Difficulties Encountered by Freshmen Education Students in Speaking the English Language

Abstract

This study aimed to determine the difficulties encountered by freshmen education students in speaking the English language in one of the universities in a highly urbanized city in Central Philippines during the school year 2023-2024. The descriptive research design was used. The data needed for this study was collected from 181 freshmen education students using a self-made questionnaire that passed the validity and reliability using stratified random sampling and the Cochran formula. Overall, the difficulties freshmen education students encountered in speaking the English language according to the area of social, linguistic, and environmental were moderate levels while the area of personal were in high level. The study reveals that there was no significant difference between the difficulties encountered by freshmen Education students in speaking the English language according to the area of personal social, linguistic, and environmental in personal when grouped according to age, sex, average family income, school of origin, and program. On the other hand, there was a significant difference between the difficulties encountered by freshmen Education students in speaking the English language in linguistic when grouped according to average family income. This study calls for an implementation of confidence-building programs, peer mentoring, language-enhancing technologies, and improved access to learning environments.