English in a Post-Pandemic Context: The Case of Multilingual Filipino Day Care Children

Abstract

Day care centers in Zamboanga City in western Mindanao, Philippines use the home language as a medium of communication as they carry out daily lessons for young children through songs, stories, games, and various social activities. Workers at the study’s day care site disclosed that the pandemic has significantly impacted language use among children in the community in favor of English. Internet connection and access to popular programs, particularly YouTube, have provided very young children easy access to English. As guardians and parents were forced to work from home at the height of the pandemic, the home became an extension of work, with most homes having a space for work using a laptop, a tablet, a cellphone, or other similar gadgets. It is within this set-up that children who were born between 2019 and 2020, who grew up within the lockdown period imposed by the deadly spread of COVID-19, and attended day care for the first time when they were around three to four years of age were observed to speak in English. Data from an experimental task where 3–4-year-old children were asked to describe animals using target language forms in Chabacano reveal that young Zamboangueño children spoke English most of the time. Excerpts from the data demonstrate how children generally spoke in English even while the task was delivered primarily in Chabacano. Demographic data and linguistic background of both the children and adults as provided by the parents or guardians of these children through a questionnaire help explain this phenomenon in greater detail. A closer look at the data reveals translanguaging at work among these multilingual children.

1. Introduction

The COVID-19 pandemic forced many schools to respond with drastic measures such as cancellation of classes, school closures, homeschooling, and distance learning for families across the world. These measures against COVID-19 offered a unique opportunity for studying their impact on language development affecting a wide population of children. Studies reveal that interrupted learning affected preschoolers and kindergarteners. Particularly, the need to switch to video applications such as Zoom was a challenging situation especially for these young children (Dotan et al., 2021). Pre-school teachers reported observed developmental delays in verbal language and social communication skills in kindergarten pupils (Erbay & Tarman, 2022). Specifically, young children’s morphological awareness was found to be affected by interruptions in learning (Nevo, 2023), and lower vocabulary levels among children who were exposed to multi-modal linguistic input limited by pervasive wearing of facemasks, lockdowns, and restrictions were also found (Feijoo et al., 2023).

A major aspect of the COVID-19 pandemic is that while social distancing, quarantine, mask-wearing, home confinements, and other similar measures were imposed in many, if not all, parts of the world, shutting the world down, so to speak, the online space never ceased. Shortly after the pandemic broke out in March 2020, communications platforms became common, allowing people to continue working or studying. The online space created by the Internet embraced most aspects of people’s lives amidst the pandemic. It was experienced as being both separate and inseparable from the home (Lee et al., 2023), prompting drastic changes. One such change was found in Norwegian homes, where a unique presence of English was afforded by the families’ online spaces during the pandemic. In García González et al.’s (2023) sociolinguistic survey, 193 multilingual families were assessed on their language beliefs, practices, and management. In addition to overall positive attitudes towards multilingualism as reported by parents, a notable finding revealed a major presence of English in these multilingual families, particularly in children’s speech, during the lockdown as a result of their exposure to online spaces. Children started acquiring English through their parents’ home office, in homeschooling, and in various online activities such as online video games.

Acquisition of English by children and adolescents as a result of watching English language television shows and movies and playing English computer games has been explored, and findings showed incidental and limited use of English (Kuppens, 2010). In the Philippines where families experienced one of the world’s longest and strictest lockdowns (Balagtas See, 2021), it is a curious question about how Filipino children’s exposure to online spaces during the pandemic may have affected their linguistic development.

In this paper, I report the significant presence of English in the speech of 3–4-year-old multilingual children from middle-class Filipino families. These children were attending day care in Zamboanga City, Philippines. They were born around a year before the pandemic broke out, and they were attending structured sessions at the day care center for the first time. Day care in the Philippines is an optional schooling for children, and many families send their children to school starting at kindergarten at which formal schooling begins. Thus, the opportunity to examine language use in these very young children from these backgrounds and who had grown up with online spaces within their homes as a consequence of the pandemic is a unique one.

Further, I report English use alongside the use of home languages among these young multilingual children, reflecting translanguaging. Pawliszko (2023) highlighted the scant literature on children’s translanguaging in the pre-school. In the Philippines, translanguaging research has focused on school-aged children (De Los Reyes, 2019) and older participants in the domains of media, law, and other public spaces, in addition to education (Canilao & De Los Reyes, 2023). This paper adds to the literature from the Philippine multilingual context, documenting young pre-school children’s use of English along with the home languages for meaning-making and communication. In this paper, English refers to the Philippine variety of English, that is, Philippine English.

1.1. English Acquisition and Technology Use During the Pandemic

Research during the COVID-19 pandemic reported changes in the language learning environment of learners induced by the circumstances of the pandemic. One key finding is the increased digital activity among stay-at-home children. Sonnenschein et al. (2021) gathered parents’ reports of their children aged two to nine years about their home learning environment and digital activities at the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis in the United States. Like many contexts, the U.S. closed many schools and childcare centers, prompting stay-at-home practices. From the responses of a total of 162 parents, findings revealed that children regardless of age engaged in at-home digital activities during the pandemic more than before. Specifically, children in first grade and older reported increased digital use significantly more than younger ones. Further analysis yielded a significant correlation between frequency of digital usage and home literacy activities. The study highlighted the role of digital devices in promoting children’s literacy development, particularly the looming impact of virtual learning during school closures and even when children returned to school.

