhance their training methods in English proficiency.

The teachers in the course—Advance Study for Teaching Enhancement Program (ASTEP)—spent four Saturdays of their semestral break to learn the latest trend in teaching English.

“This is sort of a trainors’ training, as we cannot send all our English teachers to UPMin,” said Gov. Uy. Under the ASTEP scheme, the teachers who went through the course are required to share their new knowledge with the other English teachers, he said.

But to hasten English proficiency among students under the ASTEP program, Gov. Uy said he would be sending another batch of teachers to UPMin soon.

Since that sad experience with the call center recruitment, Gov. Uy has also made it a point to visit public schools when his schedule allows. Most often, in these visits, he would first go straight to English classes—where he would ask for a few minutes from the teachers to be allowed to speak before the students on the value of correct and proper English and as a ticket to employment.

Before parting with the youth, he would dish out an everyday rule for students to follow: Speak one English sentence to your seatmate. And then caps it up with his now favorite mantra: “A sentence a day is the road to English proficiency.” (IDS-Comval)

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