BPOs need to keep English language edge: Teleperformance

MANILA -- The Philippines should maintain the English proficiency of its workforce to take advantage of growing demand for the skill among business process outsourcing companies, the head of Teleperformance said Thursday.

Teleperformance will hire 4,000 to 5,000 more people until the end of the year to cater to its retail and healthcare clients in the US, according to its managing director for the Philippines, Travis Coates.

Coates said Teleperformance clients prefer "near native" proficiency when it comes to English. The Philippines is competing with BPOs in India and Latin America, he said.

"It’s not the only place in the world to do English so it’s another reason why the country needs to continue to be competitive," Coates told reporters on the sidelines of the opening of Teleperformance's newest location in Quezon City, it's nineteenth nationwide.

"The requirement for English language skill set continues to increase so the abilities and capabilities continues to increase and I wouldn’t say necessarily that we’re seeing as much supply around that specific skillset as perhaps we have in the past," he added. 

At Teleperformance, a "quality team" is also tasked to monitor workers' English proficiency and retrain them if necessary, he said.

Graduates of the expanded basic education system or K-12 helped sharpen students' English language skills, he said.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Iran bans English in primary schools after leader's warning

DUBAI - Iran has banned the teaching of English in primary schools, a senior education official said, after the country's Supreme Leader said early learning of the language opened the way to a Western "cultural invasion".

"Teaching English in government and non-government primary schools in the official curriculum is against laws and regulations," Mehdi Navid-Adham, head of the state-run High Education Council, told state television late on Saturday.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Muslim women must learn English or risk deportation: British PM

LONDON - Muslim women who fail to learn English to a high enough standard could face deportation from Britain, Prime Minister David Cameron announced Monday.

He also suggested that poor English skills can leave people "more susceptible" to the messages of groups like Islamic State (IS).

Cameron's comments came as his centre-right Conservatives launched a £20 million ($28.5 million, 26 million euro) language fund for women in isolated communities as part of a drive to build community integration.

Immigration rules already force spouses to speak English before they come to Britain to live with their partners.

But Cameron said they would also face further tests after two and a half years in the country to make sure their language skills were improving.

"You can't guarantee you will be able to stay if you are not improving your language," he told BBC radio. "People coming to our country, they have responsibilities too."

Cameron's government estimates that around 190,000 Muslim women in England -- about 22 percent of the total -- speak little or no English.

There are estimated to be around 2.7 million Muslims in England out of a total population of some 53 million.

'DISGRACEFUL STEREOTYPING'

Cameron said that a lack of language skills could make Muslims in Britain more vulnerable to the message of extremist groups.

"I am not saying there is some sort of causal connection between not speaking English and becoming an extremist, of course not," he told BBC radio.

"But if you are not able to speak English, not able to integrate, you may find therefore you have challenges understanding what your identity is and therefore you could be more susceptible to the extremist message."

His comments drew criticism from Muslim groups and opposition parties.

Mohammed Shafiq, chief executive of the Ramadhan Foundation, which campaigns for better community relations, accused Cameron of "disgraceful stereotyping".

"David Cameron and his Conservative government are once again using British Muslims as a political football to score cheap points, to appear tough," he added.

Andy Burnham, home affairs spokesman for the main opposition Labour party, accused Cameron of a "clumsy and simplistic approach" which was "unfairly stigmatising a whole community."

Ex-Conservative Party co-chair Sayeeda Warsi said her former boss's idea was "lazy and misguided" and a "stereotyping of British Muslim communities"

"My parents came to this country with very little English -- my mum's English still isn't great, even though she has been to English language classes," she told BBC Radio 4's World at One.

"I think it is lazy and sloppy when we start making policies based on stereotypes which do badly stigmatize communities."

Shuja Shafi, secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, backed Cameron's call, but questioned his tactics.

"The prime minister's aim to have English more widely spoken and for better integration falls at the first hurdle if he is to link it to security and single out Muslim women to illustrate his point," he said.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Manila among top 20 most tweeting cities

MANILA – Filipinos are very busy on social media, and Manila residents are among the top 20 most active on Twitter, a study has found.

In a study published in the May 6, 2013 issue of online peer-reviewed journal First Monday, Kalev H. Leetaru, Shaowen Wang, Guofeng Cao, Anand Padmanabhan and Eric Shook said Manila is the 17th out of the world’s top 20 cities where georeferenced posts on Twitter come from.

However, the strong presence of Twitter in the United States, the authors said in their paper entitled “Mapping the global Twitter heartbeat: The geography of Twitter,” can be seen in the fact that six of the top 20 cities are from the country.

Jakarta topped the list with 2.86% of tweets, followed by New York, Sao Paulo, Kuala Lumpur, Paris, Istanbul, London, Rio de Janeiro, Chicago, Madrid, Los Angeles, Singapore, Houston, Mexico City, Philadelphia, Dallas, Manila, Brussels, Tokyo and Moscow.

About 0.90% of georeferenced tweets tracked by Silicon Graphics International, the University of Illinois and social media data vendor GNIP through the Twitter Decahose were from Manila.



  The Twitter Decahose, according to GNIP, is a feed of 10% of all Tweets, selected at random and delivered in realtime.

Tweets with no recorded location values were not included in the study. Also, the inclusion of location values in people’s posts may have been limited by the availability of geographic tagging in each country, as did the bans placed on Twitter in countries such as Iraq and China.

