Students' Communication Skills through English-Language Media: A Phenomenological Inquiry

Abstract

This phenomenological inquiry explored the lived experiences of eight purposively selected Humanities and Social Sciences (HUMSS) Senior High School students at Barayong National High School regarding the role of English-language media in shaping their communication skills. Grounded in Mayer’s (2021) Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning and Paivio’s Dual Coding Theory (Clark & Paivio, 1991), the study analysed experiences and perceptions collected through semi-structured interviews. The thematic analysis revealed four major themes detailing the students’ linguistic journeys: Students’ Exposure to English-Language Media, Students’ Encounters Using English-Language Media, Perceived Influence of English-Language Media on Communication Skills, and the Meaning of Students’ Experiences with English-Language Media. The findings demonstrate that digital media platforms serve as powerful, autonomous ‘edutainment’ tools through which students transition from deductive rule memorisation to organic syntactic and phonic internalisation. While navigating cognitive-linguistic barriers such as unfamiliar vocabulary and sophisticated accents, learners adapted through contextual decoding, subtitle scaffolds, and strategic accent mimicry. Consequently, continuous media integration implicitly sharpens conversational fluency, structural accuracy, and semantic differentiation while simultaneously alleviating communicative anxiety and building classroom confidence. Ultimately, HUMSS students ascribe deep existential value to media immersion, viewing it as a vital form of cultural capital and a strategic asset for academic excellence, critical media literacy against misinformation, and long-term global career mobility. Based on these insights, it is recommended that language educators systematically incorporate authentic multimodal media content into formal curricula and that school administrators expand digital infrastructure to optimise self-directed, twenty-first-century communicative competence.