Another finding revealed that the COVID 19 pandemic affected bilingual language proficiency (Sheng et al., 2021). Two matched groups of 38 Mandarin-English bilingual children aged 4–8 years responded to a language environment questionnaire, a sentence comprehension task, and a sentence recall task in the bilingual participants’ languages. One group was tested before the pandemic and the other, during the pandemic. The COVID-19 pandemic was found to have caused changes in the language learning environment of developing bilinguals. Data revealed, for example, that English was found to be stronger than Mandarin in both comprehension and production before COVID-19. During COVID, English and Mandarin were balanced in comprehension, but Mandarin was stronger than English in production. These patterns of bilingual language proficiency demonstrate dynamic changes forced by changes in language use because of the pandemic.

The case of Singapore reports the critical role of digital media in bilingual English-Mandarin children’s home language environment. Sun et al. (2023) revealed that the pandemic affected the amount and frequency of both conventional and digital media resources available to families, taking into account familial socioeconomic status. Survey data from 162 parents of English-Mandarin bilingual preschoolers aged 3 to 6 years revealed that higher socioeconomic status families reported more access to conventional materials, while lower SES families used more digital media, and use of both types increased significantly since COVID-19. Both conventional and digital media materials and activities were richer in English than in Mandarin, thus the language input patterns of these bilingual children showed greater use of English than Mandarin.

1.2. Translanguaging in Pre-School Children

Translanguaging research focusing on pre-school-aged children reveals its potential to enhance language development and to promote inclusivity and empowerment of both children and educators. Narrative skills among children, particularly, are found to improve when the use of their full linguistic repertoire is encouraged in their storytelling experiences. A case study revealed that repeated storytelling to other children in both the child’s languages in English and Spanish enabled them to articulate complete stories in both languages as the child carried out play and drawing (Flynn et al., 2021).

Allowing children from linguistically and culturally diverse communities to use their full linguistic repertoire counters the deficit notion of bilingualism and decenters English-only in pedagogy (Beatty et al., 2021). This practice promotes inclusivity and the use of home languages besides English, paving the way for families to become part of the partnership with schools in children‘s early education. As similarly reported by Dias et al. (2023), a pilot program enabled families to serve as resource persons in professional development programs aimed at developing potentials among emergent bilinguals. Similar other programs such as the one reported by Kirsch and Mortini (2023) revealed that pedagogy and practitioners’ language supportive strategies directed children’s language use and active engagement. Children were found to creatively reproduce routine activities from formulaic speech, for example. Practitioners’ strategy and the use of translanguaging practices are found to be integral in early childhood education. Translingual practices such as code switching, translation, bilingual recasting, and language brokering supported the emergent bilinguals’ participation in classroom language and literary activities (Gort & Sembiante, 2015).

2. Materials and Methods

The present study was part of a larger psycholinguistic multi-country project that sought to describe young children’s expression of with (cum) and without (sine). Children are observed to make commission errors to express language forms such as the absence of something. German children at 2–3 years of age, for example, are found to use two units mit ohne ‘with without’ in expressing absence (Sauerland et al., 2024). Zamboangueño Chabacano-speaking children were tested in the cum-sine experiment to find possible similar patterns of commission errors in their responses. It turned out that children in the present case who were reported to come from Chabacano-speaking families in the community were in fact responding in English as revealed in the course of the experiment. Although the children’s responses were not relevant to the original objectives of the experiment, the experimenter sought to understand why this was so by holding conversations with the parents or guardians and the day care staff and looking at the demographic data.

Data from the child’s responses to a picture naming and description task are central in the present study. To capture children’s speech, the study follows the Codes for the Human Analysis of Transcripts (CHAT). Excerpts from the experiments conducted by the experimenter with each of the five children were transcribed. Special symbols following the CHAT system were used. Some glossing and a free translation in English were added to the transcriptions. Unintelligible child speech was marked with a xxx followed by a special code such as @b for babbling. Overlapping talk is marked by the lazy overlap symbol +<. Retracing was marked by the symbols < > [//]. Question marks indicate questions in rising intonation, exclamation marks indicate strong emotion, and commas indicate pauses in the speech. A dash indicates parts in the speech where words are cut. Square brackets mark non-linguistic sounds such as laughter. The project’s consent forms, information sheets, and demographic questionnaires were used.

2.1. Participants

The participants in this study were a group of five day care children, their parents or guardians, and two day care workers. Two of the children were boys and three were girls. All children were reported to have no language difficulties. All the children were recorded on the same day. Conversations with the parents or guardians and the day care workers transpired in between the experimenter’s sessions with the children.

2.2. Instruments

This study discusses data obtained from an experimental task with 3–4-year-old children from Zamboangueño Chabacano-speaking families. The experiment was a set of animal stimuli shown on a tablet, and the experimenter individually asked each child to name the animals and to describe them. The experiment was carried out by the author (who was also the experimenter) in person at the day care center. The children were invited to the study by word of mouth facilitated by the day care staff. The experimenter sat beside each child at a table where a tablet that contained the stimuli was placed. Some parents or guardians sat nearby or beside their child during the session. A warm-up conversation between the child and the experimenter was also carried out. Both warm-up and main sessions were conducted in Chabacano by the experimenter. The experimenter held conversations with the parents or guardians and the day care workers in between sessions with the children.

