English Communication Challenges in Legal and Crime Prevention Education: A Phenomenological Study of Criminology Undergraduates in Cotabato, Philippines

This phenomenological study examines the English communication challenges faced by criminology undergraduates in Cotabato Province, Philippines, in legal education and crime-prevention contexts. Twelve purposively selected second- and third-year students from five higher education institutions participated in in-depth interviews and focus group discussions. Using Colaizzi’s (1978) method, data were systematically analyzed to extract significant statements, cluster themes, and interpret lived experiences. Findings revealed four interconnected barriers: lexical and pronunciation difficulties, affective constraints such as anxiety and communicative insecurity, reliance on the mother tongue for cognitive scaffolding, and misalignment between language instruction and professional demands. To address these challenges, students employed peer-mediated learning, translanguaging, metacognitive strategies, and digital or multimodal resources, demonstrating both learner agency and adaptive resilience. These insights informed the development of the SCALE framework—Scaffolding Language Foundations, Collaborative Meaning-Making, Authentic Task Engagement, Leveraging Multimodality, and Emotional & Experiential Support—which integrates interactionist and communicative competence principles with practical interventions for Legal English. The study underscores the need for contextually aligned, interaction-rich, and emotionally supportive instruction that bridges disciplinary knowledge and professional practice. Implications for curriculum design, pedagogical strategies, and discipline-specific language resource development highlight pathways to enhance communicative competence and professional preparedness in multilingual higher education in the Philippines.