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PPHILIPPINE NORMAL UNIVERSITY

The National Center for Teacher Education
The Indigenous Peoples Education Hub
North Luzon
Alicia, Isabela

FLA 1 (Writing a Critical Response Essay through Blogging)

Instruction:
Using Dr. Mendiola’s presentation of research about Filipino learners as Second
Language (L2) learners, write your reaction on the article by considering the following
questions:
a. What are the main/salient points of the author in the article?
b. To which ideas do you agree? Disagree? (State your reasons.)
c. What points were not clear to you? Briefly discuss.
d. What have you realized as a second language learner yourself, after reading the
article?
e. How will you reflect this realization as a future language teacher?

THE FILIPINO AS A SECOND LANGUAGE LEARNER

Cecilia M. Mendiola
Department of Linguistics, Bilingual Education and Literature
College of Languages, Linguistics and Literature

Good morning. Let me thank the donor of this award, Dr. Jack C. Richards, as well as
the committee tasked to pick out this year’s professorial chair holder as well as the CLLL
department chairs and faculty who organized this morning affair. I am particularly grateful
for the given opportunity to conduct a research characterizing the Filipino as a second
language learner. As I humbly accept this award, I would also like to share it with all others
who are equally deserving of this honor and passionate in pushing the frontiers of research
in language education.

I. Introduction

My interest in this topic sprang from a research agendum that Dr. Jesus Ochave, then
Dean of the Graduate College, proposed at a meeting of language professors called by then
LSC Director, Dr. Emma Castillo years back. The present topic is a slice of that huge task to
characterize the Filipino learner. Broad and encompassing, the topic has been narrowed
down to the Filipino as a second language learner of the English language, as the research
requirement for this award.

Let us look into these two common scenarios in an English classroom.

Scenario 1

A frustrated English teacher calls out her students’ low scores in a test given after
what she thought was a systematically and logically presented lesson on tenses. In her
disbelief of the students’ poor performance in the test, the poor teacher did not know what
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hit her. Why can’t a thorough teaching defossilize wrong hypotheses on how the English
tenses behave?

Scenario 2

A teacher makes a list of sentences culled from the students’ essay test for class
critiquing.
 Zealousness and the overconfident of Oedipus was the near downfall of his
life.
 Oedipus said that he will punished the person.
 When you become a widower you will not married again.
 She did not left her mother-in-law.
 The person will be exile.
 She don’t want to marry Donkey Chang.

How would an English teacher like you react to this list? Who do you think produced
these sentences? What do these sentences say about Filipinos as second language learners?
Certainly your reaction will depend, to a large extent, on how you view errors. Do you view
errors as ‘undesirable and unwanted forms’? Are errors ‘sinful’ to be avoided like the
plague? Or do you consider them as a window through which one gets a glimpse of the
strategies learners use for acquiring language, and as evidence of the learner’s active
participation in his/her own learning? As Burt and Dulay (1974) have aptly put, “You can’t
learn without goofing.”

How could we minimize the teachers’ frustration in these cited scenarios? How
should we make sense of learners’ errors? How should we view our teaching syllabus vis-à-
vis the learner’s internal syllabus? When will we ever stop asking the question, “Why can’t
learners learn what teachers teach?” I propose that language teachers get themselves
steeped in what it takes for learners to acquire a language different from their mother
tongue.

Larsen-Freeman and Long (1991) have described a language teacher’s job in a

three-pronged diagram consisting of: teacher/teaching; language/culture; and
learners/learning.
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Teacher/Teaching

Language/Culture Learners/Learning

Figure 1. Diagram of a Language Teacher’s Task

(Larsen-Freeman and Long, 1991)

In their own words:

“Language teachers’ decisions about the teaching process should, to a

large extent, be informed by knowledge of the subject matter they are
teaching (i.e. the target language and culture) and by knowledge of the
unique group of learners with whom they are working and of the
language-learning process.”

While it is perfectly natural for language teachers to be preoccupied with the how of
teaching for it enables them to showcase all the tricks in their bags, so to speak, they should
equally be aware of the idea that any sound method of teaching has to be anchored on
beliefs of how language behaves and how learners acquire language. The latter brings us to
the exciting field of second language acquisition.

SLA Defined

Nunan (2001) has generally defined second language acquisition (SLA) as “the ways
in which any learner, child or adult, learns a second or foreign language.” On the other hand,
Ellis (1985) is more specific by saying that SLA is “the study of how learners learn an
additional language after they have acquired their mother tongue.” Language learning may
take place in naturalistic or untutored setting such as in a community where the L2 is
spoken 24 hours a day or by picking up the target language through watching English films
and TV programs, reading English newspapers, magazines, even comics, and listening to
radio programs in English. Another setting is, of course, the tutored setting – in a language
classroom where English is taught as a subject and/or where English is used as the medium
of instruction as in Math, Science, and Technology subjects.

Authorities in second language acquisition are agreed on the idea that the process of
learning a second language is so complex that no single theory can actually account for its
multifarious variables at play. This notion has resulted in a tremendous growth the field of
SLA has undergone in terms of theories and research, for the last 30 years or so.

Theories in SLA
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Some theories (Ellis, 1985, 1994) like Acculturation Model, Accommodation
Theory, Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis uphold the importance of external factors such as
language input and language habits as central to internalizing a second language.
Contrastingly, Nativization Model, Creative Construction Theory, Monitor Model, Universal
Hypothesis explain the importance of internal factors such as an innate processing
mechanism and strategies that fuel the language acquisition process. Discourse Theory,
however, explicates the interaction of external and internal factors in SLA, including Hatch’s
(cited in Larsen-Freeman, 1981) claim that “language grows out of conversation.”

Issues in SLA

Spolsky (1989, cited in Baker, 1997) has summarized the important issues in
acquiring a second language by posing a question: “Who learns how much of what
language under what conditions?” The expression ‘who learns’ relates to individual
learners’ differences – age, general ability, aptitude, attitude, motives, personality, cognitive
style. This gamut of variables tells us who learns a second language more easily, more
quickly and more proficiently. On the other hand the word ‘learn’ implies a process that is in
a constant state of flux.

The phrase ‘how much of what language’ alludes to the what is acquired – forms of
language, language skills (oral and written), pragmatic competence, formulaic expressions,
language variety, L2 culture even.
The expression ‘under what conditions’ refers to situations and context where
learning takes place – self-study, untutored setting, formal classroom, computer-assisted
language learning., teaching strategies, feedback techniques.

SLA Research

Initial research in SLA focused on description (Ellis, 1985; Larsen-Freeman, 1991).

This consisted of studies designed to describe who acquires what, when and where. Studies
on explanation, on the other hand, center on how input is transformed into output, as well
as what drives learners to acquire another language next to their mother tongue, not to
mention what causes learners to cease acquiring correct L2 rules, despite instruction and
exposure to the target language. This phenomenon is referred to as fossilization. While the
first type of research may be described as product-oriented meant to “describe and predict
the stages through which learners pass in a second language,” the second type, process-
oriented, aims at “identifying those pedagogic variables that may relate to the learner, the
teacher, the instructional treatment/environment or some form of interactions between
these.”

The notion of interference is constantly mentioned in SLA research as a means of

explaining learners’ errors. Though discussed in Weinrich’s (1953) Languages in Contact,
the concept of interference was popularized in Lado’s (1957) Linguistics Across Culture, as
he enlightened language pedagogy through contrastive analysis, a systematic comparison of
the home language and the target language in terms of their phonology, grammar writing
system, and culture. Lado’s famous dictum, “Those elements that are similar to his native
language will be simple for him, and those elements that are different will be difficult,” has
guided language teaching in preparing instructional materials and in deciding what
language forms are to be taught and how they are to be taught. Because similarities in the
two language systems were believed to take care of themselves, Lado paid more attention to
the learning problems that may be caused by the differences between languages. For
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example, a Tagalog speaker learning English may have a problem in learning the pronouns
he and she because they have only one equivalent in Tagalog - siya, a genderless third
person singular pronoun. Likewise, it could be predicted that Tagalog speakers will have
problems with the English tense system because such is absent in Tagalog. Sentences like
“He is taking a bath every day.” are likely to be produced by a Tagalog speaker learning
English since tense is a new language feature to the learner. In phonology, it is not
surprising for Filipino learners to approximate, sometimes through substitution, the
consonant sounds that are absent in Tagalog. How would a typical Tagalog native speaker
who is learning English say this phrase “the Filipino youth?”

