IF Cebu wants to establish itself as a center for English excellence, stakeholders have to work together to address several issues, which include “fly-by-night” schools that offer English language lessons to foreign nationals.

To provide a venue for stakeholders to discuss issues and plan strategies, Tesol Philippines, Asian EFL (English as a Foreign Language) Group and Time Taylor International Ltd. will host an international Tesol (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) conference in Cebu next month.

The event is part of the groups’ bid to market Cebu as an international hub for English language learning.

The conference will gather more than 20 “world leaders in second language acquisition and learning.” Among them are professors Rod Ellis of New Zealand, Phyllis Chew of Singapore, Z. N. Patil from India and Carlo Magno of De La Salle University in Manila.

Asian EFL Journal chief executive officer Paul Robertson said the conference is the first step to show to Cebu what should be done to become a hub of English learning excellence.

“Cebu is becoming known as an international destination where nationalities like Koreans, Chinese and Japanese prefer to go to learn English,” he said in a phone interview.

But he said the sector that is engaged in the business of providing English language lessons to foreign nationals is beset with problems that include the lack of centralized control on fly-by-night businesses run by foreign nationals in the province.
Robertson also raised the need for more quality schools and training centers.

He said around 400 persons, including English teachers and educators-to-be, are expected to attend the international Tesol conference that is being supported by Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia, The Leeds Foundation and Cebu business groups.

“This will be an annual event. Next year, we will be planning a week-long Tesol convention (here),” he added.

On Aug. 10, Robertson is scheduled to meet public officials and representatives from the academe to discuss the implementation of a plan to make Cebu as hub of English language excellence. The plan is meant to enable Cebu to attract 30,000 to 100,000 international students every month.

Asian EFL Journal is an academic second language acquisition research journal and business entity under Time Taylor International Ltd., an Australian company registered in Korea.