






































Sebuah Kajian Pustaka:


English Language Teaching Educational Journal (ELTEJ) 
Vol. 2, No 3, 2019, pp. 102-111 
E-ISSN: 2621-6485  

  

Metalinguistic Awareness of Multilingual First Graders:  

An Exploratory Study  

 
1Irish Mae Fernandez-Dalona, 2Alvert Dalona  

1,2 MSU-Iligan Institute of Technology, Iligan City, Philippines,  
 

irishmae.fernandez@g.msuiit.edu.ph 
alvert.dalona@g.msuiit.edu.ph 

 
Abstract 

This study, which utilized a modified metalinguistic awareness test adopted from Dita’s (2009), probed on 

young children’s metalinguistic awareness in identifying syntactic errors; determining sounds and the use of 

phonological segments; and explaining a word on their own by describing its appearance or its functions in 

English, Filipino, and Cebuano. This study attempted to elucidate young children’s readiness to take on more 

difficult linguistic tasks in the succeeding academic levels. Since the children’s level of metalinguistic 

awareness is average, this study recommends that schools are encouraged to provide strategies and lessons 

that would enhance learners’ metalinguistic awareness, most especially in terms of language arbitrariness in 

English and Filipino; and since there is significant difference in all three languages in all tests, parents and 

teachers should ensure that the pupils achieve full proficiency in all three languages by providing rich 

experiences equally in these languages. 

Keywords: metalinguistic awareness, bilingualism, multilingualism 
  

How to Cite: Dalona, I.M.F. & Dalona, A. (2019). Metalinguistic awareness of multilingual first graders: An 

exploratory study. English Language Teaching Education Journal, 2(3), 102-111 

 

INTRODUCTION  

Bilingual/Multilingual Education has been the subject of never ending debate as to its 

possible harm or gain. One of the strongest defenses to promoting bilingualism/ 

multilingualism is that “in contrast to monolinguals, bilinguals develop communicative 

sensibility, creativity and metalinguistic awareness” (Goetz, 2003). Metalinguistic awareness 

refers to an individual’s understanding that language is a system of communication, which 

follows certain rules; and the rules become the basis for the ability to discuss different ways to 

use language (Baten, Hofman & Loeys, 2011). An individual with such ability is aware that 

linguistic forms and structure can be framed and manipulated to communicate a variety of 

meanings. In Thailand, a study was conducted to test children’s metalinguistic awareness to 

determine whether bilingualism inhibit their learning or not. The study shows that 

monolinguals and sequential bilinguals do not differ. Importantly, bilingualism does not affect 

the development of their first language (L1). 

In the present educational system in the Philippines, young school-age children are 

tasked to read and write in English and Filipino, the Philippine’s national language. This can 

pose a bigger challenge to those whose first language is neither Filipino nor English. Dita 

(2009) conducted a study in the northern part of Philippines to test the metalinguistic awareness 

of Filipino bilingual children, foci of which is on: (a) Language Arbitrariness, which demands 

the ability of a person to recognize correct syntactic errors; (b) Phonological Awareness, which 

demands the capability of a person to identify sounds and use phonological segments; and (c) 

Vocabulary, which demands the ability of a person to explain a word on his own by describing 

its appearance or its functions. Her investigation revealed that full bilinguals outscored the 

partial bilinguals in the entire test conducted suggesting that those children who were proficient 

on two or more languages perform multilingual tasks better than the monolinguals.  

Since the Philippines is now facing a new educational system which supports the use of 

mother languages, and classes are getting more culturally and linguistically diverse, schools 

should discern whether learner’s knowledge is adequate to face the demands of the succeeding 

academic levels. This, therefore, motivated the researchers to conceptualize this study, which 

particularly focuses on bilingual children in an Elementary School in Davao City, Philippines, 

which is home to various linguistic communities, especially Cebuano, and where English and 

Filipino are encouraged mediums of  instruction in schools.  

Specifically, this is sought to provide answers to the following:  

1. What is the level of students’ Metalinguistic awareness in English, Filipino and 

Cebuano? 

mailto:irishmae.fernandez@g.msuiit.edu.ph
mailto:alvert.dalona@g.msuiit.edu.ph


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2. Is there a significant difference between the students’ level of metalinguistic awareness 

in English, Filipino, and Cebuano in terms of language arbitrariness, phonological 

awareness, and vocabulary?  

