DIFFICULTIES IN GRAMMAR OF STUDENTS FROM RURAL AREAS

AT BENGUET STATE UNIVERSITY- SECONDARY

LABORATORY SCHOOL

BIG - ASAN, ROGELYN D.

ESTIGOY, MILLENNIA H.

GABRIEL, LIMUEL T.

PA-AT, JENELYN B.

PUCATE, RECHELE C.

SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF COLLEGE OF TEACHER EDUCATION

BENGUET STATE UNIVERSITY, LA TRINIDAD, BENGUET

IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS

FOR THE SUBJECT OF

APPLIED ECONOMICS

(Action Research)

MAY 01, 2018

 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

Title Page . . . . . . . . . i

Table of Contents . . . . . . . . ii

INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . 1

Background of the Study . . . . . . 1

Statement of the Problem . . . . . . 3

Hypotheses of the Study . . . . . . 4

Significance and Purpose of the Study . . . . 4

Scope and Delimitation of the Study . . . . . 4

METHODOLOGY . . . . . . . . 5

Research Design . . . . . . . 5

Population and Locale of the Study . . . . . 5

Data Collection Instruments . . . . . . 6

Data Collection Procedures . . . . . . 6

Treatment of the Study. . . . . . . 7

RESULTS AND DISCUSIONS . . . . . . 8

CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS . . . . 14

Conclusions . . . . . . . . 14

Recommendations . . . . . . . 15

REFERENCES . . . . . . . . 16
 INTRODUCTION

Background of the Study

Grammar is often defined as the rule system of a language, but it is also useful to

think of it as a resource for expressing meaning. The role of English grammar in one’s

progress in academic work cannot be ignored. English grammar is taught in Schools for

students to be able to communicate effectively especially in written English. Various

subjects are taught in written and oral English in answering the questions. Grammar for

academic writing provides a selective overview of English grammar that need to master,

in order to express ourselves correctly and appropriately in academic writing. It include

the basic distinctions of meaning in the verb tense system, the use of modal verbs to

express degrees of certainty and commitment, and alternative ways of grouping and

ordering written information to highlight its flow.

Le Tourneau (2001) stated that one’s knowledge of grammar is most helpful at

the stages of revising and editing sentences. English grammar error is a big problem for

some students came from rural areas. They get confused as there are so many rules for

them to learn. Many kinds of errors arise for students learning English because they do

not master English well. They commit errors by not using the rules of the components

and elements of the second language (Ramelan,1992). Brown said, “Second language

learning is a process that is clearly unlike first language learning in its trial and errors

nature.” It means the students learning English cannot avoid errors in learning a second

language (Gass and Slinker, 1994). Furthermore, Rebecca M. Vallette (1997) in her book
entitled, “Modern Language Testing” corroborated the mental efforts of the writing

theory. She mentioned

that by writing could improve but also the acquisition of new vocabulary and

grammatical structures. However, Emmaryana (2010) emphasizes that in in the process

of learning, writing ability is the most complicated language skill to be learned almost by

the students in every level of education. According to an ad “amazing book” on usage,

“Mistakes in English can cause you embarrassment, hold you back socially and on the

job. It can make you look awkward and hide your true intellect.” In addition, within the

classroom, any mention of grammar causes the student moments of discomfort and

sometimes even terror (Al-Mekhlafi, 2011). Because grammar has so far become one

problems face by language learners, the researchers were interested in digging out

grammatical issues that students are having difficulties with.

Some kinds of grammar usage are verbs, pronouns, prepositions, adjectives and

apostrophes. Verb is one of the main parts of a sentence or question in English. In fact

you can’t have a sentence or a question without a verb. This is a word used to describe an

action, state or occurrence and forming the main part of the predicate of a sentence such

as hear, become, happen. Pronoun is a word that takes the place of a noun. Pronouns can

do all the things that nouns can do. They can be subjects, direct objects, indirect objects,

object of the preposition, and more. Prepositions are words that show the relationship

between a noun and pronoun in a sentence. A preposition must always followed by a

noun or pronoun in a sentence. It can never have followed by a verb. Adjectives are

words that describe or modify other words, making your writing and speaking much more
specific, and a whole lot more interesting. An apostrophe (’) is a punctuation mark used

to replace a missing letter to show the possessive form of a noun, or to show an awkward

plural.

