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.

174 EDUCATIONAL SURVEY OF THE PHILIPPINES

(3) Incomplete expressions of thought.
"I beg you for telling the truth," for
"I beg you to believe that I am telling the truth."
(4) Incorrect use of demonstrative pronouns. (this, for these, etc.), together with confusion of plural and singular.
"I do not like the condition of these company," for "I do not like the conditions of this company."
(5) Gender and Case. Errors like: "He is gone," for "she is gone," and vice versa.
Confusion of her and she, it and they, him and he, is very common among
teachers.
(6) Confusion in verbs, such as go and come.
"Then he went here."
(7) Inability to combine various forms correctly, pronouns, prepositions, tense, desire to
avoid use of first-person pronoun, etc. "Because of lacking of means," etc.,
for "Because I lacked means."
These are but a few striking examples from a very long list of the
common misuses of oral and written English.
The public-school system is developing an English vocabulary with
moderate success. It is failing signally, however, to develop skill in
fluent control of words in discourse. The root of the difficulty is in the
inability of the Filipino principals and supervisors to write and speak
English. A radical modification of the language program of the training schools must be made which will provide constant practice in correct
writing under supervision. This supervision must include daily practice
in the critical evaluation of written English. Constant practice in writing is one of the crucial needs in the training of teachers.
III. ABILITY OF PUBLIC-SCHOOL PUPILS TO READ AND WRITE
THEIR NATIVE DIALECTS
The Survey Commission interested itself from the beginning of its
work in the question of whether or not instruction in reading and
writing English results in development of pupil ability to read and write
the native dialects.
Within the limits of the work assigned it, the Commission could not
devote any great share of its attention to devising and using tests which
would give a definite answer to the question. Due to inability to
understand the various dialects, it would have been impossible for any
of the Commission to direct effectively the scoring of such tests had they
been used.
In order to secure some objective evidence upon the question, superintendents and supervisors in various divisions were asked to conduct
tests. These tests were designed to measure the ability of children in the
public schools to read and write the common dialect of the division.
The devising of the tests and the interpretation of results were left to
these superintendents and supervisors.