ESL learners in Cebu growing in numbers

CEBU, Philippines — Aside from the expats, Cebu's market for long-staying guest is strengthened by the growing number of Japanese nationals who are temporarily staying in Cebu to take English-as-second-language (ESL) programs.

Sarrosa International Hotel and Residential Suites noted a good volume of Japanese families and group of young professionals availing of long-stay bookings for as long as two years to take their ESL education here, said the hotel's resident manager Jun A. Perocillo III.

Sarrosa Residential Suites has a total of 40 suites marketed for long-staying guests. In the past, the business thrived because of bookings from multinational companies operating here for their foreign top executives.

According to Perocillo, the hotel has to turn down some of the bookings for long staying guests to accommodate the early bookers from Japan.

In a separate interview with Haruna Yamaguchi, manager of the Cebu-based Japanese company I Land Way Philippines Inc., she said that her company is intensifying its plans to build facilities like residential condominiums or condotels because of the possibility of more and more Japanese families to stay here to learn English as a family.

Previously, Cebu was only known to young professionals as ESL hub, but now Japanese families are spending heavily on ESL lessons taking courses with their entire family.

This means that Cebu will have to prepare more facilities to suit the unique living requirements of Japanese, she said.

“University students want to learn English before they graduate so they can work abroad," she said adding that even the elementary students and children are now encouraged to learn English in their age for faster adaptation.

For this reason, families are now drawing serious plans to temporarily leave Japan for a while and live in Cebu in particular, as the City offers a more conducive environment for family lifestyle, with resort and leisurely vibe.

Likewise, most Japanese students prefer Cebu over other parts of the Philippines because the instructors here speak “better” English, she added.

Perocillo added that Sarrosa has long list of bookings waiting for some contracts to end.