Philippine E-Journals

Motivational Patterns and Critical Thinking Skills: Influence onEnglish Language Competence of College Freshmen

Catalina P. Martinez

Discipline: Language Arts, Discipline

 

Abstract:

With Bachman’s Organizational Competence model as basis, this study lookedinto the English language competence of the Zamboanga State College ofMarine Sciences and Technology (ZSCMST) tertiary freshman students.It looked into the organizational competence levels of the students in twocategories: grammatical competence and textual competence. Bachman’sLanguage Competence is composed of two major components: organizationalcompetence composed of grammatical competence and textual competenceand pragmatic competence composed of illocutionary competence andsociolinguistic competence. In this study, only organizational competenceis considered and thereby extending the theory that the students’ Englishlanguage competence is influenced by their levels of motivational patternsand critical thinking skills and other variables such as gender, residence,mother tongue, and tri-media exposure to the English language. The sampleconsisted of 192 respondents selected from among the 368 freshman studentsof the BS courses of ZSCMST. The study revealed that the freshman studentswere modest user or average in grammatical competence, competent user orabove average in textual competence, and limited user or below average inparagraph writing sub-skills. The students’ levels of motivational pattern andcritical thinking skills had significant influence on the language competence ofthe students. Other variables such as gender, residence, mother tongue, andtri-media exposure to the English language also showed significant differencein the students’ English language competence.