3. What can be deduced about language instruction at the basic education level in the 

country?  

This study is deemed important as it shed light on the linguistic proficiency of young 

learners and their capacity to perform linguistic tasks as they continue their academic pursuits.  

Bilingualism is the ability of a person to speak two languages: the frequent oral use of 

two languages and multilingual ability of a person to use several languages. However, the 

distinction of multilingualism and bilingualism has been greatly argued.  In the study of 

Wachira (2006) on the multilingualism in Kenya she discussed the relevance of multilingualism 

and bilingualism. She cited that bilingualism occurs when a given society two or more 

languages are spoken. As cited in Grosjean and Li (2013), Haugen (1956) defines a bilingual, 

as a “bilinguist” or as one who knows two languages or more than two (languages). Some refer 

to them as a pluralingual, a multilingual, or a polyglot. Therefore, based on this definition, 

bilinguals and multilinguals are technically the same, i.e. those who can use more than one 

language. As defined by Grosjean and Li (2013), bilingualism is a regular use of two (or more) 

languages. Thus, bilingualism and multilingualism have similar concepts. An individual who 

has the capacity to function in two or more languages in muticultural communities at an equal 

level of proficiency with native speakers and in accordance with the sociocultural demands for 

communicative and cognitive competence by these communities, (Skutnabb-Kangas, 1984), 

can either be a bilingual or a multilingual.  

Metalinguistic awareness, on the other hand, is the ability of an individual to analyze the 

subparts of any language, and to understand how every component of a language operates and 

how they are incorporated into the wider linguistic system (Beceren, 2010). According to 

Tunmer and Cole (1985), in Hill (1998), metalinguistic awareness is the ability to deliberately 

reflect on and manipulate the structural features of spoken language. That is, people who 

understand the nature of language rather than the ability to use language to communicate 

meaning are said to possess metalinguistic awareness. Metalinguistic awareness, therefore, 

refers to the ability of a person to consciously reflect on the nature of language using the 

following skills: (a) an awareness that language is more than just a collection of simple 

symbols, (b) an awareness that words are separable from their referents, and (c) an awareness 

that languages has a structure that can be manipulated. 

Donaldson (2013) argues that metalinguistic awareness is essential in the development of 

reading skills in young children and a vital component in the development of learner’s 

cognitive skills because of its documented relation to language ability, symbolic development 

and literacy skills according to Bialystok (2011). Among the popular concepts in the study of 

bilingualism is metalinguistic awareness, which could refer to learners’ awareness of the 

language’s phonological, morphological, syntactic systems and pragmatics (Tunmer, Herriman, 

& Nesdale, 1988). Amongst the four, phonological and word awareness are the two aspects of 

metalinguistic awareness that have gained the greatest attention in bilingual literacy research. 

Metalinguistic awareness in bilingualism is that, a person has the ability to objectify outside 

one language system and languages’ rules, functions and structures.  Studies reveal that when 

bilinguals have profound linguistic experience in two different language systems, they develop 

an articulated understanding of how languages work (Adesope, et al., 2010).  

Bialystok and Barac (2012) related the degree of bilingualism, those who are proficient in 

two or more languages and those who are not, to aspects of linguistic awareness in terms of 

their demands on analysis of knowledge. Two studies are reported in which the respondents 

differ in the level of bilingualism to solve a metalinguistic task that made demands on their 

analysis and control. The hypotheses were that all bilinguals would perform better that those 

who are monolinguals in all metalinguistic tasks requiring high levels of control of processing 

and that full bilinguals would perform better than those who are partial bilinguals in all 

Metalinguistic task requiring high levels of analysis of knowledge. The results were largely 

consistent with these predictions. Galambos and Goldin-Meadow (1990) believe that 

experiencing two languages hastens the development of metalinguistic skills of young children. 

And so, bilingualism of the children is associated with their cognitive skills that are influenced 

by immediate speech community and media (Bialystok, 2011; Baker, 1996).  

