Improve English speaking in the Philippines: one month of getting better 'day by day' — the sentences left on the whiteboard (Yen-Ju)
If you want to know whether you can really improve English speaking in the Philippines, read Taiwanese student Yen-Ju Pai's two pieces side by side. In the first (first time studying English abroad in the Philippines) she admitted she was too scared to speak at first. The second, a month later, is much shorter — but one phrase has changed.
…the teachers are both expert and very patient — my speaking is genuinely improving day by day.
From "scared" to "day by day". This is about what happened in between.
Improve English speaking in the Philippines — it comes down to how often you speak
The professional one-to-one lessons give me so many chances to speak English…
Yen-Ju's Talk 4 Hybrid A is four one-to-one and two group lessons a day. In a one-to-one room there's nobody to answer for you: when the teacher asks, it's you. Four times a day.
Speaking improves in proportion to how many times you open your mouth. No grammar book raises that number. Lots of one-to-one means securing that number every day. How one-to-one lessons work is described in one-on-one English lessons in the Philippines — Lê Đình Đạt.
Patience — what was left on the whiteboards
Three of Yen-Ju's photos were classroom whiteboards.
"Even if I'm small, I know I'm enough." "Be the best color you can be." "You are much more than good enough." No grammar notes, no word lists — English sentences whose message is "you're OK." They show what a classroom that waits for a stumbling student feels like. That's the "patience" Yen-Ju means.
Sentences built in one-to-one, used in front of the group
Group lessons have up to eight students and centre on presentations. A sentence practised alone in one-to-one has to be used in front of several people. Same sentence, new audience, new nerves. Getting past those nerves once a day is what "day by day" actually means.
Comfortable accommodation
The accommodation is comfortable too.
One short line, but not trivial on a 20-week course: rest well and you have the energy to speak again tomorrow. Dorm life in general is covered in English school dorm life in the Philippines — Yi Chen Hsu.
And the weekend — Clark Food Festival
Yesterday I went to the Clark Food Festival: so many local snacks and lively stalls — it was so much fun!
Taiwanese student Chih-Jen went to the same festival and wrote about markets, festivals and friends who leave first in life at an English school in Clark — Chih-Jen. Six periods of speaking on weekdays; at weekends, more speaking in front of the stalls.
To improve English speaking in the Philippines — what to ask a school
Speaking doesn't suddenly click one day. It grows with how often you speak. The month between Yen-Ju's two pieces is that count adding up.
- How many minutes a day will I speak myself? The number of one-to-one lessons is key.
- Group size and presentation share — is there practice speaking in front of others?
- The teachers' attitude — will they wait when you make mistakes?
Those three answers are more accurate than any brochure.
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