According to the study, the locations recorded reflected many aspects of life in each country, such as culture and the availability of electricity.

“The volume of tweets and the penetration of electricity were found to be correlated…indicating very high similarity. Intuitively, this makes sense in that Twitter is more likely to be used as a part of daily life in areas that have readily available electricity to support the landline or mobile Internet connectivity needed by Twitter,” the scientists said.

“It also demonstrates that despite high mobile use, Twitter is not a replacement for satellite and other air and space–based sensor systems of society—it is still reliant on the same electrical and network infrastructure as other Internet media.”

English is king

Most tweets they tracked, the scientists said, were in English.

This means that while many people on social media are multilingual and use their native languages together with English in their posts, English is still the most-used language on Twitter, comprising 41.57% of all georeferenced tweets and 38.25% of all tweets on the site.
One reason, they said, is that people use social media to speak with people outside their countries, whose primary language may be different from their own.

“In the traditional realm of ‘face to face’ communication, users may speak only with those physically near them. The Internet era on the other hand has created a world in which a person may speak to another on the other side of the planet with just a few millisecond delay, effectively removing the geographic barrier,” the authors said.

Small world

They said their findings suggest that social media is having a significant impact on the role of distance of people from each other on communication and influence of one person over another—regardless of how far one person is from another, social media is allowing them to be in touch with each other and relate to each other’s issues.

“Indonesia, Western Europe, Africa, and Central America have high proportions of the world’s most influential Twitter users,” they said, despite most users being based in the United States.

The study used a month’s worth of data of the Twitter Decahose, consisting of over 1.5 billion tweets from more than 70 million users.

Just over three percent of all tweets include native geolocation information, with two percent offering street address–level resolution in real–time, the authors said.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Sun and sea lure English learners to the Philippines

In the Philippines, English language courses come with poolside classrooms, field trips to the beach, and instructors doubling as tour guides.

English is widely spoken in the former American colony, and language proficiency schools have mushroomed across the country, catering to an expanding market of Asian and European students looking to combine English learning with tropical tourism.

French student Laura Samzun will soon be taking a test to enter university in the United Kingdom, and is under pressure to perfect her English. She chose to take classes in the Philippines due to lower costs.

"It's less expensive to go to Philippines, to come back in France, and to pay school (here) than to stay in France," Samzun said.

Fresh from a backpacking trip to Indonesia, she kicked-started her courses in June at the Cebu Pacific International Language School on the sunny island of Cebu in the central Philippines.

"I really wanted to see Asia, to travel. So I can travel and study by the same time. It's a good thing," the 22-year-old Toulouse native said.

There are around 500 schools offering language proficiency programs around the country, and one-fifth are concentrated in Cebu.

The island's proximity to white sand beaches and a laid back lifestyle are big draws for foreign students, who mostly come from big industrial cities.

The schools said their small student-teacher ratios allow for more focused instruction.

In four months of English proficiency courses, Chinese nurse Flora Wang said she has progressed from near-zero comprehension to carrying a conversation with ease.

"Actually really getting better. When I came here, I can't speak and understand anything. But, four months. During the four months, I improved a lot," said the 25-year old Beijing native who plans to move to the U.S. to study health care.

CPILS accommodates around 450 students per course period, from South Korea, Japan, China, Taiwan, and European countries like France and Russia.

The student population has ballooned from 60 students when the school opened 11 years ago.

Park Yoon Jae, a university student from Seoul, wants to land a job back home in a multi-national company, where speaking English is a primary requirement.

"Especially these days, (in) Korea, we have to speak English very well. Because almost all company want to, very high levels English skills," Park said.

The intensive English course work in CPILS runs an average of four months, in which students can take up to seven hours of lessons each day. A one-month course can cost around $1,000 USD a month, including accommodation and food.

In Cebu, the beach is just a half-hour ride from the city, and schools arrange island-hopping trips or diving lessons on weekends.

The Philippines aims to hit 4.5 million international tourist arrivals this year, a fraction compared to neighbouringThailand or Malaysia.

But English learning-tourism is unique to the Philippines, and Tourism Department Assistant Secretary Benito Bengzon said the sector can grow by 10 to 15 percent among Asians, and up to 25 percent among Europeans.

"The message here, apart from the tourism component is that it shows to the world our proficiency in English, our competitive advantage, and of course you can already mix it with the fun and enjoyable and memorable part of it," Bengzon said.

Last June, dozens of students finished their course at CPILS and earned their certificates. Some will start looking for jobs, while others will continue their studies, equipped with better English and bringing home memories of sunkissed holidays.

source: interaksyon.com

Ateneo, UP, DLSU among world's best schools in teaching English

Three Philippine universities are among the world's 50 best in teaching English, according to the 2012 survey by London research and ratings firm Quacquarelli Symonds (QS).

Ateneo de Manila University led the three Philippine universities, placing 24th globally with a score of 68.9, a substantial improvement from its previous ranking of 35th.

Sharing the 32nd spot with the University of California Irvine, the University of the Philippines garnered a score of 65.7. De La Salle University placed 44th with a score of 63.1.

Universities in countries like United Kingdom and United States where the native language is English cornered the top five spots, in the following order: University of Cambridge, Harvard University, University of Oxford, Yale University, and University of California, Berkeley.

The universities were ranked based on academic reputation, employer reputation, and citations per paper.

source: interaksyon.com