Speakers
Description
English is widely used in the Philippines as an additional and co‑official language alongside the official language Filipino and more than 150 indigenous languages. People across the Philippines are typically bilingual in Filipino and English in northern Luzon, or trilingual in Filipino, English, and Cebuano in the central and southern parts of the country (Visayas, Mindanao). Moreover, English plays a central role in education making English proficiency critical for academic success. Despite this, little is known about how generational and home‑based language practices shape English proficiency, especially among young adults. This study examines the English proficiency of 624 undergraduates from four universities in Cebu City to identify which generational factors best predict English proficiency. The port town of Cebu City is the most important municipality in the Visayas.
Data were collected through a large sociolinguistic survey measuring listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills, each captured on six-point Likert scales. Predictor variables include demographic factors (age and gender), educational background (pri-vate vs. public), university affiliation, medium of instruction, home language, parental level of education, and English use with family members (parents, grandparents, sib-lings) and peers. Bayesian modelling was applied to both complete cases (n = 502) and to multiply imputed datasets using predictive mean matching (n = 624), with imputation improving estimate reliability.
Results show that English use within the family strongly predicts proficiency across all four skill domains. Interacting in English with parents, siblings, and grandpar-ents, as well as having English as a home language, substantially increases proficiency. English home language use had the biggest impact on speaking abilities. In contrast, age, gender, school background, university affiliation, medium of instruction, and Eng-lish use with best friends exert little influence. These findings highlight the central role of family language practices in fostering English proficiency, suggesting that home‑based exposure may be more influential than institutional factors in this student population.