Metalinguistic Awareness, Language Attitude, and Pragmatic Competence of Education Students: Input to Building Language Competence Module

Abstract

This mixed-methods sequential explanatory research study aimed to determine the levels of metalinguistic awareness, language attitude, and pragmatic competence of education students from various State Universities and Colleges (SUCs) in the Province of Iloilo during the academic year 2025–2026. A standardized and validated instrument for metalinguistic awareness, language attitude, and pragmatic competence was administered to collect data from the 277 respondents. Quantitative data were analyzed using frequency, mean, standard deviation, ANOVA, and Pearson r, while qualitative insights were gathered through Focus Group Discussions (FGD) involving ten students and ten teachers to triangulate and enrich the findings. Results revealed that the education students’ levels of metalinguistic awareness, language attitude, and pragmatic competence were all "high." However, one-way ANOVA indicated no significant differences in pragmatic competence among the levels of metalinguistic awareness and language attitude. Furthermore, Pearson r correlation analysis revealed a statistically significant relationship between metalinguistic awareness and language attitude; conversely, no significant relationship was found between metalinguistic awareness and pragmatic competence, nor between language attitude and pragmatic competence.