Oral Interlanguages of Second Language (L2) Learners of Filipino and English

This study explored the oral interlanguage proficiencies of the Cebuano-Bisaya speaking college students who have ventured into majoring the two second languages. Moreover, this study analyzed the crosslinguistic influences of their languages as they orally narrate in English and Filipino, based on a short silent film. Twenty third year BSEd Communication Arts Major in English- Filipino students were purposively selected to participate in the study. Their interlanguage proficiency was rated by two sets of English and Filipino instructors. Further, Pearson Product- Moment Correlation Coefficient (PP-MCC) was incorporated to determine the correlational relationship between the students’ performance in the said languages. Results revealed that the participants’ oral proficiencies are higher in Filipino than in English revealing that oral interlanguage proficiencies of the learners in one language do not entail proficiencies in the second. Consequently, phonological, lexical and syntactic negative transfers were evident in the oral discourse of Cebuano bilinguals.

Keywords: crosslinguistic influences, oral interlanguage, transfer