The Philippine bilingual education policy and the spoken discourse performance of the learners in English classes

The study was conceived to partly clarify the issue on the deteriorating proficiency of the Filipinos in English. On the assumption that a strong language policy contributes in the spoken discourse proficiency of the learners, the Philippine Bilingual Education Policy was described in details. The spoken discourse performance was examined by recording English language classes both in teacher-fronted lessons and small group discussion. Data revealed that Filipino learners could still speak in English in teacher-fronted and small group discussions but only on phrase or sentence level, after which they tend to code-switch. Said spoken discourse performance could be attributed to the Philippine Bilingual Education policy which allows learners to use the first language as medium of instruction in certain subject matters like Social Sciences, Physical Education and others thereby decreasing the domains of language use