However, SLA researchers in the 70s put to task Lado’s strong version of contrastive
analysis hypothesis since they found that many of the difficulties supposed to have been
predicted by Contrastive Analysis did not turn out to be problematic to learners and that
learners generated errors which were not predicted by CA (Burt and Dulay, 1972). The
nativists, for example, argued that learners constantly reconstruct their rules about
language forms until they hit the L2 norms.

As regards classroom SLA research, Nunan (1991) has identified some major
questions often asked:

1. What types of classroom organization and grouping patterns facilitate second

language development?
2. What task and activity types facilitate acquisition?
3. What are the characteristics of teacher task (including questions, amount, error,
feedback, instructions, directions) and what are the implications of this task for
acquisition?
4. Does formal instruction make a difference to rate and/or route of acquisition?
5. What affective variables correlate with second language achievement?
6. What type of input facilitates comprehension and, by implication, acquisition?
7. What interactional modifications facilitate comprehension and, by implication,
acquisition?

What Nunan failed to include in his catalogue of research questions is the role of L1
in L2 acquisition and the learning strategies and communication strategies that learners use
to lessen the burden of acquiring and producing another language.

Nunan’s (1991) critical review of some 50 empirical investigations on second

language acquisition yielded five points which future SLA researchers may consider,
namely: (1) the need for more contextualized (classroom-based, not classroom-oriented)
research; (2) an extension to the theoretical bases of the research agenda, i.e., utilizing
alternative forms of analysis; (3) extending the range of research tools, techniques and
methods, adopting methods which have proved to be valuable in content classroom
research; (4) an evaluation of the distinction between process and product-oriented
research; (5) and a call for a more active role for the classroom practitioner in applied
research.

What characterizes a good language learner (GLL)? Early records about successful
language learners date back to an “investigation of the learning biographies of persons who
succeeded in learning more than one language,” as initiated by Carrol (1967, in Norton and
Toohey, 2001). It was followed by speculations on distinctive learning strategies of good
language learners (Stern, 1975; Rubin, 1975; Cohen, 1977; in Norton and Toohey, 2001). In
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the mid 70s, these characteristics of the Good Language Learner, mostly based on
observing students in classrooms, talking to good language learners, and taking note of own
behavior (Rubin, 1975), were singled out. Researchers were interested in finding out if
successful language learners possessed a “constellation of personality characteristics,
cognitive styles, attitudes, motivation or past learning experiences” that differed from the
less successful learners. Further, investigators took interest in determining the strategies
and techniques and activities that accounted for success in language acquisition.

One growing literature in SLA is on the good Language Learner (GLL) studies.

Research (Stern, 1975) show that adult good language learners seem to use five key
strategies: (a) taking an active approach to the task of language learning, (b) recognizing
and exploiting the systematic nature of language, (c) using language they were learning for
communication and interaction, (d) managing their own affective difficulties with language
learning, and (e) monitoring their language learning performance. As correctly observed by
Larsen–Freeman and Long (1991), researchers had been focusing their investigations on
the “cognitive processes of language acquisition as well as the effects of learners
characteristics on those processes,” all suggesting that language learning is governed by
mental processes. As regards the child good learners, study upholds previous findings that
“attitude and motivation were, in many instances, the best overall predictors of second
language learning,”

The shift in the study of the GLL occurred in the early 2000s when researchers like
Norton and Toohey (2001) studied how “L2 learners are situated in specific social,
historical and cultural contexts and how learners resist or accept the positions these
contexts offer them.” Apparently, what mattered more in their studies are not the internal
characteristics that learners bring to the process of language acquisition but the nature of
their social interactions and the practices in the communities in which they are learning
English. Questions like, “Are the communities and practices structured to facilitate or
impede learners’ access to the linguistic resources of their communities?” and “What
conversations are around or available to be participated in by second language learners in a
given culture?” make up the core of their current investigation on GLL. Put another way, the
success of good language learners is explained by “their access to a variety of possible
conversations in their communities.”

Contributions of SLA Theories and Research to Teaching Language

If our interest in SLA theories and research is driven by our desire to improve
language instruction, in what ways have SLA theories and research contributed to
teaching language?

Cohen, Larsen-Freeman and Tarone (1991) have cautioned us that although SLA
research findings may have enlarged our understanding of language learning, insights from
such research may have little direct application to classroom instruction. That research
findings may not always translate directly into classroom practice may be explained by the
fact that the SLA research agenda in the previous years were not necessarily those of
second-language-teaching (SLT) research. However, Nunan (1991) believes that SLA
research has contributed to language teaching in two ways: (1) the findings have enhanced
teachers’ understanding of second language acquisition, and (2) many of the concepts and
tools developed in researching SLA have proven useful to teachers engaged in the process of
needs assessment. With better understanding of the SLA process, teachers can arrive at
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more informed and studied decisions and go along, rather than work against, learners’
natural tendencies (Larsen-Freeman and Long, 1991). So far, six areas in SLA research
findings have been identified to have had or could have influenced on teachers’ awareness,
namely: comprehensible input, focus on form, correction of speaking errors, pronunciation,
speech acts sets, learning strategies, and other factors influencing language learners.

On comprehensible input, Krashen (1985; 1989) holds that learners move most
rapidly toward mastery of a language by acquiring it through comprehensible input which
results in more language acquisition. For this reason, language teaching methods like the
Natural Approach and Communicative Language Teaching that provide more
comprehensible input are more effective, even without formal instruction focusing on
conscious learning. However, Long (1988) argues that formal instruction does have positive
impact on SLA processes since it has been found to speed up the rate of acquiring language
forms and to heighten the level of proficiency.

In the case of focus on form, learners should be led to notice grammatical features in
the input, compare what they have noticed with what they produce in their present
interlanguage, and then eventually integrate the new features into their IL when they are
ready (Ellis, 1990; Gass and Selinker, 1992).

On the effects of correcting speaking errors, evidence suggests that explicit error
correction may be ineffective in changing language behavior (Lightbown, 1985; cited in
Cohen, Larsen-Freeman and Tarone, 1991). As mentioned earlier, learners themselves need
to notice gaps consciously in order to make changes in their erroneous L2 rules. This
suggests that correcting errors may not have immediate effects on learners, a view that has
brought about a more tolerant stance on learner’s errors. In fact, one of my former SLA
students has suggested to his friend to take an SLA course so that she becomes more
forgiving of her students’ errors and lapses. Perhaps not only more forgiving, but also more
judicious in correcting errors and in giving learners more time to ‘digest’ the corrections.

Presently, researchers have found that the accuracy of pronunciation varies when
learners are asked to perform different tasks, (Dickenson, 1975; cited in Cohen, Larsen-
Freeman and Tarone, 1991). When students are put in actual communicative situations,
they are not able to focus on form and monitor for correctness, as a result learners are likely
to lose their control on accurate sound production. Tarone (1988) avers that such
phenomenon is widespread and inevitable.

A growing source of empirical studies on the nature of various speech has provided
opportunity for teachers and writers to use more specific empirically-based materials
instead of general, intuitively-based ones which account for variation brought about by
different levels of formality, seriousness of the incident, setting and interlocutors and other
variables. Such will hopefully prevent learners from committing pragmatic failure as they
try to approximate native behavior in apologizing, complementing, complaining, refusing,
showing gratitude.

Helping learners learn for themselves has been an outstanding contribution of SLA
research to language pedagogy. Interest in strategies that learners bring to the language
learning process has brought attention to the learning strategies of good language learners
in the pioneering work of Rubin (1975). Succeeding studies tried to find out if these
strategies used by language learners are teachable to the less able language learners
through strategy training.
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In the process of needs assessment, L2 teacher can get insights from the concepts
and tools contributed by SLA theories and research. To decide how to proceed next,
teachers have to know what the learners know of the target language. It is suggested that
the framework and tools used in SLA research be used to assess the learners’ needs in the
tutored setting.

Generally, knowledge of SLA research findings will help teachers make informed
decisions, even if they may not be directly transferable into classroom practices.

