---
title: "Philippine English Proficiency of the K12 students: Basis for the"
description: "The paper examines whether Filipino students who finished the new K to 12 basic-education track can understand and speak… 12 references."
authors: ["Lemuel Fontillas", "Sherrilyn Quintos", "Cynthia Ronquillo"]
year: 2022
venue: "Proceedings of the 36th Pacific Asia Conference on Language, Information and Computation"
source: "https://aclanthology.org/2022.paclic-1.80/"
licence: "CC BY 4.0 (ACL Anthology)"
licence_url: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"
summary_licence: "Elamur Cosmic License"
canonical: "https://research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/fontillas-2022-philippine-english-proficiency-k12-students/"
---
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# Philippine English Proficiency of the K12 students: Basis for the improvement of the English Curriculum

**Authors:** Lemuel Fontillas, Sherrilyn Quintos and Cynthia Ronquillo · **Year:** 2022 · **Venue:** [Proceedings of the 36th Pacific Asia Conference on Language, Information and Computation](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/venues/paclic/) ([PACLIC 2022](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/venues/paclic/2022/)) · **Publisher:** [Association for Computational Linguistics](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/publishers/association-for-computational-linguistics/) · **Licence:** [CC BY 4.0 (ACL Anthology)](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

**Links:** [Publisher's page](https://aclanthology.org/2022.paclic-1.80/) · [PDF](https://aclanthology.org/2022.paclic-1.80.pdf)

## Summary
The paper examines whether Filipino students who finished the new K to 12 basic-education track can understand and speak English, and which variety they use. In 2018 CHED moved college-level language courses into Senior High School, so the authors wanted to see what students bring to university. They interviewed 238 randomly chosen first-year students at Bataan Peninsula State University. Each student answered five open questions about their own English learning, speaking for at least four minutes. The audio was transcribed into a 336,828-word corpus. Answers were rated with a validated regional speaking-and-comprehension rubric on four criteria: relevance, eloquence, grammatical content, and response time. Most students understood the questions well. However, they often had trouble expressing ideas, switching to Tagalog or circling around missing words. The authors conclude that students do speak English, but in the Philippine English variety as defined by Bautista (2000a). They argue that teachers and curricula should accept this variety as a legitimate norm instead of treating it as a set of errors.

## Key points
- Sample: 238 first-year BPSU students aged 18–19, a size derived from about 2,000 entrants per semester at a 5% margin of error and 95% confidence.
- Corpus: interviews based on five fixed prompts, transcribed into 336,828 words. Files were coded S01, S02, … and kept in a password-protected Dropbox folder.
- Comprehension: 185 students (77.7%) got the top score of 5, 43 scored 4, and 10 scored 3 or 2.
- Signs of expressive difficulty: Tagalog words appeared 781 times, and 1,426 sentences were classed as wordy.
- Recommendations:
  - awareness campaigns on Philippine English;
  - curriculum changes for both DepEd and tertiary levels, including a dedicated "Philippine English" course;
  - a repeat study with a post-pandemic HYFLEX cohort using the same questions.

## Interesting ideas
- The study scores understanding a question separately from the skill of phrasing the reply, so a weak answer is not automatically read as failed comprehension; this separation helps any evaluation of language users.
- Counting vernacular-word intrusions and wordy sentences serves as a cheap, measurable proxy for lexical gaps in a second-language speaker.
- Following Bautista, the paper treats a nativized variety's systematic features as a norm in their own right, not as deviations from American English, which affects how any corpus of such speakers should be annotated.
- The authors plan to put the identical prompt set to a later cohort so that results stay directly comparable over time.
- Each answer is rated on several independent criteria (relevance, eloquence, grammar, timing) rather than with one overall grade.

## For Mova

How these ideas could serve Mova, our small open language model — its files, stages and tests:

- **I1** (answer): Score whether the reader built the right world from a test text separately from how well it worded its answer, so retrieval failures and generation failures are not mixed up.
- **I2** (tokens): Tag code-switched or non-English tokens explicitly instead of forcing an English lemma onto them, and count them as a signal that the input is non-native or mixed.
- **I3** (tree): When parsing Philippine or other World English text, treat recurring variety-specific constructions as a dialect to normalize or convert, not as noise for the parser to "correct".
- **I4** (learn): Keep a frozen set of evaluation prompts across model versions so that changes in scores reflect the system rather than shifts in the test.
- **I5** (back): Judge generated text on separate axes such as relevance to the meaning graph, fluency, and grammaticality, so regressions in the text → graph → text loop can be located precisely.

*Our summary of the paper, in our own words — not its text. The work belongs to its authors; read it at the links above.*

📚 Shelves (2): [🖥️ Computer Science](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/computer-science/) · 18,614 works · [🤖 Artificial Intelligence](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/computer-science/artificial-intelligence/) · 17,965 works

🧭 Topics (1): [English](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/topics/english/) · 2,379 works

## Cite

Cite as: Lemuel Fontillas, Sherrilyn Quintos and Cynthia Ronquillo. 2022. Philippine English Proficiency of the K12 students: Basis for the improvement of the English Curriculum. Proceedings of the 36th Pacific Asia Conference on Language, Information and Computation.

