The English Language in the Philippines

It is no secret that the United States serves as the largest source of business for the outsourcing industry. From customer service to technical support to sales, companies in the U.S. have used outsourcing providers to handle various functions of their operations. This allows them to reduce overhead costs, focus their resources on their primary competencies, and remain afloat amidst a difficult economic environment. However, for fields such as SEO outsourcing to really thrive outside the U.S., the service provider must show a crucial, sometimes-understated trait that an American business requires: command of the English language.

While many countries use English as a secondary or tertiary language, there are few countries that have it as prevalent in the general population as the Philippines. The country maintains close ties with the U.S., and the local educational system implements lessons in English grammar and sentence structure as part of the curriculum on all levels. Companies that choose to outsource to the Philippines typically do so because of the local grasp on the basics of the language and the large pool of potential employees. It is no surprise that the country is a growing destination for outsourcing articles and other web content.

English fluency in the Philippines makes a number of tasks that a company can choose to outsource significantly simpler. Contact centers find that potential employees here already have a good grasp of the fundamentals of English and an idea of the culture behind it. This makes it much simpler to train them to speak without a local accent and to communicate ideas and concepts in a way that American customers would understand. Businesses that decide on outsourcing articles and other content-related tasks encounter similar situations. SEO outsourcing has also experienced a slight benefit from this, since new techniques and principles can be explained easier when both parties have a minimal language barrier to cross.

The local educational system has taught English for several decades, and the government has recently put a renewed focus on it in response to the increasing number of companies that outsource to the Philippines. Schools focus on training students in the fundamentals of the language, building from those fundamentals to a level of understandability and fluency. Grammar and sentence structure is heavily enforced early on, with a gradual shift towards vocabulary and idiomatic expressions later on. The average Filipino who has been properly educated can at least communicate his ideas clearly in English.

A company that chooses to outsource to the Philippines must expect the need to train potential employees. This is both to remove traces of local nuances to English use and to refine what skills already exist. This process is much simpler to do than in the two other major outsourcing providers, India and China. The command of the English language in the Philippines serves the purposes that a business would need it for, which is why SEO outsourcing services can easily thrive in the country.

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