Academic Factors on the Discourse of Multilingual Students

Multilingualism sharpens the mind, enhances the decision-making, and exercises the [1]ability to multitask which contribute to a students’ success in learning. Amidst the arising benefits of being a multilingual student in a classroom with diverse cultures surrounding them, there are factors that hinder the fluency of communication of the students during class discussions and peer communication. The study aims to unlock the factors affecting the discourse of multilingual students majoring in English language Studies at a state university in the Northern Philippines. The study uses a descriptive-correlation design and therefore, the result revealed that there is a significant difference between the language(s) used in university on the vocabulary and speaking and listening process factors. Furthermore, there are no significant differences between the vocabulary and speaking and listening process factors affecting the students discourse to the respondent’s age, ethnicity, and language(s) use at home. Overall, it is concluded that an affective and positive relationship of the diverse students with each other is needed to boost their self-confidence in using different languages for them to be able to express, communicate, and expand their language vocabularies as they learn and immerse to language itself that will enable them to freely use every linguistic-repertoire they have to broaden their perspectives towards diversity of language learners.