The theory of Cromdal (1999) emphasizes that children demonstrate syntactic awareness 

when they have sufficient levels on receptive vocabulary. That is, bilingual children who have 

higher combined perceptive vocabulary eventually outscored their less proficient bilingual 

peers in terms of syntactic measure. Wachira (1986) in Bialystok and Barac (2012) also cited 

an advantage of bilingualism, which states that since bilingual children have words in different 

languages to refer in a same thing, they can easily grasp the arbitrariness of a word and its 



 

 

 

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referent, and can understand the sound of a word even if it has no relation with the meaning. 

While in terms of phonology bilinguals according to Yelland, Pollard, and Mercuri (1993) that 

limited exposure to second languages will result in phonological advantage. However, it may 

not be bilingualism alone, since languages affect the children’s metalinguistic awareness, 

particularly, in terms of their awareness to the language’s syntactic pattern. The importance of 

the learners’ awareness to the language is also confirmed in the previous study. Surwanti and 

Hikmah (2019) revealed that students reading comprehension and language mastery are the 

other matters to be considered in the success of understanding the meaning of a reading text. 

In the theory of Peal and Lambert (1962) in which they emphasized that bilinguals are 

based on the relationship between the proficiencies or awareness of the respective language that 

bilinguals master. That balance bilinguals are those who acquire similar degrees of proficiency 

of both languages while unbalance bilinguals are those whose proficiency or awareness in one 

language is higher than that of the other languages. 

Flood and Menyuk (1983) indicated that reading achievement and age were positively 

related with metalinguistic ability. In their study, subjects were tested on non-grammatical, 

anomalous and ambiguous stimulus items in sentences and passages. It was found out that they 

were better to judge than to produce correct forms. Good readers’ performance on oral tasks 

equaled their performance on written tasks by adulthood. Mora (2009) exclaimed that most 

children between the ages 6 and 8, begin to expand their metalinguistic awareness and start to 

recognize irony and sarcasm. This concept requires the child to understand the subtitles of an 

utterances of social and cultural context. 

Recently, in the study of Dita (2009) on metalinguistic awareness, she used three tests to 

determine the Metalinguistic of Filipino bilingual children. This includes Language 

Arbitrariness, Phonological Awareness, and Vocabulary Knowledge. Dita’s study, however, 

focused only on two languages (English and Filipino), while this study included a regional 

language (Cebuano). 

Language Arbitrariness, according to Eviatar and Ibrahim (2012), imposes high demands 

on the control of attention and the capacity to detect and correct syntactic violations. Since the 

child is expected to suppress the expected answer and stick to the rule of the game, he/she 

would eventually know that language is arbitrary and subjected to change. Edwards and 

Christophersen (1988) reported that bilinguals have better performance in language 

arbitrariness than monolinguals. 

Language is an arbitrary system because there is no significant relationship between the 

words of a given language and the concept it represents. The rules of the combination of signs 

to produce complete thought differ from one language to another and no sets of rules can claim 

the “right” one (Nor & Rashid, 2018). 

Phonological awareness is measured by children’s ability to identify sounds of phonemes 

and to isolate and manipulate phonological segments. There are three versions of this task. The 

first two involve identification of first and last sound, respectively. The third consist of deleting 

a phoneme or a syllable and identifying the sound of the left phoneme or syllable after the 

deletion. It was Eviatar and Ibrahim (2012) who forwarded an extensive body of literature 

which discuss the relationship of phonological awareness to learners’ levels of language 

facility, reading experience, and literacy. 

Children who have well-developed Phonological awareness when it comes to school 

have a head start making sense of how sounds and letters operate into prints. This ability is 

important for using sound-letter effectively in writing and reading (Adams, et al., 2003). 

Vocabulary knowledge is measured by the child’s ability to explain a word on his own, 

drawing either on the function of the word or its general appearance. Vocabulary is a crucial 

tool to express ideas, feelings and learn about the world. Since words are foundation of 

learning, improving one’s vocabulary becomes an educational priority (Massey et al., 2005). 

Limited vocabulary prevents students to comprehend a text. Therefore, vocabulary knowledge 

and academic achievements are strongly connected. 

Eviatar and Ibrahim (2012) investigated the way the degree of difference between the 

linguistic systems influenced Metalinguistic awareness. In the study entitled “Bilingual is as 

bilingual does: Metalinguistic abilities of Arabic-speaking children”, to which one hundred 

sixteen (116) Israeli children participated, it was revealed that there were no differences in the 

scores of Arab children and Russian-Hebrew bilinguals when it comes to arbitrariness. Besides, 

the scores of both groups are significantly different from the scores of Hebrew monolinguals. 