The need to make sense of the seemingly fragmented research findings of PNU
graduate students about acquiring a second language (English, in particular) had prompted
this researcher to undertake this study. In addition, the findings of this investigation are
believed to yield insightful implications for language pedagogy, second language acquisition
research and other related fields such as materials development and curriculum planning.

II. Statement of the Research Objective

The present study aimed at reviewing existing findings on second language

acquisition in order to characterize the Filipino as a second language learner.

Specifically, this study sought answers to the following questions:

 What kind of linguistic input are the Filipino second language learners exposed
to?
 How do the second language learners approach the learning of a language other
than their mother tongue? What do they bring with them to the task of acquiring
a second language?
 What does their language output, oral and written, say about their L 2
competence?

III. Methodology

The
Areas in SLA data of this
descriptive
study
20 consisted of
sixty-nine
15 theses and
dissertations
10 produced
within a period
5 of more than
four decades,
0 1961-2003.
t
ds or
s ge / C
S
pu ct
s
to
rs cy se nc
e
They included
ee Er
r ua LS ut fe c ie
n U e
N ng O Ef Fa fic ag
e er areas in
r 's rla ic n r o ef
e te is
t tio th
e Pr gu Pr
rn In gu n e n e English
a n ve O ag La g
Le Li er gu ua language
I nt n n g
La La teaching,
reading,
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applied linguistics, child study, even administration and supervision. From among more
than a hundred research output, only those directly and partly related to the acquisition of
English as a second language were included in the review. When categorized, the research
data covered the following areas in second language acquisition: errors and error analysis,
intervention effects, language proficiency, other factors influencing SLA, learning
strategies/ communication strategies, interlanguage, language needs, language preference,
language use, as well as language output, as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2. Areas in SLA Covered by Data

The types of data included (1) oral and written production of L 2 - journal entries,
themes/compositions, summaries, recall notes, think-aloud protocols, retold stories and
instructions, written stories from film stimuli, language preference tasks (picture
identification and sentence construction); (2) self-reports–responses to questionnaires,
strategy inventory, interviews; (3) test-generated data–proficiency test, vocabulary test,
spelling test, English variety discrimination test, grammaticality judgment test,
comprehension test, critical thinking essay tests; word association responses; (4)
technology-generated data - computer-generated output, video-recorded behaviors, video-
taped oral communication tasks; audio-taped classroom interaction, audio-taped diagnostic
passages.

Ellis’ (1985) framework, cyclical and interactive and believed to have captured the
core variables at play in acquiring a second language, was used to discuss the findings of the
study. As shown in Figure 2, Ellis’ framework consists of five inter-related factors that
influence second language acquisition: situational factors, input, learner differences, learner
processes and linguistic output.

Situational
Factors

Second
Linguistic Learner Language
Input Processes Output

Individual
Learner
Differences

Figure 2. A Framework for Examining Components of SLA

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(Ellis, 1985)

Situational Factors refer to who is talking to whom, the context of interaction –

classroom, formal or untutored setting, the topic of the conversation.
Linguistic Input includes second language samples received when listening or
reading in a second language, such as controlled input from the teacher – presented in
“small, highly sequenced doses with plenty of practice and reinforcement,” input that
focuses on form (grammar) rather than on meaning or message; teacher talk in classrooms.
Individual Learner Differences consist of the age at which somebody learns a
second language, aptitude for learning language, learner’s needs, cognitive style, motivation,
attitude, previous knowledge, learning style, and personality traits.
Learner Processes refers to cognitive learning strategies, production strategies,
communication strategies in language learning from where the mental processes may be
inferred; also include the mental mechanism that predisposes a person to learn a language.

Second Language Output includes the learner’s second language proficiency or

his/her interlanguage which is variable, systematic and flexible.

IV. Findings:

A. Linguistic Input and Interaction in Classroom Setting

What constitutes the language input and interaction in the classroom? Very little
research has been done on teacherese, the teacher talk, in the classroom. So far, only
findings on teacher’s questions and moves are available. Nothing is said about how teachers
modify their talk to promote acquisition. Also research on negotiation of meaning in the
classroom is non-existent.

In the elementary grades, Espiritu (1990) described the complementary roles

assumed by teacher and pupils in class: the teacher initiated; the pupil responded, a finding
that confirms existing description of classroom-interactions – a ping-pong like play of
words. Pupils’ responses were short, mostly one word, one phrase and short utterances, as
observed mostly in Science where English is the language for learning concepts. Pupils’
questions paralleled the mostly factual type of teacher questions, hardly showing any
evidence of critical thinking. Echoing previous findings, pupil-initiated questions that
occurred only occasionally were mostly raised during group interactions, if at all.

Espiritu also looked into the absence of verbal interactions or pupil silence, its types
and causes identified. Despite silence that could be explained by some psycho-socio-cultural
factors, the elementary pupils appeared to be learning. When pupils do not participate
actively in class, that is, they don’t answer questions nor ask questions, it seems inaccurate
to assume that nothing is going on in their minds or they are not learning at all. Perhaps
being silent in class is generally a regional behavior among Asians, as reported by other
researchers (Zhenhui, cited in Pasumbal, 2003). Silence in class is one area that needs to be
further investigated, for this phenomenon may turn out to be a norm rather than a unique
classroom behavior among Filipino second language learners.

If, indeed, it is true that practice in the use L2 is crucial to acquiring a language, what
do research findings say about the amount of L2 practice learners get in the classroom?
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Genuino (2000) found that in teacher-fronted lessons the learners have limited
communication opportunities, even in the tertiary level. Students’ communicative practice
depended on the teacher who tells them when to start and when to end talking; what to do
and how to do it. However, in small group discussions the students performed not only a
greater number of communicative acts but also a greater variety of them. Also, the usual
pedagogical patterns were observed in the interaction, consisting of soliciting–responding
where soliciting is a function of the teacher, responding being the learners’ prerogative.
Although learners could participate greatly in small group discussions, they used their L1
when engaging in these peer interactions. They communicated in the target language in the
teacher-fronted classroom, though. So in terms of L 2 practice in tutored setting, second
language learners do not actually get it as much as they should.

Exploring the spoken discourse in the tertiary mathematics classroom, Nivera’s

(2001) study supports earlier findings that the quality and quantity of students’ language
opportunities in the classroom appeared very limited. Students’ responses were highly
restricted, generally in the word/phrase level only. Further, the nature of students’
responses was largely shaped by the type of teachers’ questions as well as the classroom
activities designed by the teacher. Factual and ‘fill in the blank’ teachers’ questions
generated restricted responses, while requests for explanation and elaboration produced
elaborated replies from students. English was predominantly used in math classes, followed
by code-switch variety, and then Filipino.

B. Approaching Language Learning

1. Use of Learning and Communication Strategies

Starting mid-nineties onwards a sprinkling of research has tackled the issue on how
learners approach their own learning of a second language in the areas of reading, writing,
grammar, not to mention speaking. They deal with strategies used for processing text, for
writing compositions and for accomplishing oral communicative tasks. These studies might
have been inspired by a shift in views from product-oriented theories to process-oriented
ones, to enable researchers to identify those strategies that better learners utilize. To
specify the strategies that prove helpful to better learners and to consequently train the not
so good speakers, readers, and writers in them has been the goal of strategy training. Such
studies allow us to infer the mental processes involved in storing, retrieving,
comprehending and producing linguistic forms. However, this innovative move is not
without its attendant issue, that is, is it possible to train language learners other
tricks/tactics to which their cognitive faculties may not be wired at all? Will these learners
give up their self-honed strategies, in favor of new ones?

Basically, the following research characterizing how learners read and write in L 2
has catalogued a list of learning strategies used by college students. While the logical
succeeding step to this is to undertake strategy training, so far there has not been any study
on this yet.

Reyes (1997) reported that college freshmen displayed a great overall use of
learning strategies (LS) as regards range and variety, as shown in self-reports in the
Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL) questionnaire. Expectedly, the high
achievers tended to use LS more frequently than the low achievers. While successful
learners were aware of the strategies they used and why they used them, the less successful
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ones did not know how to chain strategies appropriately for their own learning even if
they could name their strategies.