A questionnaire collected demographic data from the parents or guardians who accompanied their children to the day care center. The questionnaire collected information about the child, information about the parents, and linguistic background of the child. The questionnaire was written in Chabacano, and the experimenter distributed hard copies of the form to the parents or guardians. For one guardian, the experimenter provided guidance as the questionnaire was being filled out. Responses were then manually recorded on the computer by the experimenter.

2.3. Context of Research

All children were born within the first six months of 2019 (see

Table A1. Demographic information reported by parents or guardians in five children.

Demographics		Mike	Clara	Zane	Mia	Anna
Child demographics	Gender	male	female	male	female	female
	Place of birth	Zamboanga City, Philippines	Lucena City, Philippines	Zamboanga City, Philippines	Zamboanga City, Philippines	Zamboanga City, Philippines
	Birth month	March	January	June	May	March
	Birth year	2019	2019	2019	2019	2019
	Certified hearing difficulties	none	none	none	none	none
	Certified speaking difficulties	none	none	none	none	none
	Number of child’s siblings	1	no data	2	0	1
	Number of family members living with the child	4	4	14	3	6
	Age when the child started to speak	0;3	1;3	2;6	1;0	1;0
	Age of child at data collection	3;9	3;11	3;6	3;8	3;9
	Languages the child is exposed to	English Chabacano Tausug Tagalog	English Tagalog Chabacano	English Tagalog Chabacano Bisaya	Chabacano Bisaya Tagalog English	English Tagalog Chabacano
	The child speaks and understands English	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes
	The child speaks and understands Chabacano	understands only	understands only	understands only	yes	understands only
	The child speaks and understands Tagalog	yes	yes	yes	understands only	yes
	Contexts and frequency of the child’s English use (passive and active)	Child and mother speaking to each other	Child and mother speaking to each other	Child and mother speaking to each other	Child and mother speaking to each other	Child and mother speaking to each other
		(rarely)	(always)	(always)	(rarely)	(always)
		Child and father speaking to each other	Child and father speaking to each other	Child and father speaking to each other	Child and father speaking to each other	Child and father speaking to each other
		(rarely)	(always)	(always)	(rarely)	(always)
		Child and siblings speaking to each other	Child and siblings speaking to each other	Child and siblings speaking to each other	Child and siblings speaking to each other	Child and siblings speaking to each other
		(always)	(always)	(always)	(not applicable)	(always)
		Child and relatives speaking to each other	Child and relatives speaking to each other	Child and relatives speaking to each other	Child and relatives speaking to each other	Child and relatives speaking to each other
		(always)	(always)	(often)	(rarely)	(always)
		At school	At school	At school	At school	At school
		(always)	(always)	(often)	(often)	(always)
		Child and non-relatives speaking to each other	Child and non-relatives speaking to each other	Child and non-relatives speaking to each other	Child and non-relatives speaking to each other	Child and non-relatives speaking to each other
		(rarely)	(always)	(half of the time)	(rarely)	(always)
		Conversations in other contexts	Conversations in other contexts	Conversations in other contexts	Conversations in other contexts	Conversations in other contexts
		(rarely)	(always)	(always)	(rarely)	(always)
		When the child is reading or listening to stories	When the child is reading or listening to stories	When the child is reading or listening to stories	When the child is reading or listening to stories	When the child is reading or listening to stories
		(rarely)	(always)	(always)	(rarely)	(always)
		When the child watches television or videos	When the child watches television or videos	When the child watches television or videos	When the child watches television or videos	When the child watches television or videos
		(rarely)	(always)	(always)	(rarely)	(always)
		When the child plays video games	When the child plays video games	When the child plays video games	When the child plays video games	When the child plays video games
		(always)	(always)	(always)	(always)	(always)
	Contexts and frequency of the child’s Chabacano use (passive and active)	Child and mother speaking to each other	Child and mother speaking to each other	Child and mother speaking to each other	Child and mother speaking to each other	Child and mother speaking to each other
		(rarely)	(half of the time)	(often)	(always)	(rarely)
		Child and father speaking to each other	Child and father speaking to each other	Child and father speaking to each other	Child and father speaking to each other	Child and father speaking to each other
		(rarely)	(never)	(rarely)	(always)	(rarely)
		Child and siblings speaking to each other	Child and siblings speaking to each other	Child and siblings speaking to each other	Child and siblings speaking to each other	Child and siblings speaking to each other
		(always)	(half of the time)	(rarely)	(not applicable)	(always)
		Child and relatives speaking to each other	Child and relatives speaking to each other	Child and relatives speaking to each other	Child and relatives speaking to each other	Child and relatives speaking to each other
		(always)	(half of the time)	(always)	(rarely)	(always)
		At school	At school	At school	At school	At school
		(always)	(half of the time)	(always)	(always)	(always)
		Child and non-relatives speaking to each other	Child and non-relatives speaking to each other	Child and non-relatives speaking to each other	Child and non-relatives speaking to each other	Child and non-relatives speaking to each other
		(rarely)	(half of the time)	(always)	(rarely)	(rarely)
		Conversations in other contexts	Conversations in other contexts	Conversations in other contexts	Conversations in other contexts	Conversations in other contexts
		(rarely)	(half of the time)	(rarely)	(rarely)	(rarely)
		When the child is reading or listening to stories	When the child is reading or listening to stories	When the child is reading or listening to stories	When the child is reading or listening to stories	When the child is reading or listening to stories
		(rarely)	(half of the time)	(half of the time)	(rarely)	(rarely)
		When the child watches television or videos	When the child watches television or videos	When the child watches television or videos	When the child watches television or videos	When the child watches television or videos
		(rarely)	(half of the time)	(half of the time)	(rarely)	(rarely)
		When the child plays video games	When the child plays video games	When the child plays video games	When the child plays video games	When the child plays video games
		(rarely)	(half of the time)	(rarely)	(rarely)	(never)
	Contexts and frequency of the child’s Tagalog use (passive and active)	Child and mother speaking to each other	Child and mother speaking to each other	Child and mother speaking to each other	Child and mother speaking to each other	Child and mother speaking to each other
		(rarely)	(always)	(half of the time)	(always)	(always)
		Child and father speaking to each other	Child and father speaking to each other	Child and father speaking to each other	Child and father speaking to each other	Child and father speaking to each other
		(rarely)	(always)	(rarely)	(always)	(always)
		Child and siblings speaking to each other	Child and siblings speaking to each other	Child and siblings speaking to each other	Child and siblings speaking to each other	Child and siblings speaking to each other
		(always)	(always)	(half of the time)	(not applicable)	(always)
		Child and relatives speaking to each other	Child and relatives speaking to each other	Child and relatives speaking to each other	Child and relatives speaking to each other	Child and relatives speaking to each other
		(always)	(half of the time)	(always)	(rarely)	(always)
		At school	At school	At school	At school	At school
		(always)	(always)	(rarely)	(always)	(always)
		Child and non-relatives speaking to each other	Child and non-relatives speaking to each other	Child and non-relatives speaking to each other	Child and non-relatives speaking to each other	Child and non-relatives speaking to each other
		(rarely)	(always)	(half of the time)	(rarely)	(always)
		Conversations in other contexts	Conversations in other contexts	Conversations in other contexts	Conversations in other contexts	Conversations in other contexts
		(rarely)	(always)	(rarely)	(rarely)	(always)
		When the child is reading or listening to stories	When the child is reading or listening to stories	When the child is reading or listening to stories	When the child is reading or listening to stories	When the child is reading or listening to stories
		(rarely)	(always)	(half of the time)	(rarely)	(always)
		When the child watches television or videos	When the child watches television or videos	When the child watches television or videos	When the child watches television or videos	When the child watches television or videos
		(rarely)	(always)	(half of the time)	(rarely)	(almost always)
		When the child plays video games	When the child plays video games	When the child plays video games	When the child plays video games	When the child plays video games
		(rarely)	(always)	(rarely)	(rarely)	(half of the time)
Family demographics	Guardian 1 (or mother) place of birth	Zamboanga City, Philippines	Zamboanga City, Philippines	Zamboanga City, Philippines	Zamboanga City, Philippines	Zamboanga City, Philippines
	Guardian 2 (or father) place of birth	Aparri, Philippines	Marinduque, Philippines	Jolo, Philippines	Zamboanga City, Philippines	Jolo, Philippines
	Guardian 1 highest level of education	college	College	college	secondary school	college
	Guardian 2 highest level of education	college	college	college	college	college
	Guardian 1 languages spoken and level	Chabacano	Chabacano	Chabacano	Chabacano	Chabacano
		(good)	(excellent)	(excellent)	(excellent)	(excellent)
		Tausug	Tagalog	Tausug	Bisaya	Bisaya
		(good)	(excellent)	(excellent)	(medium)	(excellent)
		English	English	Bisaya	English	Tausug
		(good)	(excellent)	(excellent)	(medium)	(excellent)
	Guardian 2 languages spoken and level	Chabacano	Chabacano	Chabacano	Chabacano	Chabacano
		(good)	(basic)	(basic)	(medium)	(medium)
		Tausug	Tagalog	Tausug	Bisaya	Bisaya
		(good)	(excellent)	(excellent)	(excellent)	(medium)
		English	English	Bisaya	English	Tausug
		(good)	(excellent)	(medium)	(good)	(excellent)