The paper itself, not this page. BibTeX from the library's record of the work.

```bibtex
@inproceedings{fontillas2022philippine,
  title = {{Philippine English Proficiency of the K12 students: Basis for the improvement of the English Curriculum}},
  author = {Lemuel Fontillas, Sherrilyn Quintos and Cynthia Ronquillo},
  booktitle = {Proceedings of the 36th Pacific Asia Conference on Language, Information and Computation},
  year = {2022},
  url = {https://aclanthology.org/2022.paclic-1.80/}
}
```

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## References

12 references, 0 of them with a card of ours. ↗ leads to the work, «find» searches for one we have no id for yet.

1. Andrew Gonzales. 1982. English is the Philippine mass media. New Englishes. Rowley, MA Newbury House Publishers, Inc. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Andrew+Gonzales%2E+1982%2E+English+is+the+Philippine+mass+media%2E+New+Englishes%2E+Rowley%2C+MA+Newbury+House+Publishers%2C+Inc%2E)
2. Andrew Gonzales. 1997. The history of English in the Philippines. In M.L.S. Bautista (Ed.), English is an Asian language: The Philippine context-Proceedings of the conference held in Manila on August 2-3, 1996 (pp.25-40). North Ryde, Australia: The Maquaire Library Rty Ltd. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Andrew+Gonzales%2E+1997%2E+The+history+of+English+in+the+Philippines%2E+In+M%2EL%2ES%2E+Bautista+%28Ed%2E%29%2C+English+is+an+Asian+language%3A+The+Philippine+context%2DProceedings+of+the+conference+held+in+Manila+on+August+)
3. Andrew Gonzales. 2008. A favorable soil and climate: A transplanted language and literature. In M.L.S. Bautista & K. Bolton (Eds.), Philippine English: Linguistic and literary perspectives (pp.13-27). Hong Kong SAR, China: Hong Kong University Pres. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Andrew+Gonzales%2E+2008%2E+A+favorable+soil+and+climate%3A+A+transplanted+language+and+literature%2E+In+M%2EL%2ES%2E+Bautista+%26+K%2E+Bolton+%28Eds%2E%29%2C+Philippine+English%3A+Linguistic+and+literary+perspectives+%28pp%2E13%2D27%29%2E)
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5. Andy Kirkpatrick. (2007). Implications for international communication and English language teaching. Cambridge: CUP Carola Suárez-Orozco & Mariela M. Páez. 2017. Explaining English language proficiency among adolescent immigrant students. Educational Researcher, vol. 44, 3: pp. 151-160. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Andy+Kirkpatrick%2E+%282007%29%2E+Implications+for+international+communication+and+English+language+teaching%2E+Cambridge%3A+CUP+Carola+Su%C3%A1rez%2DOrozco+%26+Mariela+M%2E+P%C3%A1ez%2E+2017%2E+Explaining+English+language+proficien)
6. Danilo T. Dayag & Shirley N. Dita. 2012. Linguistic research in the Philippines: Trends, prospects and challenges. In V.A. Miralao & J.B. Agbisit (Eds.), Philippine social sciences: Capacities, directions, and challenges (pp.110-126). Quezon, the Philippines: Philippines Social Science Council. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Danilo+T%2E+Dayag+%26+Shirley+N%2E+Dita%2E+2012%2E+Linguistic+research+in+the+Philippines%3A+Trends%2C+prospects+and+challenges%2E+In+V%2EA%2E+Miralao+%26+J%2EB%2E+Agbisit+%28Eds%2E%29%2C+Philippine+social+sciences%3A+Capacities%2C+direct)
7. Marco De Boni. 2006. Using logical relevance for question answering. Journal of Applied Logic, vol 5, 1: pp. 92-103. https://doi.org/10.1016/ j.jal.2005.12.003 [↗](https://doi.org/10.1016/)
8. Mary W.J. Tay. 1991. Southeast Asia and Hong Kong. In J. Cheshire (Ed.), English around the world: Sociolinguistic perspectives (pp319-332). Cambridge, the United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Mary+W%2EJ%2E+Tay%2E+1991%2E+Southeast+Asia+and+Hong+Kong%2E+In+J%2E+Cheshire+%28Ed%2E%29%2C+English+around+the+world%3A+Sociolinguistic+perspectives+%28pp319%2D332%29%2E+Cambridge%2C+the+United+Kingdom%3A+Cambridge+University+Press%2E)
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10. Pedro G. Raqueño. 1940. A comparative study of the types of errors in English written compositions of Filipino high school students in 1926 and 1936 (Unpublished master’s thesis) . University of the Philippines, Quezon, the Philippines. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Pedro+G%2E+Raque%C3%B1o%2E+1940%2E+A+comparative+study+of+the+types+of+errors+in+English+written+compositions+of+Filipino+high+school+students+in+1926+and+1936+%28Unpublished+master%E2%80%99s+thesis%29+%2E+University+of+the+P)
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12. Vacide Erdogan. 2005. Contribution of error analysis to foreign language teaching. Mersin Üniversitesi Eğiitim Fakültesi Dergisi, vol 1, 2: pp 261–270. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Vacide+Erdogan%2E+2005%2E+Contribution+of+error+analysis+to+foreign+language+teaching%2E+Mersin+%C3%9Cniversitesi+E%C4%9Fiitim+Fak%C3%BCltesi+Dergisi%2C+vol+1%2C+2%3A+pp+261%E2%80%93270%2E)

*Updated 2 November 2026*