With regard to vocabulary, both Russian-Hebrew bilinguals and Hebrew monolinguals showed 



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105 

a significant difference in their scores comparing the grade 1 and kindergarten. However, no 

improvement took place with Arab children.  

The study conducted by Eviatar and Ibrahim (2012) is related to the proposed study 

because both studies aim to investigate the metalinguistic awareness of 

bilinguals/multilinguals; however, the two studies differ in the respondents involved. The study 

of Eviatar and Ibrahim focused on the Metalinguistic awareness of bilingual and monolingual 

kindergartens and grade 1 pupils who were Hebrew-Russian bilinguals and Russian 

monolinguals while the present study focuses on the Multilingual Pupils of San Roque Central 

Elementary School in Davao City. 

A relevant study was conducted in Thailand by Turbpaiboon and Onsuwan (2011). The 

study compares Thai children’s metalinguistic awareness from different age groups and 

educational backgrounds. It suggested that the metalinguistic awareness of monolinguals and 

those who have sequential bilingualism does not differ. The metalinguistic development seems 

to emerge first age wise in structure meaning domain, then phonological, and lastly lexical. 

Interestingly, at around the ages of five and six, Thai monolinguals and bilinguals show a 

strong level of metalinguistic awareness in structure-meaning domain. They are able to produce 

grammatical sentences and also have the knowledge of syntactic rules. In both educational 

programs, the 8-9 year olds performed significantly better than that of the 5-6 year olds in all 

tasks except for the test on word arbitrariness.   

The study conducted by Turbpaiboon and Onsuwan (2011) is related to the proposed 

study because both studies aim to investigate the metalinguistic awareness among children. 

However, the study differs on the number of languages spoken and chosen respondents because 

the study that was conducted in Thailand has two languages spoken namely: Thai and English 

and focused on children with different age groups 5-6 and 8-9 years old while the present study 

has three languages spoken namely: English, Filipino and Cebuano and will focus on the Grade 

1 pupils with the age range from 6-8 years old. 

In the study of Smith and Tager-Flusberg (1982) on metalinguistic awareness and 

language development”, 36 preschoolers were given six metalinguistic tasks and two measures 

of language development: the Peabody Picture Vocabulary test and a sentence comprehension 

test. The children have been found to perform some metalinguistic judgment and the authors’ 

content that metalinguistic awareness improves with age. 

The study of Smith and Tager-Flusberg is related to the proposed study since both studies 

aim to investigate the metalinguistic awareness among children. However, the studies differ on 

the type of tests and the respondents because the study of Smith and Tager-Flusberg conducted 

6 types of metalinguistic tests and focused on the preschoolers while the present study has 3 

metalinguistic tests and focuses on the Grade 1 pupils.  

Another study was conducted by Maxilom and Tecson (2009), investigating 

metalinguistic awareness of adolescent multilinguals in Cebu City. The results showed that the 

multilinguals who were highly proficient in Cebuano performed best in the control of linguistic 

processing in three languages. In the analysis of linguistic knowledge, the multilinguals who 

were highly proficient in three languages performed better in the error identification while the 

highly proficient in English and Cebuano performed better in the correction and grammatical 

error explanation. 

The study of Maxilom and Tecson is related to the present study. The two studies only 

differ in the respondents and the type of metalinguistic tests given. Maxilom and Tecson 

focused on the metalinguistic awareness of adolescents who underwent error identification, 

correction and explanation while the present study focuses on the metalinguistic awareness of 

grade 1 pupils whose knowledge on Language Arbitrariness test, Phonology and Vocabulary 

will be tested. 

Dita (2009) conducted a study on Metalinguistic awareness among children. The subjects 

were asked to answer three Metalinguistic tests namely: Language arbitrariness, Phonological 

awareness and Vocabulary test. The result shows that those who are full bilinguals outscored 

the partial bilinguals in all three tests conducted.  

This study is related to the present study because both studies aim to investigate the 

Metalinguistic awareness on Filipino bilingual/multilingual children. However, the studies 

differ in their scope and limitation because the study of Dita focused on the kindergarten while 

the present study will focus on the Metalinguistic awareness of Grade 1 pupils in a pilot 

elementary school in Davao City, a city located in the southern part of the country. The 

participants of the present study speak English, Filipino, and Cebuano at home and in school. 