). Being born between 2019 and 2020, these children are described to be in a post-pandemic context (Feijoo et al., 2023). At the time of the data collection in 2022, they were between three to four years of age. Thus, the major part of their first three to four years of life was spent within the home as imposed by the strict lockdowns and social distancing that occurred in the Philippines at the beginning of March 2020. From thereon, varying types and degrees of quarantine measures were imposed in the country, ceasing only in March 2022 with mandatory vaccination and wearing of face masks outdoors and in indoor activities still in place (Favila, 2022). At the day care, the children were attending structured and socialization sessions for the first time.

All except one of the children were born in Zamboanga City. All the children were reported to be speaking Zamboangueño Chabacano, English, and Tagalog in the home. Zamboangueño Chabacano is the most vibrant of the Spanish-based Creole varieties spoken in the Philippines (Rubino, 2008), while English and Tagalog are the official national languages. One child also spoke Tausug, and two children spoke Bisaya. These are regional languages. The children were reported to have started speaking between three months of age to two years and six months. The majority of the children were reported to have started speaking at least within their first year.

The mothers in this group were all born in Zamboanga City, while the fathers varied in their birthplace. Three were born in Jolo, one in Zamboanga City, one in Aparri, and one in Marinduque. These are areas that speak a local language, in addition to Tagalog and English. This suggests that the parents were themselves multilingual. All parents from both sexes except one mother reported to have finished college. The lone mother without a college degree finished secondary school.

