GLOBE encouraged students to explore the rich content of its eLibrary to boost their online learning.

Globe eLibrary’s mobile app and website (https://globeelibrary.ph/) contain hundreds of English classic titles, age-appropriate storybooks, eLearning videos, and other resource materials that can be viewed online or downloaded for later use.

“We want to promote the love of reading among the youth so they may achieve their full potential. Reading helps strengthen the brain and build vocabulary, and provides the needed mental exercise for a better understanding of the written word, especially a widely-used foreign language like English,” said Yoly Crisanto, Globe Chief Sustainability Officer and SVP for Corporate Communications.

The Globe eLibrary contains books of various genres such as Shakespearean tragedies Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, Hamlet, and Julius Caesar; Robert Louis Stevenson’s travel memoir, Across the Plains; Moliere’s theatrical comedy, Tartuffe (The Hypocrite), Anthony Hope’s collection of short stories and novelettes, Tales of Two People; Oscar Wilde’s Essays and Lectures; and Mary Shelley’s science fiction/horror Frankenstein (The Modern Prometheus), among others.

Despite the general perception that Filipinos are good in English, the 2018 Programme for International Student Assessment of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development revealed that the reading ability of 15-year-old Filipino students is below their counterparts Singapore, Brunei, Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia.

The Philippines’ mean score in the Overall Reading Literacy Scale was only 340 points, two levels lower than the OECD average of 487 points. This means that 80% of Filipino students struggle with text of moderate length.

Globe eLibrary is a component of the Global Filipino Schools, a long-term educational initiative of Globe that seeks to transform public schools into centers of ICT excellence. It helps around 14,000 students, teachers, and parents with their online learning needs, with 120 varied content downloads daily.

The Globe eLibrary can also be accessed through DepED Commons (https://commons.deped.gov.ph/) which has around 9.6 million users. DepEd Commons is an online platform for public school teachers in support of distance learning.