Reyes also found that strategy use is related to successful learning. All groups,
according to achievement, frequently utilized metacognitive strategies, with compensation
and affective strategies least used. Learners appeared to use strategies the most when
completing integrative language tasks such as making oral presentation, social
conversation, and listening comprehension. For reading comprehension tasks, learners
employed a combination of strategies or strategy chain. Think-aloud protocols gave a
picture of a good comprehender, an interactive reader and a risk taker. As her contribution
to the body of knowledge, Reyes added some culture-bound strategies Filipino second
language learners used, namely, risk taking, empathy, relying on Divine Providence and
grade-consciousness.

In learning grammar through computer–assisted instruction, Batallones (1999)

reported that college freshmen could verbalize their language learning strategies in
grammar instruction.

Looking into college freshmen’s processes of comprehending expository texts in

English, Romero (1995) found that her subjects viewed reading as meaning-focused and
goal oriented. To them, a text carries meaning to be extracted by a reader, meaning which
becomes part of his /her learning to be shared with others. This perspective suggests a
passive view of the reading process where “meaning resides in the text.” The amount of
recall output (idea units randomly remembered) by the subjects was quantitatively
different between familiar and unfamiliar texts. However, more insignificant idea units
were recalled, suggesting that subjects were not sensitive to the more important ideas in
the text. Subjects’ summaries were wanting, characterized by impoverished content and
poorly organized ideas that did not cohere into a comprehensible unified whole.

College freshmen’s difficulties in summarizing include failure to construct a

synthesizing statement to achieve conciseness, inability to combine ideas, which resulted in
inaccurate interpretations and inadequacy in deleting unimportant ideas. In terms of
content, their summaries failed to include only the higher level of ideas. Finally, the subjects
did not appear strategic, flexible nor versatile in using strategies demanded of the reader,
when processing a specific type of expository text.

Aimed at investigating the organizing skills of college freshmen, Godinez’ (2001)

study disclosed that the subjects scored poor in the enabling skills assessment. Their
performance was validated by the unsatisfactory results of their outlining tasks using single
and multiple texts. Students’ poor performance in synthesizing information might be
attributed to their difficulty in getting the main idea, in combining related information
hierarchically as well as in suppressing insignificant details in texts. Generally, subjects
were poorly equipped with reading and organizing strategies to enable them to synthesize
information from texts.

Continuing the work started by other researchers on cognitive processes used by

readers and probing into what readers do when they encounter difficulties in processing
texts, Gutierrez (2002) reported that both proficient and less proficient readers displayed
emerging behavior patterns in reading, namely: re-reading, translating, questioning, using
prior knowledge and agreeing. What distinguishes between these two types of readers is
largely the use of prior knowledge and translating. However, when readers overly relied on
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their prior knowledge, they tended to ignore incoming information crucial to their
understanding of the text. Expectedly, proficient readers could identify more reading
problems than the less proficient ones, though the former tended to apply the same
strategies as the latter in coping with the difficulties, implying that they possess limited
repertoire of strategies to help them get by with reading problems.

The readers’ inability to recognize unclear purpose of paragraph, vague pronoun

referent and conceptual load of the text may be brought about by the readers’ failure to
synthesize information in the text, a finding which supports Romero’s and Godinez’ results.
Both the proficient and less proficient readers were deficient in the use of other important
reading behaviors, namely: constructing general statements, choosing significant ideas and
synthesizing information from and across texts.

How do ESL learners at the tertiary level approach writing compositions? Basuel
(1999) conducted case studies with two groups of college freshmen: skilled and less skilled
writers. From observation, interview, scrutiny of the subjects’ written output, and journal
entries, the learners displayed distinct sets of composing processes. While the skilled
writers generally produced multiple drafts, the less skilled writers were not capable of
revising their written work and more so those of their peers. The ESL writers’ essays
showed six emerging patterns of composing, namely: quick writing of substantive essays,
slow starters’ writing pattern, the highly recursive pattern, slow-but-sure writing,
unproductive writing pattern and the strategists’ writing pattern. All these were based on
the writers’ pace, physical behaviors and the essays they produced.

While skilled writers employed metacognitive strategies, conscious efforts at

expressing meaning and improving drafts, these were lost in the less skilled writers. Such
may be greatly attributed to affective factors such as motivation to complete the writing
tasks. On the whole, ESL writers composed in two ways – linear and recursive. Most skilled
writers composing process was recursive – they revised the unsatisfactory portions,
planned as they wrote drafts. Contrastingly, the writing processes of the less skilled writers
were linear, i.e., writing in a straightforward way – they listened to the teacher’s writing
instructions, wrote the first draft, made a few changes, rewrote the drafts, showed the
drafts to the classmate, then to the teacher for revision, and finalized a copy for submission.

How do high school ESL learners cope with a classroom situation when they have to
accomplish oral production tasks in the second language, despite their inadequate English
competence? How do they compensate for their limited communicative competence in L 2.
This issue drove Padillo (2000) to videotape her students while performing tasks orally. As
a result, she found that high school students manifested their communicative difficulties via
gap marks, namely gestures and facial expressions. These include knitting the brow;
touching parts of the body - the face, head, temple, thighs, hair, and arms; holding the chin;
looking at the ceiling; twisting one’s hands; pointing with a forefinger; blinking rapidly;
inhaling deeply; and suspending one’s breath. A combination of these non-linguistic
behaviors indicated that they were experiencing communication problems – such as
difficulty in retrieving a word or experiencing the tip of the tongue phenomenon, sheer lack
of vocabulary to express a message, even a mental block.

So what do learners do for them not to give up their turns at talk in the classroom?
Padillo’s study revealed that learners bridged gaps in their oral production by using
communication strategies, such as uttering ah, ahem, reconstructing the sentence, appeal
for assistance (how do you say that? Ano nga ba yon?), approximation, switching to Filipino,
 14
inventing or coining new words, abandoning the message, circumlocution or describing
the word that could not be retrieved, generalization, using mimes and gestures, and sound
imitation. Just like Reyes, Padillo also found some new communication strategies from the
data, namely lengthening words, self-address and lifting from well-known slogans. Of these,
the most frequently used communication strategies were non-verbal strategies to achieve
their communication goals in the classroom, enabling them to sustain their turns at talk to
generate comprehensible output.

2. Individual Learner Differences Brought to Language Learning

a. Learners’ Needs

Based on the needs assessment conducted by Hermosa (2000) in relation to the

development of prototype pedagogical English material for teacher trainees of basic
education, student teachers must be able to deal with the following language functions
frequently used in the classroom, namely: eliciting, directing, and informing.

A genuine appreciation and knowledge of language learners’ needs of English in

other disciplines is a positive step toward a learner-centered instruction that puts the
learner at the core of language teaching. Pareja’s (1999) needs’ analysis for English
criminology students in connection with the development and validation of ESP materials
for this particular group of learners revealed that criminology students have to be good at
communication skills related to their job/training such as asking questions, following
instructions, giving directions, comparing and contrasting, defining terms, expressing
ideas/perceptions about one’s job, explaining cause-effect relationships, relaying messages,
making a report or writing a journal and interpreting non-prose texts.

Grammatical structures such as the use of proper verb tenses, prepositions, active
and passive voice as well as transition devices were identified to be important for the
communicative needs of these students for both academic and career demands. It is
assumed that when learners’ instructional needs are correctly identified and addressed,
learners may be on their way to learning a second language.

As part of needs analysis for developing instructional materials to enhance the oral
communication skills of college students, Babia (2001) diagnosed that computer students
appeared afflicted with lathophobic aphasia, which Stevick describes as unwillingness to
speak for fear of committing mistakes, suggesting that their self-confidence in speaking
English needs much boosting. Same learners needed to acquire a more positive attitude
toward the English subject since they considered their English subject as an insignificant
subject, not as important as their computer subjects. This apathetic attitude toward English
might have contributed to their low English proficiency.

Much earlier, Hernandez (1988) developed a model of communication needs profile

of ESL secondary learners with the following parameters: setting, interaction,
instrumentality, target level, communication event, resources and objectives. This became
the basis of succeeding needs analyses.

b. Language Preference
 15
On the effect of mode of instruction and culture load of stimulus materials on the
language preference of bilingual pupils, Dimaunahan (1971) found that the language
preference of bilingual grade 2 pupils was significantly affected by culture-loaded materials,
while the language preference of grade 3 pupils was influenced by mode of instruction and
culture-loaded materials. Further, the language of test directions was found to affect
language preference of the bilingual Ss.