The purpose of the research was to determine the students’ difficulties in English

grammar, and assist learners to improve upon their performance with it. The Grammar

instruction that has the goal of preparing students for academic studies needs to be

designed to develop learners’ practical and useful skills, directly relevant to producing

academic text. Teaching grammar for writing cannot take place in isolation from the

lexical and discourse features of text (Conrad, 2010 et. al).

The researchers choose Grade 12 students at Benguet State University- Secondary

Laboratory School because some of the students finished their Junior High School from

rural areas and it is not difficult for the researchers to find their respondents.

The outcome of this study will show the improvement of students in performance in

English grammar.

Statement of the Problem

The study was conducted to determine the “Difficulties in Grammar of Students

from Rural Areas at Benguet State University-Secondary Laboratory School.” To know

the kinds of grammar they are confused with and errors made by them as language

learners.

The study aims to answer the following specific questions:

 1. What are the causes resulting to the difficulties of students in grammar?

2. What are the results after conducting the post-test?

3. Is there a significant difference between pre-test and post-test?

Hypotheses of the Study

1. The students are confused in some rules of English grammar on how to use it.

2. There is increase in the number of respondents got the passing scores in all

chapters that were given.

3. There is a significant difference after conducting the intervention between pre-

test and post-test.

Significance and Purpose of the Study

The purpose of the study was to determine the students’ difficulties in English

grammar and assist improve their performance in usage of grammar. The significance of

the research study was to help the students improve their qualities of English grammar.

For future researchers, the result of the study will serve as their reference for their

related topic.

Scope and Delimitation of the Study

 The study was conducted at Benguet State University-Secondary Laboratory

School. The respondents chosen are limited that only grade 12 students who finished their

Junior High school at rural areas. Another limitation is not difficult for the researchers to

find their respondents. The researchers had used convenience sampling in selecting the

respondents.

METHODOLOGY

The chapter presents the method and procedure the researcher used in the study. It

includes the research design, locale and population of the study, data collection

procedure, data collection instrument and treatment of data.

Research Design

The study had used descriptive survey method of research. The study was

conducted using descriptive research and survey method to collect the data. The main

purpose of this research is to access the “Difficulties in Grammar of Grade 12 Students

from Rural Areas at Benguet State University-Secondary Laboratory School.” The

methods used were the most appropriate to be adopted to determine the significant

difference after the intervention of activities for it is relevant regarding on the research

topic.

Population and Locale of the Study

 The target population for this study were the grade 12 HUMMS (Humanities and

Social Sciences) students enrolled at Benguet State University-Secondary Laboratory

School in the school year 2017-2018. They were chosen as the respondents since

HUMSS stands for “Humanities and Social Sciences,” which means it covers not just

political science but literature, anthropology, philosophy, linguistics, communication and

psychology. Studying HUMSS doesn’t automatically mean you plan on becoming a

politician or lawyer; you can also be a writer, a counselor or even a broadcaster.

The school was located at km 5 Balili, La Trinidad, Benguet. From it, samples of

30 respondents who finished their Junior High school from rural areaswere selected using

convenience sampling.

Data Collection Instrument

To conduct the study, the researcher used research questionnaire. The research

questionnaires were further divided into five chapters in the pre-test. The first part until

fourth is a multiple choice and the last part is filling up the blanks. The first part is about

using verbs correctly consist of 10 items, second part is using pronouns correctly consist

of 10 items, third part is about using prepositions correctly consist of 10 items, fourth part

is about using adjectives correctly consist of 10 items and the last part is about writing the

correct apostrophes consist of 10 items. Each part is consisting of 10 points and the

overall total of 50 points. The same in the post-test until chapter five but in chapter 6, it is

a survey question.
 Data Collection Procedures

The researchers securely ask permission first from the principal of Benguet State

University-Secondary Laboratory School before conducting the study. The researchers

conducted survey for them to select the respondents. The researchers had used

convenience sampling after the survey. Next, the researchers distributed the research

questionnaire personally to the respondents who finished their Junior High school from

rural areas. After that, the researchers begin to collect and read relevant gathered data

they had. The last step was to analyze the data in order to formulate the findings.