 

 

 

 



 

 

 

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RESEARCH METHOD 

This research followed the purely descriptive quantitative type of research which 

involves collection of quantitative information that can be tabulated along a continuum in 

numerical form, such as scores on a test. This is descriptive since this involves data, culled 

from participants’ scores from an administered test, that can then be organized and tabulated to 

describe (Glass & Hopkins, 1984) the metalinguistic awareness of multilingual pupils in the 

elementary level, specifically on Language Arbitrariness, Phonological Test and Vocabulary. 

The tests are modified from Dita’s (2009) Metalinguistic Awareness test. The study involved 

thirty (30) multilingual learners whose ages range from 6-8 years and enrolled as grade 1 

pupils. 

 

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 

Students’ Level of Metalinguistic Awareness in English, Filipino and Cebuano 

 

 This section shows how students performed in the test written in three languages. 

 

Table 1. Level of Students’ Metalinguistic Awareness in Three Languages 

Metalinguistic Tests 
Language 

Arbitrariness 

Phonological 

Awareness 
Vocabulary Overall 

English 
Mean 5.87 21.13 6.37 20.3 

Level Average High High Average 

Filipino 
Mean 4.9 21.87 7.17 22 

Level Average High High Average 

Cebuano 
Mean 5.97 24.6 7.6 22.32 

Level High Very High High Average 

 

Table 1 shows that in English the multilingual pupils scored average in language 

arbitrariness (with mean score of 5.87), which means pupils were good in detecting syntactic 

violations; while phonological awareness (with a mean score of 21.13) and vocabulary (with a 

mean of 6.37) scored high, which means that they were outstanding in recognizing both initial 

and final phonemes and deletion task in a word and were outstanding in describing the 

functions and appearance of a given word. In Filipino, they scored average in language 

arbitrariness (with the mean score of 4.9), which means they were good in detecting syntactic 

violations; while in phonological awareness (with the mean score of 21.87) and vocabulary 

(with the mean score of 7.17) both scored high, which means that the multilingual pupils were 

outstanding in recognizing both initial and final phonemes and deletion task in a word and in 

describing the functions and appearance of a given word. While in Cebuano, they scored high 

in language arbitrariness (with the mean score of 5. 97) and vocabulary (with the mean score of 

7.6), which means that the pupils were outstanding in detecting syntactic violations and in 

describing the functions and appearance of a given word; while in phonological awareness, the 

pupils scored very high with a mean score of 24.6, which means that they were excellent in 

recognizing both initial and final phonemes and deletion task in a word. 

The results confirmed the study of Cromdal (1999) that children who are proficient on 

receptive vocabulary have better performance in syntactic awareness measure. That is, bilingual 

children who have higher combined perceptive vocabulary eventually outscored their less 

proficient bilingual peers in terms of syntactic measure. This also confirms the study of Smith 

and Tager-Flusberg (1982) which also found out that bilingual children have good level of 

metalinguistic awareness especially in vocabulary.  

And these findings were verified by the present study since all grade 1 multilingual 

pupils were found to be either on the average or high level in language arbitrariness even if they 

are still first graders. The findings also support the contention of Vygotsky (1986) in Bialystok 

and Barac (2012) in the advantage of bilingualism, which states that because bilingual children 

have words in different languages to refer to a same thing, they can easily grasp the 

arbitrariness of a word and its referent, and can understand the sound of a word even if it has no 

relation with the meaning. 

The present study confirms Maxilom and Tecson’s (2009) study. In their study, in terms 

of English and Cebuano, pupils scored high in the Metalinguistic tasks like correction and 

grammatical identification. The findings in the present study also shows that the multilingual 

pupils scored high in English and Cebuano in terms of language arbitrariness. The findings also 

affirmed the theory of Yelland, Pollard, and Mercuri (1993) that even limited exposure to 



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second or third language will result in phonological advantage. However, it may not be 

bilingualism per se, but the finding reminds us that languages affect children’s Metalinguistic 

awareness, particularly, in terms of syntactic awareness, considering that the children’s first 

language/s has/have entirely different syntax compared to English. These findings were 

confirmed by the result of the present study since the grade 1 multilingual pupils were 

established to score high in phonological awareness in all three languages. And so, the 

bilingualism of the children is associated with their cognitive skills that are influenced by the 

immediate speech community and media (Bialystok, 2011; Baker, 1996) since the media of 

today has a big impact on children’s learning most especially in second language learning.  