An earlier study also on bilingual pupils (Dizon, 1970) revealed that the language
preference of bilingual grade 2 pupils was found to be significantly influenced by the
language of instruction and nature of stimulus materials. The English-instructed group
preferred English more than the bilingually instructed group which actually preferred
English when responding to letter stimuli; for word stimuli, the English-instructed subjects
showed preference for English while the bilingually instructed Ss demonstrated preference
for both Tagalog and English. Similar results yielded preference for responding to picture
stimuli.

Caballero’s (1982) study revealed that a great majority of the subjects preferred
reading books, newspapers, and magazines written in English.

The code-switch variety or Taglish was the preferred language variety as medium of
instruction in the math classroom. Teachers and students believed that Taglish aided
comprehension of the lessons (Nivera, 2001).

c. Language Use

Cruz (1994) reported that bilingual college students in Metro Manila predominantly
used the Tagalog-English codeswitch variety in their cognitively-oriented discussions of
academic and scientific topics on the university campus. This code has Filipino sentence
structure with English lexical insertions. In borrowing English or foreign terms, these
variety users keep the borrowed original form and function intact. Reasons for borrowing
included the need to designate new things and concepts, precision of technical terms in
using English, since there are no Filipino equivalent words yet, and for easy retrieval of
scientific and technical terms.

Among Tagalog-English bilingual children aged 7-12, their language varied with
sociolinguistic variables such as topic, place, and interlocutor, as reported by Dizon (1985).
The Tagalog-English bilingual children used a mixed-code variety (Tagalog or English), to a
limited extent, in situations ranging from formal to intimate topics in the domains of the
school, the home and the community. However, they seldom switched from one language to
another when talking to people they met in those three domains.

As regards code-switching among adult Filipino bilinguals, Bautista (1974)

typologized Tagalog-English code switches from utterances in the radio program into those
occurring at the word and phrase level as well as clause and sentence level, identifying the
items used in these levels where code switching occurred.
 16

3. Factors Affecting the Students’ Performance in English

Briones (1998) found that the elementary pupils’ ratings in English are significantly
correlated with learning opportunities, namely: time allotted for the study of English,
pupils’ frequency of use of the English language as well as their exposure to English learning
activities, and learning materials made available to them by the parents and teachers. To
put it another way, learners who enjoy longer blocks of time engaged in activities that are
constructive, cooperative and expressive also turn out to be more independent and are able
to harness their energy more creatively compared to pupils who are provided with short,
interrupted time. Learners who receive adequate opportunities for oral language do better
in their macro skills and abilities. Equally, learners who receive high grades in English are
the recipients of favorable opportunities that nurture their communication skills both at
home and in school. Lastly, favorable or positive attitude of pupils toward the English
subject augured well in getting high grades in English.

How might a highly proficient English learner perform in critical thinking tasks as
well as in academic achievement? Javier (2001) averred that based on a specific group of
learners, that is, students of the Philippine Science High School in Eastern Visayas Campus
[that the female seemed to be better critical thinkers and tended to be more language
proficient than the male.] that those who were more language proficient tended to be better
critical thinkers. The better thinkers tended to possess higher mental ability. However,
better thinkers did not necessarily turn out to be better academic achievers. Only among
high achievers were there evidences indicating that the more language proficient learners
tended to be better achievers. Similarly, learners with high IQ did not necessarily excel in
their academic work, IQ is seemingly not a good predictor of academic achievement.
Generally, language proficiency has the strongest effect on academic achievement. Hence,
the challenge for learners as well as for teachers to improve learners’ language competence
for it can foretell a potential to do well in the academic, not to mention to heighten their
critical thinking.

In terms of motivation, Mendoza’s (2001) study about college students’

performance upheld the belief that motivational behavior remains a significant determinant
of achievement. Students’ level of motivational behavior was enhanced by learners’ setting
specific goals and referring to these goals frequently. Learners’ language attitude which
appears to influence the valuing of learning brings about higher levels of motivation.
Moreover, in multicultural setting, learners who exuded self-confidence were strongly
driven to learn and use the second language. These new motivational measures – goal
setting, valence, and self-efficacy - had shown to influence the learners’ motivational
behavior.

If it is, indeed, true that parents’ attitude toward language use and preferences
impact on the children’s attitude toward the same, Caballero’s study (1982) is insightful as
her findings point that parents of Cebuano and non-Cebuano families in Cagayan de Oro City
viewed their children’s learning of particular languages in the context of moving ahead in
their socio-economic status. Their preference for learning English disclosed a very
pragmatic attitude, that is, as a tool for being gainfully employed or for going abroad.

Earlier, Santos (1969) proved that parents play a significant role in their children’s
acquisition of English. Instrumentally-orientation, parents influenced considerably their
children’s language learning activities. High school learners’ strong integrative motivation,
 17
that is, wanting to be identified with a set of Filipinos believed to make up a Filipino
English-speaking community, affected their acquisition of verbal skills.

Santos also pointed out that successful acquisition of a second language may be
impeded by excessive authoritarianism, extreme ethnocentrism, emotional uncertainty, and
conflicting loyalties.

As to the effect of age and gender on comprehension abilities, Monserrate (1972)

found no differences in the development of understanding among 10 year-old children
when asked to retell selections in English and Filipino. Boys and girls exhibited similar
comprehension abilities. However, the children did better in Filipino than in English
retelling, which was hampered by inadequate English vocabulary. Interestingly, the subjects
comprehended much better the selections told by a child than those told by an adult. This
result may be attributed to the more elaborate grammar language of the adult speaker
which proved more difficult for a child to comprehend compared to the ‘telegraphic’ speech
of children. This may further explain why peer-tutoring works with learners; probably the
tutor and the tutee share the same less elaborated code.

Bernardino’s (1998) research confirmed the idea that readers’ comprehension is

facilitated by their prior knowledge about the topic as well as the proficiency of the readers
in the language of the text. However, regardless of the language of texts, readers perform
better in the familiar text than in the unfamiliar one. This finding confirms an earlier one
stating that students are better able to process familiar texts than unfamiliar ones (Romero,
1995).

How do school dropouts fare in functional literary tests? Lalunio (1990) found that
although, generally, the high school learners performed significantly better than their grade
school counterpart in the tests, individually though, some elementary dropouts scored
higher than many high school learners.

Of the factors that affect the dropouts’ literacy in both languages, only IQ appeared
associated with literacy. Number of years in the job is not associated with literacy in
elementary school dropouts, but could be a predictor to literacy in high school learners.
Lastly, the dropouts’ age, employment status and ethics are not related to literary
performance.

The school learners’ literacy could be enhanced by how one relates to other pupils,
the type of work they do, length of employment, their interest and motivation, not to
mention the reading materials available to them.

C. Linguistic Output and L2 Competence

1. Linguistic Output/Interlanguage

What constitutes the second language learner language? At a given time, a language
learner is using a language system which is neither the L 1 nor the L2. Nemser (1971) aptly
calls this approximative system, distinct from L1 and L2. To illustrate, in the sentence, “She
impressed by his hard works” the items are English words but the structure is not English,
neither is it Filipino. When the right conditions are present, this approximative system
gradually moves closer towards the target norm, thus, producing: “She was impressed
with/by his hard work.”
 18

Selinker (1972) coined the famous term interlanguage (IL) to describe the second
language learner’s independent language system. He avers that L1 acquisition is different
from L2 learning because the latter is hardly ever achieved successfully. It is said that only
about 5% of L2 learners are lucky to reach the native-like competence while other learners’
L2 fossilizes at some point, despite exposure to and instruction in the target language, as
shown in Figure 4.