Parents or guardians who accomplished the demographic questionnaire at the time data were collected reported mixed levels in their ability in the languages that they spoke. Four out of ten reported to have excellent language ability in Chabacano. Two out of ten reported to have an excellent level of English. Similarly, out of ten parents or guardians, two reported excellent level of ability in Tagalog. All children in this group were reported to be able to both speak and understand English, while they were reported to vary in ability to speak and to understand Chabacano and Tagalog.

3. Results

3.1. Presence of English in Children’s Responses

An experimental task with 3–4-year-old children from Zamboangueño-speaking families revealed the presence of English in these children. Children were asked to describe animal stimuli using target language forms in Chabacano. In this data set, children responded almost completely in English even when the experiment was carried out mainly in Chabacano and even if the experimenter provided prompts primarily in Chabacano. The data offer interesting insights into the presence of English among multilingual children born around the pandemic.

To exemplify, I feature excerpts from three children’s data where the experimenter (E) and the child (C) are carrying out the practice trials of the experiment. Utterances in Chabacano and child-specific speech is accompanied by a free translation in English with some grammatical description. This is presented in italics. The child’s featured examples in English are presented in bold. Mike (3;9) shows the use of the nominal predicate in English with a missing referent. Examples are ‘is dog’ in (1) and ‘is pig’ in (2).

(1)	E: kosa animal ta enseña el mano
		what animal is the hand pointing at
	C: cat
	E: mmm-hm
	E: este
		this
	C: ahm is dog
(2)	E: este
		this
	C: ahm is pig!

Example (3) shows the child’s ability to express an almost complete sentence in English such as ‘rabbit is a bunny’, missing only a determiner in the referent such as ‘a/the rabbit’.

(3)	E: na este
		PART this
	C: ahm is wabit
				rabbit
	E: rabbit very good
	E: na este
		PART this
	C:		+< rabbit is a bunny

Mike also expresses interrogatives in English as in this example in (4) wat dis ‘what this’ with a missing auxiliary after the interrogative pronoun what. The child repeats the question in the same line with a subtle change in phoneme.

(4)	E: este
		this
	C: eh wat dis wit dis?
			what this what this

Mike also demonstrates the expression in English of a noun phrase with a modifier and a head noun and pluralization on the head noun as in ‘two pigs’ in (5). In the same example, we find another example of a nominal predicate with a modifier introducing the noun and an article introducing the modifier as in ‘is a kismas [Christmas] pig’.

(5)	E: na ara tu, chene dos puerko nu?
			PART now you, there are two pigs right?
	C: ahm two pigs
	E: two pigs
	E: o na este o mira tu, kosa puerko este
			PART this PART you look, what pig is this
	C:			+< two pigs	+< is a kismas
	E: mira tu
		you look
	C: is a kismas pig
	E: ahh Christmas pig

Further, negation in the predication is demonstrated in (6)–(8). Although these constructions are ungrammatical in standard English, these show how the child expresses in English the sense of negation as depicted in the stimuli. In these examples, both the referent and the predication are clear, negation is expressed in the predication, and particularly in (8), we find the adverbial too to express addition in the predication as in ‘[the dog] is missing [a] hat too’.

(6)	E: este mira tu
		this you look
	C: rabbit is missing
	C: rabbit is no more hat
(7)	E: este
		this
	C: cat is missing
	C: cat is no more hat
(8)	E: na este kosa man este
		PART this what PART is this
	C: ahm dog is have a kismas, is have a no hat
	E: ahh wow, este
					this
	C: is missing hat
	E: ahh si
				yes
	E: este
			this
	C: is missing hat too

Meanwhile, Clara (3;11) demonstrates ease in expressing coordination in noun phrases in English such as ‘cat and dog’, ‘bear and rabbit’, and ‘pig and mouse’.

(9)	E: kosa animal ta enseña el mano?
		what animal is the animal pointing at?
	E: kosaste?
		what is this?
	E: kosaste olet?
		what is this again?
	C:		+< cat
	E: cat okay
	C: cat en dog
		cat and dog
	E: cat and dog
	E: na este kosaste
		PART this what is this
	C: bear en en rabit
		bear and and rabbit
	E: ahh wow
	E: este
		this
	C: pig en mouse
		pig and mouse
	E: ahh wow bale
				nice
	E: kore gayod
		very fast
	E: na ara tu, chene kita dos pwerko no?
		PART you now, we have two pigs right?
	C:				+< pig en pig
						pig and pig

Zane (3;6) demonstrates proficient use of English. He shows ease in responding with the affirmative yes to a yes-no question posed in Chabacano, naming animal stimuli in English and expressing a complete sentence such as cat is gato (gato is the local term for cat).

(10)
E: kiere-kiere tu mga animal?
	Do you like animals?
C: yes
E: ayy uy
	INTERJ PART
E: o mira daw kita ah
	PART let’s see PART
E: aki na huego ta mira kita manada klase de animal
	in this game we see many kinds of animals
C: too many?
E: si
	yes
E: kosa animal este
	what animal is this
C: hmm cat
E: ayy
	INTERJ
E: na ta mira tu ste mano?
	PART do you see this hand?
C: hmm, gato
E: si
	yes
C: +< cat ih gato
		cat is gato
E: ah very good, cat is gato
			cat

He also expresses longer sentences with arguments that express clear semantic roles such as the exemplification below.

(11)

I

tro

dat

dog

on

da

boy yuching slipes en diapes

1SG.NOM

throw

DEM

ACC

LOC

DET

using slippers and diapers

‘I throw that dog on the boy using slippers and diapers.’

