English is for whom?

Time flies! Almost two years have already passed since I came to the Philippines. When I started studying in my college I had a big challenge every time I attend a class and speak in English. I was not that extrovert, so back then I was thinking, most of the time, how I should approach to my Filipino blockmates using my unpolished English. My behavior might have been awkward to them. Sometimes I felt desperate if I can not answer back to a question from my professor. But now, I feel nostalgic those days. I can communicate with Filipinos in English in a way and approach to them without any hesitance. However, I am pretty sure that most Filipinos are shy like Japanese, especially to foreigners. Of course, the Filipinos are basically friendly but I kind of feel they are unconsciously trying to build a wall to keep distance with us foreigners. As soon as we have a deep relationship with them they break the wall quickly though.

I had been thinking how to approach to Filipinos without letting them build a wall. Finally, I found out the best way, which is to speak English in Filipino accent. I guess that a particular characteristic of that accent sounds like there is a space between a word and another word. Speaking Tagalog is much better but my priority is English so I don't want to weigh learning Tagalog yet. Some of my Filipino friends once told me that my accent sounded like already Filipino accent. I was not aware about it than, rather, I thought that I was speaking in English in my own accent that was actually closer to American accent. Why did it happen? I assume that the environment surrounding me might have influenced how I speak. When I was told that my accent sounded like Filipino accent I totally felt happy because it means I am one of the local (Pinoy!)

However, I was sort of surprised when one of my Filipino friends told me that some feel embarrassed with Filipino accent because they consider English should sound like American accent. It is really up to them how they speak English but English is spoken by people with different nationality, and in various countries. It is a universal language, in short, it is no longer only for Americans, British, Australians and New Zealanders. Therefore, Filipinos don't have to be embarrassed with their accent as long as they can communicate with foreigners. As for Japanese, we have a problem with pronunciation in speaking English because there are some sounds that we don't use in Japanese. So Japanese accent might not be understandable to native speaker of English but Japanese accent is still acceptable!

I would rather enjoy diversity of the use of English than pointing out the exactness of accent in English. That is how you involve into Globalization.