Interlanguage

a b c

Zero knowledge Native speaker

competence

Figure 4. Approximative System Continuum (Nemser, 1971)

How does the Filipino, as a second language learner, grapple with English in the
written mode? Studies in the different levels – elementary, high school, tertiary - yielded
results showing the grammatical structures that learners appear to have already mastered
and could comfortably handle in compositions. These studies used Hunt’s t-unit or
terminable unit as a measure of syntactic complexity. While the length of the t-units was the
basis of sentence structure complexity of upper grades elementary pupils (1978) in
Mendiola’s study, Peñ aranda (1990) employed the number of sentence embeddings per t-
unit to gauge the syntactic complexity of the compositions written by high school paper
staffers. For analyzing the college students’ interlanguage, Madriaga (2002) used both the
length of t-units as well as the number of sentence embeddings per unit. It was found that
elementary pupils could construct noun phrases in a sentence with a variety of forms – from
single head words to a head expanded by combinations of modifiers, phrase and clause, and
coordinate constructions. On the other hand, the verb phrase construction was expressed
by a main verb and optional adverbial modifiers: Equational sentences consisted of
predicate adjective in the different levels – single words, modified and conjoined. All basic
sentence patterns appeared in pupils’ written language. Among sentence types, the
compound-complex sentence type was the only one not represented in the data, suggesting
that elementary pupils may not have acquired this type yet. Three kinds of subordinate
clauses were present – adverbial, nominal, adjectival. Expectedly, as they advanced in grade
level, the pupils’ sentences became longer; however, the boys and girls did not differ
significantly in the length of sentences in their stories.

Similarly, high school paper staffers could generate more and more embedded
sentences as they advanced in year level, though the difference was not statistically
significant. Male staffers produced more sentence embeddings than their female
counterpart. Findings of both studies point that the learners’ language maturity may be
gauged through t-units, determining the length as well as counting the type and number of
sentences embedded within a t-unit. High school paper staffers and college students
produced practically the same types of sentence embeddings. When compared to the phrase
structure rules generated by native speakers identified by Celce-Murcia and Larsen-
Freeman (1999), those phrase structure rules of college students’ internalized grammar
 19
described by Madriaga (2002) did not seem to differ at all. The findings suggest that by
the time second language learners enter college they will have acquired the basic English
structures no different from those in the native speakers’ competence.

How a Pangasinan learner selects his verb forms in writing English was the goal of
De Gracia’s (1968) study. De Gracia reported that the upper groups of grade V pupils
seemed to have mastered everything except the past tense of be and have. Irregular verbs
were learned first and regular ones last, with the exception of be and have. Lower groups
appeared to have mastered only the present form of be. The agreeing form was learned
later than the base form. That irregular verbs are acquired earlier than regular ones and
that inflected forms come after base forms confirm previous morpheme studies (Krashen,
1982).

On the receptive mode, what kind of language structures can elementary pupils
comprehend? Lim-Borabo (1993) found that pupils demonstrated great ability in answering
the structural categories in the sentence level, that is, they could identify clues, which are
within the context of sentences and paragraphs. Learners could handle the following
structural categories, from easy to difficult: local items, conjoined sentences items, some
paragraph items. However, separate paragraph category appeared to be most difficult to
them.

2. Learner’s Language Proficiency

Materum (1998) reports that learners’ communicative competence may be

influenced by their language facility, stock of vocabulary and communicative practices. High
school students’ low level of proficiency could be attributed to home factors such as low
parents’ educational attainment, scarce opportunity to use English at home, preference for
media in Filipino and lack of English reading materials at home. Also, when students are
properly motivated, guided and provided with appropriate and adequate learning materials
in English in school, they may confidently develop and improve their communicative
competence. Put another way, the learners’ language competence is influenced by learner-
teacher-home related factors with varying extent of influence.

Can college students who are able to correct errors written in English also recognize
correct forms of grammar? This issue was pursued by Cocal (1965) who came up with a
positive answer since, generally, the normal students who consistently showed the ability to
correct recognized errors in grammar can also consistently recognize correct grammar
forms. It appears that students’ knowledge of grammar is related to their ability to correct
written English.

In probing the development of the writing skills of college students, Parcon (1995)
found that their writing skills have generally been developed up to band #5 (Carrol’s 9-
band academic writing skills) considered as ‘modest writers’ who can “convey basic
information competently, but logical structure of presentation still lacks clarity.” The male
and female students did not differ significantly in their writing proficiency. Three variables
found to be related to the writing skills are scholastic achievement (NCEE), language
exposure (reading and watching TV), and first semester general average.
In school context, nine variables of college students were found to be significantly
correlated with communicative competence. These include general ability, socio-economic
status, language attitude, high school where they graduated, and academic achievement.
Meanwhile, the predictors of communicative competence are educational attainment of
 20
teachers, general ability, socio-economic status, academic achievement, attitude toward
Americans, language proficiency of teachers, schedule of English class, professional growth.
A significant portion of the differences in the students’ communicative competence can be
accounted for collectively by those predictors (Salosagcol, 1990).

By sharp contrast, first year high school students’ communicative competence had
positive correlation with these predictors – language facility, stock of vocabulary,
communication practice, teacher’s language facility, teaching competence, aversive teacher
behavior, educational attainment of parents, family-related factors – use of English at home,
media preference, reading materials available and reading material preference. While
language facility, stock of vocabulary and communicative practices all contribute to the
students’ communicative competence, home-related factors such as parents’ educational
attainment, little opportunity to use English at home, preference for media in Filipino and
lack of English reading materials at home could explain the low level of students’
proficiency in English.

College freshmen pursuing the education course in the selected institutions in

Pangasinan, performed significantly high in listening, then speaking and writing. They
performed lowest in reading comprehension. Students’ language proficiency correlated
moderately with English 1, Science, Math, and Psychology. Of the four language skills,
reading comprehension and oral skills correlated most with college rating. (Surot, 1986)

When freshman college students were subjected to tests that assessed their
auditory perception and reproduction of English sentences (Juan, 1975), they could easily
identify ungrammatical sentences, followed by the grammatical sentences, then the
anomalous sentences. Their performance in the intelligibility test showed that they could
immediately perceive, recall, and reproduce in writing grammatical sentences, followed by
the anomalous sentences, lastly by the ungrammatical sentences. Subjects who easily
identified anomalous sentences similarly identified ungrammatical sentences. They could
easily understand nouns, especially when heard in the context of grammatical sentences
than when heard in the context of anomalous and ungrammatical sentences. Besides nouns,
adjectives and verbs were also easily understood.

The belief that grade school pupils are unable to achieve better in mathematics due
to language barrier found some basis in Cristobal’s study (1968). When the vocabulary and
language structures used in the arithmetic text books, and those taught in English were
compared, she noted the lack of fit between the two.

In the same breath, Fermo (1968) also looked into the relation between knowledge
of general vocabulary to comprehension of science facts and concepts. To a great extent,
growth in general vocabulary fostered growth in science vocabulary among intermediate
learners.

De Guzman’s (1972) study on bilingual pupils showed that lower primary pupils
could acquire math concepts using any medium of instruction – English, Filipino, bilingual.
However, a special kind of ‘instructivity’ was determined, that is, pupils were found to have
added faster and more accurately in English, their L2, than in other languages. When a
follow-up study was conducted, it revealed that the pupils’ language background in Math
was dominated by English.
 21
Investigating the verbal behavior of bilingual children tested at various age levels,
Capco (1969), found that the subjects’ general response trends appeared to indicate that
language of instruction and language of testing significantly affected the verbal behavior of
grades I and II pupils. Generally, the percentage of different responses was higher in English
than in Tagalog, as supported by the subjects’ more diverse responses in L 2 than in L1.
Subjects’ tendency to give idiosyncratic responses was more marked when the language of
testing was English. On the whole, though, the bilingual subjects performed better in their
L1 than in their L2.

Tiglao’s (1969) study buttressed previous findings as regards the effect of language
of instruction and testing on the number of responses of subjects, including the significant
differences in the subjects’ responses in the English test compared to those in the Tagalog
test. It found that the number of different responses increased with the age of subjects.

Solomon (1972) found that language of instruction, culture setting, language of test
directions and geographic setting manifested significant effects on the size and range of oral
vocabulary responses of the subjects to picture stimuli.

When children in grades I and II whose early home language training were
compared in terms of their bilingual proficiency, Mendoza (1968) found no significant sex
differences except in the ability to write, for Tagalog-English groups. In all other skills, both
boys and girls rated themselves more proficient in Tagalog, also in the ability to read. Pupils
read significantly faster in English than in Tagalog. There was significant correlation,
however, between the subjects’ performance in the Tagalog and English semantic tests,
between early home language training and usage of English at home and in home
environment. Only those subjects who had the same Tagalog-English teachers had a
significant correlation for the Tagalog-English groups

In evaluating the effectiveness of the Intensive English Course, at PNU, Biteng’s

(1967) study was able to identify some non-intellectual factors that could possibly affect
college achievement to a great extent; to wit: health condition and daily nutrition, family
financial status and parental attitude toward education. Further, she claimed that a
student’s chance of becoming a remedial case is predictable. To illustrate, by and large,
married students had more chances of landing in remedial classes in English. Moreover,
remedial students shared a constellation of characteristics such as mental ability, study
habits, hobbies and interests, attitude toward teaching, and college performance. Factors
related to remedial work, e.g., attendance, motivation, and attitude toward remedial work
influenced the length of one’s study in the intensive English course.

