Borlongan, Ariane Macalinga. 2011. The Clerical Aspects of English Language Teaching in the Philippines. Issues and Trends in Applied Linguistics in the Philippines: A Decade in Retrospect, ed. by Shirley N. Dita, 12-22. Manila, the Philippines: Academic Publications Office, De La Salle University. Chapter 2 The Clerical Aspects of English Language Teaching in the Philippines Ariane Macalinga Borlongan 1. Introduction Matters concerning languages have been among the most central aspects of social engineering in the Philippines. Both academics and policy-makers and policy- implementers, the elite and the common people have been trying to involve themselves in both the drafting and implementation of language-related policies. This substantial involvement of people is particularly centered on very specific languages such as English, as it plays a very important role in the Filipino society: • It is enshrined in the 1987 Constitution as one of the two official languages of the Philippines; • It is already native to the country, “functionally-native” at least (Bautista, 2000; Kachru, 1996); • There is a steady increase in the number of its users in the Philippines in the twentieth century (Gonzalez, 1996); • It has penetrated various domains and activities (Bautista, 2000), most especially the younger generation Filipinos (Borlongan, 2009). English in language planning, English-medium education, and most especially, English language teaching, have therefore been in the agenda of applied linguists, educators and teachers, policy-makers, and even the common people in the country. It is not surprising that a plethora of studies have been done on basically all aspects of English language teaching. The focus of those studies have mainly been on the teaching of the four macro- skills, curriculum development, materials design, testing, assessment, and evaluation, and