A survey of the educational system of the Philippine islands by the Board of educational survey, created under acts 3162 and 3196 of the Philippine Legislature.

MEASUREMENT OF INSTRUCTION

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stress and rhythm. In the Malay tongues these elements of flow count
relatively little. The result in the Philippines is that the oral work
of the schools is carried on with the pupils getting relatively little meaning from instruction. To a startling extent the so-called oral English
is mechanical word pronunciation, not an integrated interpretative use of
English.
Striking illustrations of this fundamental point abound in the experiences of the examiners of the members of the Survey Commission. We
give a few pertinent ones.
The tester said to the pupil pronouncing the test words-"omit that
word." The pupil instantly read aloud "omit that word" as a part
of the continuous reading of the Gates words as he went singing across
the page.
In filling out the data sheet on each child the examiner said, "How
old are you?" Frequently such replies would come as this, "In Manila."
The question would be given. "Does your father speak English?"
The answer would come back, "Ten years old." "Q. How many
years have you spent in private schools?" "A. Rizal Province." The
omission of the whole lines of the Gray reading test revealed nothing of
the mind content of the child; neither did it offend his sense of reasonableness of Gray's context. Experiment showed furthermore that the
children in a large number of cases could not use the words of the
Gates' test in simple sentences although they could pronounce the words
with considerable accuracy.
This portrayal of the formal word-pronouncing character of the oral
English of the Islands throws out into clear relief the importance of
finding a way to set the teachers and pupils correct models of the rhythm,
accent, and syllabication. It is these more subtle interpretative elements
of speech that carry the meaning in English. Take for example the
role of stress in bringing out the finer shades of meaning in such examples
as these:
That serves you right.
That serves you right.
That serves you right.
In 275 recorded cases in our tests the examiner read a Gray sentence
strongly stressed; the child despite his native capacity for lingual imitation read it in intoned unstressed cadence. There was practically no
trace of the employment of stress to bring out meaning in the children's
reading of the Gray paragraphs. The concept of securing correct
meaning by stress has not been developed in the children's minds.
Similarly the significance of rhythm apparently has been completely
overlooked by those who have organized the oral English program of
the schools. The evidence was startingly presented in the enuncia211488 ----11