3. Errors/Weaknesses in L2

Research in learners’ interlanguage has taken interest in finding out if L2 learners’

knowledge of English fits the grammar of the native speaker.

Investigations in learners’ interlanguage show that SLLs manifest various recurring

difficulties in the macro skills. A few studies though took interest not only in identifying
these errors but also in probing into the causes. In speaking, specifically in pronunciation,
secondary students found difficulty in word stress in the listening comprehension test
despite having the sets of words read to them twice (Halili, 1965). Another weakness
centers on sensing meaning when listening to differential word stress.
 22
As revealed in another achievement test (Danao, 1969), grade four pupils found
the test on stress and intonation the most difficult in the listening test; sound discrimination
the easiest. In the speaking test, however, same learners found sound production more
difficult than stress and intonation.

Similarly, intermediate pupils in Surigao had problems with stressing compound

expressions and in shifting stress in an utterance. Specifically, they found difficulty in
using /231/ intonation patterns in questions that begin with interrogative words, as well as
in requests; /33/, /22/ and /11/ in enumeration items in series, in conversation indicators;
direct address, using pitch /3/ in contrastive stress, also in locating the locus of intonation
in intonation patterns. Causes of these problems were attributed to the differences in
intonation contours between L1 (Surigao language) and L 2 (English), as reported by Barbers
(1963).

In Verzosa’s (1961) contrastive analysis of Pangasinan and English, the researcher

identified the stumbling blocks to the leaning of English stress and intonation as those
caused by features of stress and intonation that are present in English but absent in
Pangasinan and features that are similar in form in both languages but with different
meanings.

Still on pupils’ difficulty in their L 2, Sobong (1962) pinpointed the English vowel,
diphthong, consonant sounds that posed production problems to pupils, brought about by
the differences in the sound systems of Cebuano and English.

Among college freshmen, they manifested deficiency in stress and intonation,

according to Dominguez (1963). Stress and intonation had significant but lower correlation,
indicating that some college freshmen have the tendency to score low in stress and
intonation subtests in a written classification test in speech. From a written classification
test in speech results showed that students who scored high in sound discrimination tended
to also score high in both word discrimination and speech comprehension. Moreover, those
who scored high in the written speech recognition also got high scores in the oral
production test.

In grammar, Ilocano learners of English (Cabanos, 1966) were found to have

committed more errors in English count and mass nouns in their observed speech than in
their written output. The most frequently erred nouns are those tied up with the use of the
plural morpheme –s and the use of the articles. These errors were found to have been
caused by the difference in the classification between Ilocano and English nouns and
differences in behavior between Ilocano and English nouns, as in the way they express
plurality and the way they change from one class to another.

By contrast, Durian’s (1967), diagnostic test on English prepositions for grade four
to six pupils pinpointed problems with prepositions used with place, with position and
other types of relationships.

In a general survey test in grammar (Ramiro, 1965) grade four pupils manifested
weaknesses in the following areas: arranging words in alphabetical order, tag questions and
rejoinders, tenses of the verb and subject-verb agreement, pronouns agreement, plural
nouns, and noun determiners, verb phrasal combinations with prepositions.
 23
Practically, the same grammatical errors were identified to be persistent in the
college students’ writing samples, as reported by Batallones (1999). These include wrong
use of verb tense with time expressions, wrong use of prepositions in idiomatic
combinations, subject-verb disagreement, and tense inconstancy.

Errors in verb tenses being a given among Filipino English learners, Almendral
(1961) traced the possible causes of this linguistic difficulty to the differences between two
language systems - Tagalog is an aspect system; English a tense system. To exemplify, a
Tagalog speaker is not conscious of the importance of the form in English verb. S/he is
focused on the aspect, while the form of English is a signal indicating the time. Tagalog
learners’ problem in acquiring tense in English appears twofold: (1) the problem of split
category where the Tagalog learner speaking English tends to equate one form of the verb
with two or more distinct forms in English; (2) the problem of reinterpreted category
because some Tagalog verbs behave like English verbs, but whose markers have different
interpretations. Other minor causes identified by the researcher are: learners’ failure to
establish the correct habits of using the correct verb form of English, teachers’ lack of
directed teaching, insufficient practice in the use of English in and outside the classrooms,
and carelessness of the students.

In consonance with the Contrastive Analysis framework, the causes identified are
largely due to habit differences between two languages as well as inadequate teaching and
insufficient practice. This view fits the popular behaviorist theory of learning of the times.

As regards reading-writing, Romero (1995), Godinez (2001), and Gutierrez (2002)

are one in saying that college freshmen are poor in constructing a synthesizing statement to
achieve conciseness in writing summaries as well as in synthesizing information from and
across texts and in choosing significant or higher level ideas which may be brought about by
inability in sensing hierarchy of ideas in texts.

Bernardino (1998) averred that on the whole, problems in processing text could be
attributed to readers’ lack of prior knowledge, compounded by their inadequate grasp of
the English language.

In decoding problems, both the elementary and high school dropouts displayed the
same errors in reading the English text, relying mostly on graphic clues. But in reading the
Filipino text they used context clues, Lalunio (1990) reports.

To Garancho (1997), high school students encounter with various vocabulary

problems in English are often brought about by the combination of the following:
unfamiliarity with borrowed terms, inability to recognize structural/morphological
components of words and their meaning, failure to use context clues (semantic and
syntactic clues) in deciphering meaning of words. Besides, word length and other graphic
complexity lead to vocabulary problems. Generally, high school students are not strategic
readers, as evidenced by their inability to execute fix-up strategies when encountering
vocabulary problems in reading English.

In writing, specifically in composing friendly letters, grade six pupils demonstrated

deficiencies in letter content, sentence structure, as well as paragraph organization, the
basic elements of writing beyond the sentence level. In the same vein, Baula (1996)
diagnosed elementary pupils written work as lacking in control of content, paragraph
 24
format, deficient in subject-verb agreement, appropriate tenses and punctuations; had
mixed tenses, malapropisms, pronoun shifting.

Perfecto’s (1967) research confirmed Baula’s findings. Perfecto found that the most
common and prevalent deficiencies in the friendly letters of grade school pupils consisted of
letter content, sentence structure and paragraph organization.

Parcon’s (1995) study revealed that more students did not have a closure to their
essays than a beginning, implying that writing a conclusion may be more difficult than
writing an introduction.

4. Learners’ Response to Intervention Measures

How do second language learners react to efforts at improving their competencies?

A most natural move after weaknesses and deficiencies in language instruction have been
identified is to design intervention measures such as the use of programmed/
supplementary materials, use of technology, a new method of evaluation, use of
transcriptions to enhance pronunciation, to name a few. Some researchers have explored
these avenues to improve the learning of English. Preliminary findings, to be treated
cautiously, seem to point that English learners tended to respond positively to these efforts.
To illustrate, empirical evidence supports the idea that the Self-Paced Learners Program
(SPL) seems effective in raising the achievement levels of grade 2 pupils in English.
Instruction based on learners’ rate of learning contributed to their increased performance
in English (Jaurigue, 1993).

In pronunciation, Aramil (1966) averred that college students responded positively

to the use of transcriptions and other devices used by the professor in the different
situations. These contributed to improved production of speech sounds among the subjects.

When Lalunio (1970) tried out a manual to grade 2 pupils to help them pronounce
adequately the segmented phonemes considered difficult by Tagalog learners of English,
those who used the manual exhibited more improved pronunciation compared to those
who did not use it.

Furthermore, Napud’s (1976) study showed that using self-learning kits the high
ability subjects in all grade levels preformed significantly better in English adjectives than
the low ability subjects. Meanwhile, grade six pupils were reported to have enjoyed working
with remedial materials in which the rules of grammar are taught systematically and
through a well-sequenced series of exercises (Dedel, 1970).