The result also affirms the theory of Mora (2009) that most children between the ages 6 

and 8, begin to expand their metalinguistic awareness and start to recognize irony and sarcasm. 

This concept requires the child to understand the subtitles of the utterance’s social and cultural 

context. That in this crucial stage of learning, language is not the only factor in learning or 

acquiring vocabulary. The results also support the theory of Galambos and Goldin-Meadow 

(1990) who believe that the experience in two languages hastens the development of 

metalinguistic skills of young children. That is, the difference between languages may also 

affect children’s syntactic awareness and that being bilingual helps detect grammatically 

correct sentences better. And thus, higher receptive vocabulary score in Cebuano does not 

necessarily translate higher syntactic awareness into other languages that they are rarely 

exposed. This is similar with the findings of the present study since the grade 1 multilingual 

respondents got high score in Cebuano, which is their mother tongue, compared to English and 

Filipino. The findings also confirm the study of Dita (2009) in which the pupils scored higher 

in Filipino rather than in Cebuano because of the different exposure and learning in the two 

languages. The results were verified by the present study because they scored higher in their 

mother language, Cebuano, than English and Filipino. 

In the tests conducted to the multilingual pupils, they scored average in all three 

languages. Among the three versions, the grade 1 multilingual pupils got the highest mean of 

22.32 in the Cebuano test; followed by the Filipino version with the mean of 22 and lastly, the 

English test since it recorded the lowest mean of 20.3. This means, in all three tests, the 

multilingual pupils are good in analyzing language and its subparts: the languages’ structure, 

sound pattern, function and appearance. This finding supports the theory of Bialystok (2011) in 

bilingualism or multilingualism that those who are proficient in two or more languages are 

more likely to perform linguistically better than that of monolinguals. That is, it involves 

speakers who have native-like control of a language when they are interacting with other 

people and have as much knowledge and control over language as they have of the other 

languages. From the findings, it could be deduced that overall, the pupils were indeed 

multilinguals and they scored average in all three tests. This proves their control of these three 

languages despite the frequency of exposure. 

 

Statistical Difference of Students’ Level of Metalinguistic Awareness in the Administered 

Tests 

 

 Table 2 shows the difference in the performance of students given the use of different 

languages in the test. 

 

Table 2. Significant Difference between the Students’ level of Metalinguistic Awareness in 

English, Filipino and Cebuano in all Tests 

Metalinguistic Test Language 

Arbitrariness 

Phonological Awareness Vocabulary 

English Sig. Value .000 .011 .075 

Remarks Sig. Different No Sig. Different Sig. Different 

Cebuano  Sig. Value .000 .012 .018 

Remarks Sig. Different Sig. Different Sig. Different 

Filipino Sig. Value .026 .226 .014 

Remarks No Sig. Differ. Sig Different No Sig. Differ. 

 

The findings in the Cebuano test reveals that there is significant difference in terms of 

language arbitrariness (with significant value of .000); phonological awareness (with significant 

value of .012) and vocabulary (with the significant value of .018) since the significant value of 

the mean scores of the grade 1 multilingual pupils was higher than the significant value of 0.05. 

This indicates that the extreme heterogeneity of pupils’ metalinguistic awareness was apparent 

in the Cebuano test, even if it is their native language. This could be due to different exposures 

to the language or to varied linguistic experiences of the grade 1 multilingual pupils when it 



 

 

 

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comes to learning Cebuano. As indicated by their scores, the researcher was able to realize that 

some pupils have enough knowledge while there were others who lack awareness on Cebuano 

language arbitrariness, and vocabulary. 

Based on the result in the English test, the participants’ scores in terms of language 

arbitrariness (with significant value of .000); phonological awareness (with significant value of 

.011), and vocabulary (with the significant value of .075). The mean scores of the grade 1 

multilingual pupils when it comes to language arbitrariness and phonological awareness are 

significantly different since the significant values were less than the significant value of 0.05. 

This means that children has different metalinguistic awareness in language arbitrariness and 

phonological awareness while in terms of vocabulary, children have almost the same level of 

metalinguistic awareness. 

