Linguistic Errors in the Oral Expositions of Speech Communication Students of the College of Teacher Education in the University of Northern Philippines

The study generally examined the linguistic errors in the oral expositions of Speech Communication students of the College of Teacher Education in the University of Northern Philippines. It investigated and described: (1) the profile of the respondents according to sex, course, type of high school graduated from, geographical location, parents’ educational attainment, parents’ work status, language used at home, and exposure to mass media; (2) the linguistic errors committed by the respondents in their oral expositions; (3) the strategies of the students in monitoring their linguistic errors; (4) the significant relationship between the profile of the students and their linguistic errors; (5) the significant relationship between the profile and the strategies of the students in monitoring their linguistic errors; and (6) the significant difference in the linguistic errors between and among the group of respondents. Data were obtained from forty (40) Teacher Education students, who were enrolled in Speech Communication and Debate during the First Semester of the Academic Year 2009-2010. Descriptive method of investigation in evaluating the linguistic errors of the students was employed. From the tape recorded speeches of the respondents, their linguistic errors and strategies in monitoring those errors were listened, transcribed and analyzed using the following statistical tools: frequency and percentages, weighted mean, point biserial correlation, chi-square test, and analysis of variance. Results revealed that majority of the respondents are female; equal number of students from the four curricular offerings of the college participated in the study; a great number of them graduated from the public high schools; many are residents in the rural areas; most of their parents have finished college and self-employed; the language they frequently use at home is Iloko; and they are moderately exposed to print media but highly exposed to electronic media. It also revealed that the linguistic errors committed by the respondents in their oral expositions are phonological and grammatical in nature; in terms of phonology, they committed errors in vowel sounds and consonant quality; and in terms of grammar, their errors are mostly morphological and the least is lexical. It further disclosed that the strategy used by the respondents in monitoring their phonological errors is self-correction; and in grammatical errors, the strategies used were stammering, restructuring, and verbosity. Furthermore, it was found out that in phonology, there exists a significant relationship with regard to type of high school graduated from, geographical location, course, parents’ educational attainment, parents’ work status, language used at home, and exposure to mass media; and in Grammar, there exists a significant difference with regard to geographical location, course, parents’ work status, language used at home, and exposure to electronic media. Moreover, there was a significant relationship between the strategy in monitoring phonological errors and sex, type of high school graduated from, course, parents’ educational attainment, parents’ work status, language used at home, and exposure to mass media; and between the strategies in monitoring grammatical errors and the type of high school graduated from, course, parents’ educational attainment, parents’ work status, language used at home, and exposure to electronic media. It was also noted that there was also a significant difference in the linguistic errors between and among the groups of respondents. Based from the conclusions, the following recommendations were forwarded: since learning a language will preferably be acquired in early years of schooling, a good program in the elementary level with regard to teaching students on the articulation of sounds should be considered; the language curriculum of the college and of the university should be reviewed and revised to conform with relevant theories exposed in communicative competence; English subjects should be made relevant to the needs of the students; the teachers should employ communicative approaches, methods and techniques to ensure the competent use of the English language among Teacher Education students; and similar studies should be undertaken to generalize the findings of the study.