Sajonia (1967) reported that grade four pupils could learn grammatical concepts at
their own pace through a programmed text for teaching attributive adjectives.

Similarly, college freshmen registered improved performance by using computer-

assisted grammar instruction materials, highest of which was observed in the areas of
prepositions, verb tenses and subject-verb agreement. However, a drop in performance in
the area of tense consistency was evident. Generally, the study on the use of technology in
grammar instruction showed users’ positive attitude toward Grammar Computer-Assisted
Instruction (GCAI) in all four areas, (Batallones, 1999).
 25
Concerned about improving high school students’ achievement in reading, Quilala
(1986) found that disabled readers who underwent an Intensive Total Reading Program
showed marked improvement in their reading performance.

Using reading materials anchored on schema-based activities, not to mention

teacher-guided activities, Espiritu (1994) found that learners exhibited more improved
comprehension.

Lalunio (1990) found that conducting bible study sessions helped improve the
school dropouts’ reading skills.

Pupil’s reaction to the programmed materials in the vocabulary development

through structural analysis revealed that learners still preferred teacher’s guidance, as they
used such materials (Paculan, 1985).

An exploratory study on the effect on a non-grading method of evaluation on

achievements in mechanics (Punzal, 1977) disclosed that despite the absence of ratings on
pupils’ original and rewritten themes, pupils improved in their writing abilities. Though
inconclusive, this result can be attributed to the non-grading system of evaluating themes.

On the other hand, Baula (1996) found that prior to the use of Simplified
Interactional Feedbacking (SIF), the elementary pupils written work lacked control of
content, paragraph format, subject-verb agreement, appropriate tenses and punctuations;
the written work had mixed tenses, malapropisms, pronoun shifting, illegible letter form,
poor language use and sentence organization. However, with SIF learners developed and
improved their composition writing skills.

Meant to improve the composition skills of selected college students through

process writing, Gayeta’s study (2002) revealed that from compositions initially
characterized by limited content, loosely organized ideas, different and inappropriate
vocabulary, not to mention poor spelling, the college students’ written outputs turned out to
be more substantial in content, better organized, more sophisticated in vocabulary, much
improved in grammar and spelling. Such improvement could be attributed to the applied
intervention, that is, the use of scheme-based prewriting and interactional feedback.
Learners responded positively to the interactional feedback which made them aware of
their specific errors as well as where they were found.

Salera’s (1968) experiment in diary writing with grade four pupils revealed that
topics in the diaries had increased. While the length of the diary entries had decreased, the
length of the compositions had increased. Tense errors in the diaries, but not in
compositions, had been reduced significantly. A significant increase in the modification
structures in the pupils’ composition, but not in their diary entries, was noted.

Using computer-assisted instructional materials in technical writing (TW-CALL),

Jorda (2003) found that technology college students improved their personal attitude
towards technical writing, the learning strategy they use to learn it and their textual
competence in technical writing.

While the reported positive responses to intervention measures seem quite

encouraging in the sense that they have shown to improve learners, skills, such gains have
 26
not been proven to have been sustained, an angle worth looking into via longitudinal
studies.

So far, among various studies on intervention, only one revealed absence of gains.
Jazul’s dissertation (2001) showed that there was no difference in the college students’
communicative competence between those students exposed to traditional class and those
who sat in a communicative literature class. The researcher explained that these students
might have attained communicative competence before exposure to literature classes.

V. Implications:

The aforecited findings have given rise to the following pedagogical implications:

1. Since learning strategies are found to be related to successful learning, learners may
be to be trained explicitly in them, coupled with instructions on how to use them
appropriately for certain tasks. Filipinos must be trained to be strategic learners.
2. Language teachers need to provide their students with sufficient opportunities for
generating comprehensible output/ practice in L 2. They, too, can contribute to more
meaningful L2 practice through asking questions that call for explanation and
elaboration, not to mention critical thinking.
3. Since errors are part of all natural learning, teachers may demonstrate a more
tolerant stance toward them and view them more positively as a means through
which students’ learning strategies may be inferred.
4. Teachers must work toward strengthening the students’ language proficiency to
enhance learners’ critical thinking and academic performance since language
proficiency correlates with critical thinking and academic achievement.
5. Language teachers may consider teaching English via content-based instruction.

VI. Conclusions:

In light of the findings of the study, the following conclusions are drawn:

1. The Filipino learners acquisition of a second language is influenced by personal,

school, and home-related factors. When properly motivated, properly guided and
adequately provided with learning materials in English, the students will
confidently develop and enhance their communicative competence.
2. Although Filipino second language learners are strategy users, they are unable to
use these strategies appropriately with certain tasks. There is a need to enlarge
their repertoire of strategies for them to have a pool from where to get those that
match certain tasks.
3. Filipino second language learners are CS (communication strategies) users, but are
not strategic enough to employ them to their advantage.
4. Filipino learners use their L1 and a code-switch variety as communication strategies.
5. Filipino learners compose both linearly and recursively. Their composing processes
appear to be related to their writing proficiency.
6. Filipino English learners’ learning difficulties in acquiring language forms and skills
are brought about by some dissimilarities between their L1 and L2.
 27
7. Generally, Filipino learners react positively to intervention measures designed to
improve their L2 skills/competence.
8. Learners’ communication skills can be developed and enhanced if their needs are
correctly identified and adequately matched by appropriate learning materials.
9. Better academic performers in English are learners who spend more time doing
activities in English, who use English more frequently, whose home and school
environment provide favorable opportunities to acquire English, and learners with
positive attitude toward the English subject.

VII. Recommendations:

Studies on the Filipino as a second language learner are far from complete. The
following topics/issues are, therefore, recommended for future investigations:

1. Teachability/Learnability of learning strategies/communication strategies

2. The relative effectiveness of strategy training in the macro skills
3. Characteristics of fossilized errors; How do we know that certain errors have been
fossilized?
4. Defossilizing fossilized errors; Is this possible?
5. Case studies on how learners modify, change or even abandon their incorrect
hypotheses of L2 rules
6. The effect of teacher’s modified/simplified talk on language acquisition; Does
modified/simplified teacher talk lead to acquisition?
7. Negotiation of meaning in the classroom; Does it promote acquisition?
8. Case studies on characteristics of good Filipino language learners
9. Longitudinal studies on how certain linguistic forms – tense, aspect, pluralization,
prepositions, etc. are acquired
10. Acquisition of pragmatic/sociolinguistic rules
11. Learners’ motivation to acquire English (revisit)
12. Learners’ attitude toward English (revisit)
13. Description of learners’ proficiency as basilect or mesolect/(acrolect?)
14. Indicators of how a linguistic form has been acquired; How do we know that a
language form has been acquired?
15. A fit/match between students’ learning strategies and teachers’ teaching strategies
16. Interdependnce of L1and L2 strategies in reading and writing
17. Silence in Philippine classrooms
18. A composite portrait of the Filipino as a second language learner (incorporating
research findings from other graduate schools)

VIII. Concluding Statement:

As mentioned earlier, interest in second language acquisition has been driven by a

desire to improve language pedagogy. In fact, Corder (1981) has advocated that “Efficient
language teaching must work with, rather than against, natural processes, facilitate and
expedite rather than impede learning.” However, it is only by knowing what processes fuel
second language acquisition that the teacher’s burden in teaching language would be
lightened.
 28
The complexity of how a Filipino learner acquires a second language makes us
consider the findings about this learner as “part-truths”, (Baker, 1997). To wit: “Such ‘part-
truths’ will be a resource for teachers, and not a source that solely determines teaching;
having implications rather that direct application; providing propositions rather than
prescriptions, insights rather than edicts.”

Hence, the need to take these research outputs

on acquiring a second language more cautiously. The aforecited PNU researchers have
initiated the move for us teacher-researchers to understand our learners. However, so
much has yet to be unearthed. Admittedly, the challenge is hurled to those who are willing
to engage in this exciting task of furthering our knowledge about those with whom we work
very closely in the language classroom. That effort may spell the difference in our task as
language teachers.

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 29
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 31

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 32
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process writing.

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year high school learners of English: An approximation.
 33
Jazul, V. B. (2002). The use of the traditional and communicative approaches in the
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communication arts (English) skills achievement of grade two pupils.

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technical writing (TW-CALL).

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 34
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 35

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