In the Filipino test, on the other hand, the scores of grade 1 multilingual pupils are 

significantly different only when it comes to vocabulary (with significant value of .014). This 

means that they have different Metalinguistic awareness; whereas, in the Filipino test for 

language arbitrariness (with significant value of .026); and phonological awareness (with the 

significant value of 0.226), students’ scores are not significantly different. This implies that in 

terms of language arbitrariness and phonological awareness, the multilingual pupils have 

almost the same metalinguistic awareness. The findings imply that there is no significant 

difference between the learners’ metalinguistic awareness in English and Cebuano in terms of 

language arbitrariness, which confirms the study of Eviatar and Ibrahim (2012) in their study of 

Arab children and Russian-Hebrew bilinguals. The findings also affirm the theory of Peal and 

Lambert (1962) in which they emphasized that bilinguals are based on the relationship between 

the proficiencies or awareness of the respective language that bilinguals master. Balanced 

bilinguals are those who acquire are those who acquire similar degrees of proficiency of both 

languages while unbalanced bilinguals are those whose proficiency or awareness in one 

language is higher than the other languages. This helps explain the significant difference 

between learners’ metalinguistic awareness in three different languages. 

 

Table 3. Significant Difference in the Overall Level of Metalinguistic Awareness  

in English, Filipino and Cebuano 

Metalinguistic Tests Sig. Value Remarks 

English .000 There is significant difference. 

Filipino .000 There is significant difference. 

Cebuano .000 There is significant difference. 

 

Overall, the awareness of multilingual pupils in each language differs from one to 

another. This means further that each student has diverse linguistic experience and that they do 

not have similar exposure to the phonological, morphological, and syntactic structures in 

English, Filipino, and Cebuano.  

This supports the claim of Genesee (2015) that bilingual children can acquire the same 

proficiency in all aspects of their two languages over time. Bilingual children may have 

different patterns of development in certain aspects of language in the short term, but children 

generally acquire the same proficiency in the sound system and morphological-syntactic pattern 

of the two languages, when given sufficient input. Bilingual children's overall proficiency in 

each language reflects the amount of time they spend on each. The theory was verified with the 

result that the grade 1 multilingual pupils have different awareness in each language they were 

proficient based on the exposure they have in the multilingual environment. Parents can ensure 

that their children achieve full proficiency in both languages if they are supportive of the idea 

that children need to be provided with rich experience with each language, especially with the 

language that might otherwise not get strong support in the extended community.  It is, 

therefore, important that parents continue to use their native language so that they expose their 

child to varied and rich ways of using the language. 

In summary, this study reveals that in both English and Filipino, the Grade 1 multilingual 

learners scored average in language arbitrariness and high in phonological and vocabulary; 

while in Cebuano, they scored high in language arbitrariness and vocabulary and very high in 

terms of phonological awareness. The overall level of young school-age children’s 

metalinguistic awareness in English, Filipino, and Cebuano is average when analyzing 

language and its subparts: syntactic structure, sound pattern, function and appearance in all 



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three languages. There is significant difference between the learners’ metalinguistic awareness 

in English and Filipino in all the tests; while in Cebuano, there is no significant difference 

between the learners’ metalinguistic awareness in all three tests. Finally, there is significant 

difference between the overall level of metalinguistic awareness in English, Filipino and 

Cebuano. 

 

CONCLUSION 

This study concludes that Grade 1 multilingual learners still need to improve their 

linguistic experience to English and Filipino particularly in the identification of syntactic errors, 

since they will likewise be using these languages in their succeeding academic endeavors. The 

study further posits that the young school-age children’s metalinguistic awareness in Cebuano 

helps them in fulfilling their linguistic tasks in Filipino and English. Based on the results, the 

study recommends that teachers and curriculum designers can provide strategies and lessons 

that would enhance learners’ metalinguistic awareness most especially in terms of language 

arbitrariness in English and Filipino. Since there is significant difference in English and 

Filipino in all three tests, parents and teachers should ensure that the pupils achieve full 

proficiency in all three languages by providing rich experiences in these languages. And to 

develop this study to know further the factors that would best develop learners’ metalinguistic 

awareness and its impacts to young school-age children’s readiness for other linguistic 

demands. 

 

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