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Tongue-tied

I recently received an email from a senior college student, studying in a one of Manila’s major universities. She was doing a report on Filipino comic books for her journalism class and here was her list of questions:

1. How does comic affects its readers?
2. What are the advantages and disadvantages of comics through its readers?
3. When and where does comic-making start in the Philippines?
4. Today, how was the comic industry surviving in the competitive business of media?
5. What is the current status of Filipino-made comics?
6. Nowadays, some of the comics were created as an animation or movie. Does this process helps the comic industry to live by?
7. I am asking in some news stand, if they have comics for sale. Unfortunately, they have none. Where do the comics go? or Where can I find the Filipino-made comics aside from the Internet?

Looking at the bright side of things, at least she didn’t write her letter in txtspeak. I’ve already received two or three emails that have said: HELO! NID HELP 4 MY THESIS! PLS ANSWR ASAP. TNX! :-) COMIX RULEZ!

I appreciate the “comix rulez”… it’s flattering, but that’s not the point.

I find it sad that some of today’s students, senior college students at that, can’t even write grammatically correct sentences. Which makes me question, what are our grade school and high school teachers doing these days? What kind of education are the Filipino youth getting these days?

The latest issue of Newsweek features a cover story about how non-English speaking nations are making the supreme effort to learn the English language. “For lower-middle classes in India, English can mean a ticket to a prized call-center job…. Technology also plays a huge role in English’s global triumph: Eighty percent of the electronically stored information in the world is in English…”

What role does media play in all of this? I was part of that generation that grew up watching “Sesame Street”, American TV shows, and Japanese anime dubbed in English. I’m sure that played a major part of helping me learn and wield the English language.

What’s next for the Filipino youth? Where are they going? Are we giving them proper guidance? Are we using the right language when we give them instructions for the future?

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