The English patients
March 12, 2007 | 12:00am
Do people laugh at your English?" a framed poster on the wall asks. Below these words, two Korean-looking teenage girls are giggling. One of them resembles Sandara Park, her hand partly, awkwardly covering her mouth. While the picture clearly declares its initial target market, the New Horizons English Center has yet to see sitting in its classrooms the amount of Koreans one gets to see on any given day in Boracay.
"We get a lot of professionals wanting to enhance their English to help them get the job promotion they’re aiming for or a change of career," says Irene Lupton, program director of New Horizons Center in Legazpi Village, Makati.
There are the occasional enrollees who want to work in call centers, moms who want to keep up with their English-speaking children, and fresh graduates who, for some reason, aren’t confident enough to face future employers with the kind of English they learned in school.
The low turnout of Koreans aside, bad spoken English is no laughing matter at New Horizons, an English learning program from Anaheim, California, brought to the Philippines by imaging school John Robert Powers. The program is a unique blend of teacher-led and computer-aided lessons combining the latest approach in language learning. Specially trained instructors deliver lessons across 18 levels from the beginner stage all the way to upper advanced. A personalized consultation and assessment test determines a student’s competency and skill level before a course is recommended. A level usually takes a month to complete if the student comes to class twice a week. Optional speech classes called "Conversation Clubs" provide students a venue to practice and gain confidence speaking English in normal social activities. The better for one to take note of their P’s and F’s.
"Our approach is more communicative. We don’t shock our students and say ‘Give me a past progressive now!’ We teach them how to use English in different situations," says Lupton, who speaks English flawlessly with not a T left un-enunciated. And without the irritating fake American accents prevalent within the call-center crowd  and which some people assume the center also teaches.
"It’s better to be understood rather than just to talk like the guy you’re speaking to on the phone," Lupton told a student who wanted to apply in one of the many call centers in Manila. "We feel it’s much better for the local setting to get used to how other foreign nationals would be speaking to them in English rather than focus on one native-speaker-type accent. Fluency and accuracy are more important to us rather than just mimicking an accent." Incidentally, that applicant eventually got accepted in a call center company.
Several more enrollees are waiting for their own success stories. A 28-year-old guy who studied in one of the most prestigious universities in the country recently signed on for classes because he suddenly had to take over the family business  and will be dealing with mostly English-speaking clients. During our visit, a man in his early 40s is preparing for his TOEFL exams and an interview at the Canadian Embassy. He already has a sure job as a caregiver in Canada, and his employer there is shouldering his New Horizons tuition fee (P19,000 per level).
This afternoon, Manuel Villavicencio, a fresh grad from a graphic design course, finds himself as usual in front of the computer, except now he’s online with other English-learning students from other parts of the world through English Online Anytime. The software/website provides homework exercises and multi-media learning tools to students wherever there’s an Internet connection. What brought Manuel to New Horizons in the first place was his lack of confidence in both his social skills and English-speaking proficiency. "You need that when you want to attract more clients," the second-level student says, speaking slowly and carefully choosing every word. He’s still a bit shy, but he’s convinced he will get over this shyness soon enough. He has lot of hard work ahead and he’s committed to seeing the course through.
"We’re not fairy godmothers here," says Marivic Padilla-Catala, international director of John Robert Powers, who manages the New Horizons Center. "We can’t turn you from jologs into a straight English-speaking person in a snap. What we promise is that when you get out, you will be conversant in English."
And that possibly no one will ever laugh at your English again.
"We get a lot of professionals wanting to enhance their English to help them get the job promotion they’re aiming for or a change of career," says Irene Lupton, program director of New Horizons Center in Legazpi Village, Makati.
There are the occasional enrollees who want to work in call centers, moms who want to keep up with their English-speaking children, and fresh graduates who, for some reason, aren’t confident enough to face future employers with the kind of English they learned in school.
The low turnout of Koreans aside, bad spoken English is no laughing matter at New Horizons, an English learning program from Anaheim, California, brought to the Philippines by imaging school John Robert Powers. The program is a unique blend of teacher-led and computer-aided lessons combining the latest approach in language learning. Specially trained instructors deliver lessons across 18 levels from the beginner stage all the way to upper advanced. A personalized consultation and assessment test determines a student’s competency and skill level before a course is recommended. A level usually takes a month to complete if the student comes to class twice a week. Optional speech classes called "Conversation Clubs" provide students a venue to practice and gain confidence speaking English in normal social activities. The better for one to take note of their P’s and F’s.
"Our approach is more communicative. We don’t shock our students and say ‘Give me a past progressive now!’ We teach them how to use English in different situations," says Lupton, who speaks English flawlessly with not a T left un-enunciated. And without the irritating fake American accents prevalent within the call-center crowd  and which some people assume the center also teaches.
"It’s better to be understood rather than just to talk like the guy you’re speaking to on the phone," Lupton told a student who wanted to apply in one of the many call centers in Manila. "We feel it’s much better for the local setting to get used to how other foreign nationals would be speaking to them in English rather than focus on one native-speaker-type accent. Fluency and accuracy are more important to us rather than just mimicking an accent." Incidentally, that applicant eventually got accepted in a call center company.
Several more enrollees are waiting for their own success stories. A 28-year-old guy who studied in one of the most prestigious universities in the country recently signed on for classes because he suddenly had to take over the family business  and will be dealing with mostly English-speaking clients. During our visit, a man in his early 40s is preparing for his TOEFL exams and an interview at the Canadian Embassy. He already has a sure job as a caregiver in Canada, and his employer there is shouldering his New Horizons tuition fee (P19,000 per level).
This afternoon, Manuel Villavicencio, a fresh grad from a graphic design course, finds himself as usual in front of the computer, except now he’s online with other English-learning students from other parts of the world through English Online Anytime. The software/website provides homework exercises and multi-media learning tools to students wherever there’s an Internet connection. What brought Manuel to New Horizons in the first place was his lack of confidence in both his social skills and English-speaking proficiency. "You need that when you want to attract more clients," the second-level student says, speaking slowly and carefully choosing every word. He’s still a bit shy, but he’s convinced he will get over this shyness soon enough. He has lot of hard work ahead and he’s committed to seeing the course through.
"We’re not fairy godmothers here," says Marivic Padilla-Catala, international director of John Robert Powers, who manages the New Horizons Center. "We can’t turn you from jologs into a straight English-speaking person in a snap. What we promise is that when you get out, you will be conversant in English."
And that possibly no one will ever laugh at your English again.
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