Although the sense in sentence (11) is incredible, it is easy to identify the arguments through the words that introduce the phrases, which are discernible from the child’s utterance. Notable is the locative and instrument arguments that help express complex ideas for the 3-year-old.

In all these examples from three children, we note that the experimenter mainly used Chabacano, only providing familiar compliments in English at some points to sustain the child’s interest or repeating the child’s responses. The use of Chabacano in the entirety of the task was intended to draw out the target language forms in Chabacano from the child. Despite this protocol, the children generally responded in English.

These examples contrast data from another community located at the farthest end of the city where internet connection is existent but intermittent or slow. A group of 40 children share similar demographic characteristics with the present case. They were recorded either at a local school or their homes. Some children were observed to name some animals with familiar English terms such as ‘rabbit’, but other than picture naming, they all responded to Chabacano prompt in Chabacano as well. Below is an excerpt from one child, Sam (3;4).

(12)
C: chene dos biyu
	have  two dog
E: +< o este dos iru si bueno
	here this dog yes good
C: +< iru
	dog
E: +< kosa iru este
	what dog is this
C: oto  te
	bear this
E: +< o bueno
	good
C: nay  ala  patosh
	NEG  3SG.NOM  shoe
E: o aki dos oso
	here here two bears
C: +< dos ocho
	two bear
E: kosa oso este
	what bear is this
C: kota te
	what this
E: ha
	what is it again
C: poto
	bear
E: +< o este mira tu o pati este
	here this you look here and this
C: pati te poto
	and this bear

3.2. Adults’ Viewpoints

If the parents in this case do not speak English as well or as frequently as their children do, we are left wondering where these young children take their English from. It is highly unlikely that they picked it up elsewhere outside the home as they were growing up due to the obvious physical constraints of the lockdowns and the extended social distancing through the pandemic. The demographic data also reveal that in contexts where language is used actively or passively by the child, the context where English is always used by all the five children is when the child is playing video games on a gadget. Guardians confirmed this finding during their conversations with the experimenter.

In the case of Clara, the mother speaks mostly Chabacano and the father speaks mostly Tagalog. The child is reported to speak in English even while neither parent spoke English that frequently. Asked why they thought their child speaks English strongly, the guardian revealed that the child was exposed to educational shows on television that were mostly in English and to YouTube shows on the cellphone. Their child reportedly was exposed to television and gadgets especially during the early years of the pandemic, particularly during the long lockdown periods imposed in the country.

Similarly, the guardian of Zane reported that the family spoke Chabacano frequently at home. The guardian is Tausug by ethnicity and speaks Chabacano with her husband and her two older children. It is only with the youngest that all members of the family speak in English. Asked why, the guardian said that at the height of the pandemic during which the child was still small, he was exposed to YouTube shows in English. Hence, he picked up English as he was growing up. The following excerpt from the experimenter’s conversation with the guardian (G) is shown below.

(13)

G: kame na kasa mam Chabacano gayod tan kwento adentro, kunele lang ta keda otro

in the home ma’am we really speak Chabacano, it’s only with him that is different

E:

+< hmm ansina

ahh

is that right

G: kay ya keda le grande ya aprende le man-talk kwan ya gayod, English le tan kwento

because he grew up he learned to speak whatchamacallit already (in English), he speaks English

E:

+< ah porke ga se mam

why is that so ma’am

G: na ano mam, YouTube

because of what ma’am, YouTube

E: ahh de <este pang> // este lang pandemic?

only this pandemic?

G:

+< pandemic si, selpon, no puede man sale, selpon lang le pirmi,

pandemic yes, cellphone, it’s not possible for him to go out, he spends

much time on the cellphone

G: hinde tamen ta sale kasa

he does not go out of the house either

Additionally, the cellphone performed multiple roles in this household. Apart from being a communication tool and providing language input to the child, it also became the toddler’s pacifier when he was upset. Whenever the child showed some desire to go outside the house and would cry because he was not allowed to, the parents gave him the cellphone where he would watch YouTube shows. The mother further recounted that her older children also used gadgets to entertain themselves because they were not permitted leave the house either. Thus, the phone became an essential tool in the home.

The day care workers also shared the observation that the pandemic significantly altered day care children’s language use to a presence of English. They squarely identified television shows in English and YouTube shows to have greatly influenced young children’s English language use.

3.3. Translanguaging Among Children

While the earlier examples reveal the presence of English in these young children’s speech, they also reveal the use of the home languages. The data demonstrate translanguaging among these pre-school children, providing rare evidence that young Filipino multilingual speakers use their entire linguistic repertoire composed of both English and their home languages to make meaning and to communicate. To exemplify, Zane demonstrates a fluid use of two codes in the line pede I can go to the mall?, which he repeats, correctly pronouncing the modal verb pwede ‘can’. Pwede in Chabacano is used to express deontic possibility or permission. In this example the child prefaces the request for permission to go to the mall through the Chabacano pwede, which reflects the word order structure in Chabacano pwede iyo anda na mall? ‘can I go to the mall?’. Similarly, the child uses the adverb na in Tagalog (the father speaks Tagalog) as in done na ‘done already’. These examples demonstrate switching among English, Chabacano, and Tagalog, the child’s languages in his repertoire.

