Oral Discourse In English Of Second Language Teachers: An Analysis

Abstract

This study primarily aimed to analyze the discourse competence of teachers in English as a Second Language (ESL) classrooms in the Biliran Division. Employing the mixed-methods research design, this research elicited data from the 20 secondary teachers in English as a Second Language (ESL) classrooms in Biliran Division during the school year 2021-2022. The findings reveal that the most common cohesive ties used by the English teachers were: reference (rephrasing, restatement); ellipsis (omission of word/s); substitution (the use of one); discourse markers (the use of alright, so, okay); and discourse connectives (the use of so). Moreover, the syntactic errors committed by English teachers in the Biliran Division are mostly on subject-verb agreement, use of prepositions, code-switching, pronunciation, and plurality. Based on the overall observation and analysis of the participants’ utterances, the researcher concluded that the teachers in English as a Second Language (ESL) Classrooms in Biliran Division used linguistic features as their immediate recourse in times of vocabulary loss and grammar confusion. In line with this, the school administrators may invest and strengthen the language learning development programs for ESL teachers because it is through them that the schools train and develop the minds of the next generation.