FDIP Toastmaster Club -- Member's Corner -- Featured Speech of the Week

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Featured Speech of the Week
This site area is created to give special publicity to our member who was voted as the Speaker of the Day. It is published here to highlight the key strong points of the speech in which the speaker was able to meet speech's objectives.

A Filipino Engineer's Achilles' Heel
Rosette Hizon
Date presented: March 8, 2002

From the Greek Mythology, Achilles is the greatest and bravest of the Greek warriors in the Trojan War. Because his mother dipped him into the River Styx, he was invulnerable except at the heel by which she held him. This is where the idiomatic expression “Achilles’ Heel” came from. Like Achilles, we all have a vulnerable spot or a weak point. Since most of us here are Engineers, do you know what is our Achilles’ Heel? If you don’t know, make a guess. (Asks the listeners.)

If your answer is “anything that’s about the English language”, you are right. Statistics say that almost 75% of Filipino Engineers have difficulty in making compositions and speaking using English as a medium. Yes, most Filipinos are English literates but few have mastered speaking and writing without grammatical errors. While most of us could project that we could speak the English language very well, listen closely, chances are, you would hear some grammatical errors.

Come to think of it. As early as our Kindergarten years, this subject was introduced to us. If you sum up the years that we studied this subject, 8 years in pre-school and Grade School, 4 years in High School and 2 years in College, not to mention the medium of instruction being used in our classrooms, we still commit grammatical errors and we sometimes speak what they term as “English Carabao”.

It’s a good thing that we have these toastmasters’ sessions in our company. Not only are we being exercised in our speaking skills, we are also reminded of the grammatical lessons long forgotten. I speak for myself in this topic. When I was in Grade School and High School, I was always chosen as a contestant in English Spelling Bees and Editorial writing contests. I edit and proof read compositions at our school’s newsletter and to make the long story short, the English subject was not my Achilles’ heel. Take not of the verb “was”.

When I took up Chemical Engineering as a course, we have English subjects up to my sophomore year. Back then, I was still fluent and I could write compositions in a snap. All these have changed when I entered my major year. Since we were bombarded with calculations and problem analyses here and there, my knowledge about this subject diminished. Whenever I speak the language, I usually stop to think if my sentences were correct but since my professors didn’t mind at that time, I went on with the idea that we don’t need to give that much emphasis on the correct tenses and agreement between subject and verb. Yes, it is our second language but it doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t pay attention to this subject.

I remember an Engineer friend of mine told me before that even Americans commit a lot of grammatical errors in their own language. I believed what she said at that time because of what I saw at the movies. This thinking was changed when I was assigned at our U.S. office. There I met several Process Engineers and later we all became friends. These said Engineers were locals in California, meaning they were born and raised there. You know what I found out? They’re very good at speaking, minus the uhms, the ahs and the “you knows” or the so-called “aspirative pauses”. Because of this reason, I somewhat felt a little inferior at first. It’s a good thing that I was able to catch up easily with them and it’s really a good thing that I mingled with these yuppies or what they term as young professionals. It’s like practicing each day obviously. I told them that “Tagalog” is our native tongue and “English” is just our second language. They helped me out whenever I speak and refreshed my memory with tenses and simple grammar rules. They were actually amazed with how easily I learned to become fluent in their language and I even acquired their accent.

A funny incident happened during my last day there in the AV office. News went around the whole 4th floor that I was going to be destaffed from the project I was working on. Naturally, people from other disciplines went to see me at my desk to ask me when I will be flying back to Manila and also to bid farewell. The Piping Lead Engineer there who I worked with went also to my place and asked me where I was going. I told him that I’d be flying back to Manila since my assignment is over. He had this funny look in his face and exclaimed in a very shocking voice that he thought I was resigning and when news reached him that I’ll be leaving, he thought I will be leaving Fluor for another company. I laughed and told him that I am a Filipino and I was just there for a project assignment. He laughed and he said that he thought I was a local.

Funny, huh? I was actually flattered at the comment and then I thought, that meant that I speak their language just like them. Then I thought again, constant practice makes us perfect. For me, speaking the English language fluently doesn’t mean that you dislike our native tongue. Since it’s needed in our job as Engineers we shouldn’t overlook the fact that we need to be good speakers because it is also part of our job. Not only are we supposed to be good speakers, we should also be familiar with simple grammar rules.

I know that we all are good speakers in its true context and what we need is just practice. It’s very fortunate that Fluor provided us with a program to improve our verbal skills through Toastmasters. After we’ve acquired all the skills in public speaking, let us negate the statement “English is an Engineer’s Achilles’ Heel.

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