(14)	E: na este kosa-
		PART this what-
	C:			+< pede I can go to the mall?
	E: hmm? este o
				this PART
	C:			+< pwede I can go to the mall?
	E: you will go to the mall?
	C: yeah
	E: ahh
	E: after this nu? after
					right?
	C: I already know dat, done na
		I already know that, done already
	E: ahh ansina
			is that right
	C: I already know dat, done na
		I already know that, done already
	E: o ayy sabe ya tu ste
		PART INTERJ you know this already

Zane further demonstrates translanguaging through the receptive use of Chabacano as he responds to the task productively in English. The following excerpt from Zane’s data demonstrates this.

(15)
E: na ara aki na huego pirmi ta enseña el mano na animal, okay?
	PART now in this game the hand is always pointing at the animal, okay?
E: na kosa animal este olet?
	PART what animal is this again?
C: hmm cat
E: este
	this
C: dog
E: este
	this
C: hmm panda
E: panda si
				yes
E: este
	this
C: wabit
	rabbit
E: very good
E: este
	this
C: Peppa Pig
E: Peppa Pig
E: este
	this
C: hmm mouse
E: <me> [//] mouse very good
E: na ara tu chene kita dos Peppa Pig nu?
	PART now you we have two Peppa Pigs right?
C: yes
E: mira tul unu chene kalo
	you look one has a hat
C:								+< am here! gay dog xxx@b
E: si
	yes
E: este nuay
	this none
C:		+< dog en daddy pig
		dog and daddy pig
E: [laughter] si [breathes]
						yes
E: na este o mira tu
	PART this PART you look
E: kosa Peppa Pig este?
	what Peppa Pig is this?
C: hmm Peppa Pig
E: ah si
		yes
E: Peppa Pig, estel Peppa Pig chene kalo
	Peppa Pig, this is the Peppa Pig with a hat
C: yes wit chus
		with shoes
E:		+< yes
E: sina?
	is that right?
E: este ara mira tu chene dos pero
	now this you look there are two dogs
C: ayy ya I tro dat dog on da boy uching slipes en diapes
	INTERJ yes I throw that dog on the boy using slippers and diapers
E: wow
E: o este mira tu kosa pero este
	PART this you look what dog is this
C: mm a dog I dint see dat on da wall we dint have it it dey only a bidyo wid da dog
			a dog I didn’t see that on the wall we didn’t have it they only a video with the dog
E: wow
E: o mira tu kosa le chene
	PART you look what does it have
C: hmm hat
E: ah so estel pero chene hat
				this dog has a hat
E: na mira tu este
	PART look at this
C: ahm panda pink dis one hmm panda also
E: si
	yes
E: na dos panda este
	PART these are two pandas
E: na este kosa le chene
	PART what does it have
C: hmm hat only head and chus only pit
	hat only head and shoes only feet
E: ahh very good
E: na este raton kosa le chene
	PART this rat what does it have
C: ma- hmm chus
							shoes
E: shoes
E: o este
	PART this
C: hmm wabit have chus and dat wabit have hat en chus
				rabbit have shoes and that rabbit have hat and shoes
E: aha wow
C: +< but no wa- no mo- more chus or toys eh- only wabits only people have toys en clods
	but not more shoes or toys only rabbits only people have toys and clothes
E: [laughter] ansina ba
							is that right
E: na este
	PART this
C: cat
E: cat
E: pero yes mira tu este chene
	but yes you look this has
E: este?
	this?
C: hat?
E: mira tu, este o
	you look, this PART
C:					+< cat
E: si
	yes
E: este?
	this?
C: hmm cat is dis one di other one with using hat
				cat is this one the other one with using hat
E: hmm si
				yes

This stretch of talk between the experimenter and the child suggests that the child understood what the experimenter said, and the child followed along quite well. There were no significant deviations from the conversation, and the child reasonably replied in English to the prompts delivered in Chabacano. In this example, we see that languages are used in varying degrees. The parent supported this observation as shown in the following extract.

(16)
G: kabar kwando yan start le man-talk, maskin tan Chabacano kame, ta kontesta le
	kanamon English
	and when he started to talk, even if we speak Chabacano, he responds to us in English
E: ah
G: poreso abla yo baka ta entende-entende ele, ta entende man gale le maskin pakilaya
	that is why I thought to myself that maybe he understands a little, it turns out that he does
	understand however little

4. Discussion

This study sought to elicit young Zamboangueño Chabacano-speaking children’s expressions of with or without in Chabacano through an experimental task where children identify and describe animal stimuli presented on a tablet. The participants yielded a significant presence of English in their responses, demonstrating productive ability in English while they understood Chabacano and the other local languages in their repertoire. Parents or guardians attributed their children’s English ability to exposure to online spaces in English during the pandemic as they were growing up. Likewise, day care staff squarely identified YouTube videos that were observed to impact day care children’s ability in English.

Gadgets such as cellphones, tablets and laptops with access to the Internet and television with streaming shows or cable television viewing capability provided the much-needed quality of life into the homes of many families during the pandemic, not to mention that most of these tools provided the online space that enabled working class members of the family and students to continue working or studying. Children, as well, are commonly seen to use some of these tools as a source of entertainment. At a public space, the author once observed a toddler who was seated on a highchair with a cellphone propped before her. The child was visibly entertained by a children’s show in English as her parents fed her lunch. The cellphone in this instance was more than a communication tool. It became a convenient caregiving assistant to busy mothers. The expanded use of technology as a consequence of the pandemic has brought the English-dominated online space to homes. The impact of the English-dominated online space to children is apparent in this case study. The fact that children in this group almost exclusively spoke in English as demonstrated in their responses and as attested by their parents or guardians suggests the impact of English-dominant media to the young.

