Reducing the public speaking anxiety of ESL college students through Popsispeak

It is evident that even students had already English subjects in the primary and secondary years, some of them are afraid to use the English language in the classroom in the tertiary level. They find difficulty in expressing themselves using the said language because of several factors. This study focuses on helping the students face their fear in public speaking, which interferes their oral communication skills. The teacher-researcher introduced an intervention called Popsispeak. This study utilized a one-shot case study. A total of 28 students of Camarines Sur Polytechnic Colleges who were enrolled in the class of the teacher-researcher for the A.Y. 2017-2018 2nd semester served as the respondents of the study. T-test for Dependent Samples was used to determine the significant difference between the pre-test and post-test results of the students’ Personal Report of Public Speaking Anxiety (PRPSA) devised by McCroskey. The same statistical tool was also used in determining the level of oral communication skills of the students before and after the intervention. Pearson’s Correlation was used in determining the relationship between public speaking anxiety and oral communication skills. Also, thematic analysis was utilized in grouping the responses of the students regarding their experiences in the intervention activity. It was found out that Popsispeak is an effective intervention in helping students elevate their oral communication skills and reduce their public speaking anxiety

Analyzing the Story of a Filipino COVID-19 Survivor through Positioning Analysis

COVID-19 has brought so many changes in the world. It is a test of faith and hope to everyone. Many scholars have used different lenses in fields of research in this topic. In language studies, many have zoomed in on this topic in corpus-based linguistics. In discourse analysis, few studies have dealt with this, especially narrative analysis. Using the frameworks of Bamberg (1997) and Barkhuizen (2009), three levels of positioning analysis were unpacked by a COVID-19 survivor’s life story. The first level of positioning answers how the characters positioned themselves concerning the events that happened. On the other hand, the second level of positioning seeks to answer how the characters positioned themselves to the audience. Lastly, the third level of positioning aims to position narrators to themselves. The participant was a student of the researcher who agreed to share his story in this paper. The main character almost lost his life due to COVID-19 and was hospitalized for nearly two weeks. The researcher discovered linguistic elements present during the interview, such as linguistic politeness, transitional devices, metaphors, and discourse particles, that helped the researcher analyze and unpack the three levels of positioning analysis. The actual occurrences that happened to the participant served as a turning point in his experience–from non-believer to believer of COVID-19. The paper further explored how COVID-19 became a test of faith, love, and hope to the participant

ALPAS (ALleviating PAndemic Severity) Through Foresight: Capping the Digital Divide

Everyone has lost their footing due to the pandemic. The academic community was unprepared, leaving both professors and students bewildered and without a sense of direction. The goal at the time was to overcome the calamity of educational discontinuity. Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4 – Education goal aims “to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all” relative to this SDG and the surge of the pandemic, digital divide become prominent, altering the course of educational landscape in all levels across public and private institutions. In the Bicol region, education was delivered in many various forms and variability, predicting the future through strategic foresight could propel the region to a transformed future. This paper discusses in detail the status of education in the region and the possible scenarios using Jim Dator’s Future Scenario Archetypes, Causal Layered Analysis and through Scenario Planning Plus. Four plausible scenarios have surfaced in this paper: STUG-nation of Education, Unstable and Disarray of Educational elements, Flowing-restrained Education, and ORAGON Education. It requires multiple drivers as examined through the PESTEL that includes political, economic, social, technological, environmental, legal aspects. This study proved useful in crafting and anticipating the future scenarios of Bicol Region’s education. Preliminary as it may, this study highlighted important building blocks of future scenarios through foresight methods. Dator’s framework was proved to be very useful in developing the four scenarios, the use of other future study tools will further amplify plausible scenarios for the education of Bicol region and beyond