Abstract
This descriptive and quantitative study, aligned to the field of ESL Research, investigated senior high school ESL students’ use of metacognition when they are engaged in public speaking in English. It also determined the challenges encountered by the students observed from their actual performance of public speaking. The students’ challenges were generally classified into “types of speech errors” and “gaps in communication skills”. The two main variables of the study are intersected to analyze how certain levels of metacognition relate to the students’ susceptibility to manifest speech errors and gaps in communication skills. The research participants are 44 Grade 11 students of La Paz National High School as of school year 2022-2023. The research population is stratified to reflect equal sex distribution and representations of students with high and low academic aptitude based on their latest grade point average (GPA). Findings reveal that students, of both sexes, and with high and low academic aptitude, use different levels of metacognition when engaged in public speaking in English. Likewise, students, of both sexes, and with high and low academic aptitude, encounter challenges when engaged in public speaking in English, in the form of different speech error types and several gaps in their communication skills. Based on variance analysis, sex and academic aptitude are not significant factors that can differentiate (a) Grade 11 students’ use of metacognition when they are engaged in public speaking in English, and (b) Grade 11 students’ speech errors and gaps in communication skills when they are engaged in public speaking in English. Based on correlational analysis, students with varying levels of metacognition are not prevented from encountering common challenges in their public speaking performance in English, whether these be in the form of speech errors or gaps in their communication skills. The research findings indicate lapses in the students’ use of metacognition, and a list of challenges that they encounter when they are engaged in public speaking in English, inclusive of speech errors and gaps in their communication skills, which entail the use of intervention strategies that are offered in this study to forge improvement along these areas.