These observations resonate with recent studies where the pandemic is found to have affected language development (Sonnenschein et al., 2021; Sheng et al., 2021; Sun et al., 2023; García González et al., 2023). García González et al., specifically, report the major presence of English in online activities among Norwegian families such as watching television, playing video games, and using the Internet. Caregivers commented that their children started using more English within the home during the lockdown because they were watching more YouTube videos and playing Minecraft, Zelda, and Animal Crossing whose words were difficult to translate to Norwegian. Furthermore, the presence of English in these Norwegian families was related to work-from-home arrangements and homeschooling. One parent recounted that because her children were hearing her speak English at the home office as she carried out work for an international company, their children also started to speak English. She emphasized that neither she nor her husband were native speakers of English, but because their children showed interest in it, they, too, started speaking English with one another.

Other factors may provide a more nuanced explanation aside from the obvious impact of the use of gadgets that have become common in many homes. The age at which the children in this group were reported to have been exposed to English ranged from since birth to three years of age, meaning, these children grew up with English use around. Next, guardians with some degree of educational attainment are themselves capable of providing linguistic input for their children. In the context of highly urbanized cities such as Zamboanga where infrastructure for Internet connection is possible allows middle-class homes with access to hardware and the financial capability for Internet subscription to use the web for work, study, information, and entertainment.

Moreover, family language policies and practices that support language use are essential. The implicit language policy that unconsciously arose in the family of Zane shows a change in input from Chabacano to English to accommodate the linguistic needs of the youngest member of the family who by circumstance acquired mostly English via the cellphone. Community support as well is worth mentioning. We note that the day care workers adjusted the medium of communication at the center from the home language to English to accommodate their English-speaking young learners who were attending school for the first time. Many guardians present at the time of data collection also spoke in English with their children even if they showed some difficulty with it. The broader community outside the home and school also provides encouragement to children for English language use (Barrios, 2023). Particularly in metropolitan contexts involving families from middle class to upper socio-economic strata, English has begun to be regarded as a lingua franca (Gonzalez, 1989). All these factors contribute to the increased use of and exposure to English.

At the same time, the children demonstrate simultaneous bilingualism (or multilingualism, as in this case). All the children featured in this report appeared to have understood the task even if they responded to it in a language different from the medium that the task was mainly delivered in. In the task requiring them to identify animals and to describe pictures, children asked questions about the stimuli, offered propositions using local terms, and put forward complex statements that express permission or completion using a mixed code, demonstrating translanguaging at work. The data suggest that the child is a passive bilingual (or multilingual, in this case) where the child understands more than one language but produces only one (Yip, 2013). These languages may be visualized to be anywhere on a language continuum (Grosjean, 2008) where one language is fully activated while the other languages are activated to a minimum degree. The data suggest that languages manifest in different modalities, and that combined, this language repertoire actually helps the child carry out a task.

The use of translanguaging in pre-school has yielded many benefits for the bilingual or multilingual child (Flynn et al., 2021; Beatty et al., 2021; Dias et al., 2023; Kirsch & Mortini, 2023). Contrary to the popular view that only favors English for input, which motivates many parents to expose their children to English as early as possible or to use only English with their children, this case of a multilingual child calls for the argumentation that their languages work together. A systematic study assessing the languages that a multilingual child speaks and how these languages relate to each other or how one language predicts a child’s performance in the other language would make a more convincing case.

It is also possible that young children’s sensitivity to the interlocutor and to the context of the conversation influences their language choice. Bilingual or multilingual children who have two or more languages in their repertoire are found to have developed from an early age the sensitivity to choose the appropriate language to speak, which is determined by a range of factors such as the interlocutor, the linguistic context, the topic of conversation, etc. (Yip, 2013). It is possible that children have been conditioned to the use of English at “school”. It is also possible that parents have cued their children to the use of English in learning contexts, including sessions at the day care center. We recall that the day care workers adjusted the medium of communication at the center from Chabacano to English. These are certainly possibilities that are best explained through further studies. Notwithstanding, the examples from this case provide insight into the presence of English in multilingual post-pandemic Filipino children and that these children use their full linguistic repertoire to make meaning and to communicate.

5. Conclusions

In a globalized world, many children are exposed to two or more languages from birth. The pandemic appears to have hastened young children’s use of English through their exposure to online space. This study provided a unique opportunity to investigate the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic in very young children from multilingual families in Mindanao, Philippines. Particularly, it revealed how the online space dominated by English influenced the use of English and the home languages in these families. It also revealed other factors such as family and community support, access to the Internet, socio-economic status, etc. Among these factors, the study highlights the multilingual ability of the child. While English dominated their repertoire as they responded to a task that required them to name and describe pictures, their home languages were demonstrated as well via receptive and to a certain degree, productive modalities, reflecting the child’s use of English and the home languages all at the same time in carrying out the task.

This study observes the significant presence of English in multilingual homes that spoke one or more of the regional languages dominantly. It further hypothesizes that English use among these children is affected by the online presence of English in media that the children were exposed to when growing up, particularly during the pandemic. These observations are, however, tentative, and the study would benefit from further inquiry involving a larger sample of children with similar demographics and from a wider area. Further inquiry as to whether the use of English by these children is sustained as they move to kindergarten and how the home languages play a role in the use of English by these children deserves attention.