Communicative Competence and Academic Performance in Oral Communication: A Descriptive-Correlational Study Among Filipino Senior High School Learners

Abstract

This descriptive-correlational study examined the relationship between communicative competence and academic performance in Oral Communication in Context, a course in the Senior High School (SHS) curriculum in the Philippines. A total sampling technique was utilized, involving 124 SHS learners as respondents. Specifically, it evaluated the degree of communicative competence across four domains: grammatical, sociolinguistic, discourse, and strategic, and analyzed their relationship with academic performance and demographic variables. The results showed that the respondents exhibited a growing level of communicative competence, with sociolinguistic competence being the highest domain, followed by strategic, discourse, and grammatical competence. Students generally perceived themselves as effective communicators, particularly in adapting language to social and cultural situations and dealing with communication failures, but demonstrated less assurance in grammatical correctness and control of discourse structure. Academic performance (mean = 82.45) revealed that the majority of learners fell into the fairly satisfactory and satisfactory groups, with only a few achieving very satisfactory and outstanding scores. Although the minimum passing norm was achieved, the findings indicate that clarity, fluency, coherence, and academic discourse were not fully mastered. Correlation analysis showed no significant relationship between overall communicative competence and academic performance, except for sociolinguistic competence, which exhibited a statistically significant negative correlation. This implies that perceived sociolinguistic adaptability does not always translate to better academic scores, suggesting the need for performance-based tests to be implemented in conjunction with self-assessments. Furthermore, demographic factors (sex, age, grade level, or language at home) showed no significant impact on communicative competence. The results reestablish that the quality of instruction, classroom discourse, and communicative exposure are more decisive than demographic factors in the development of communicative competence.