Treatment of Data

After all the questionnaires were collected, the data were tallied, tabulated and graphed

using statistical descriptive tool. The results of the students’ scores were utilized through

frequency count, percentage, mean, standard deviation and t dependent test. Percentage is

computed using the formula P=n/N x 100. Where lower case n represents the number of

frequencies in the score of respondents, upper case N is the total number of respondents

and 100 is constant.

 RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

Figure 1

Pre-test Table and Graph

KINDS OF GRAMMAR
I. USING VERBS CORRECTLY
SCORES 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
NUMBER OF 1 8 7 8 3 0 0 2 1 0
FREQUENCES
PERCENTAGE 3.33 26.67 23.33 26.67 10 0 0 6.67 3.33 0
( %)
II. USING PRONOUNS CORRECTLY
SCORES 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
NUMBER OF 0 2 9 5 6 5 3 0 0 0
FREQUENCES
PERCENTAGE 0 6.67 30 16.67 20 16.67 10 0 0 0
(%)
III. USING PREPOSITIONS CORRECTLY
SCORES 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
NUMBER OF 1 0 2 6 11 3 4 2 1 0
FREQUENCES
PERCENTAGE 3.33 0 6.67 20 36.67 10 13.33 6.67 3.33 0
(%)
IV. USING ADJECTIVES CORRECTLY
SCORES 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
NUMBER OF 1 2 6 4 6 4 6 1 0 0
FREQUENCES
PERCENTAGE 3.33 6.67 20 13.33 20 13.33 36.67 3.33 0 0
(%)
V. APOSTROPHES
SCORES 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
NUMBER OF 2 10 6 7 2 1 0 1 1 0
 FREQUENCES
PERCENTAGE 6.67 33.33 20 23.33 6.67 3.33 0 3.33 3.33 0
(%)

General Results

60

50
48 47 46
40 45 44 43
42 41 40
39 38 37
36 35 34
SCORES

30 33 32 31
30 29 28
27 26 2525 26 27 28 29
20 24 24 23 22
20 21 22 23 21
15 16 17 18 19
10 12 13 14
9 10 11
00 0 0 0 05 6 7 8 0 0 0 5 3 0 0 0
0
1 2 3 4 3 1 1 4 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 1 1 1 1
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29
NUMBER OF FREQUENCES

Figure 2

Post-test Table and Graph

KINDS OF GRAMMAR
I. USING VERBS CORRECTLY
SCORES 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
NUMBER OF 10 6 7 3 2 1 1 0 0 0
FREQUENCES
PERCENTAGE 33.33 20 23.33 10 6.67 3.33 3.33 0 0 0
( %)
II. USING PRONOUNS CORRECTLY
SCORES 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
NUMBER OF 1 6 5 11 3 3 1 0 0 0
FREQUENCES
PERCENTAGE 3.33 20 16.67 36.67 10 10 3.33 0 0 0
(%)
III. USING PREPOSITIONS CORRECTLY
SCORES 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
NUMBER OF 0 5 7 5 3 6 2 2 0 0
FREQUENCES
PERCENTAGE 0 16.67 23.33 16.67 10 20 6.67 6.67 0 0
(%)
IV. USING ADJECTIVES CORRECTLY
SCORES 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
NUMBER OF 3 5 7 5 7 1 0 2 0 0
FREQUENCES
PERCENTAGE 10 16.67 23.33 16.67 23.33 3.33 0 6.67 0 0
(%)
V. APOSTROPHES
SCORES 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
NUMBER OF 5 6 8 5 4 2 0 0 0 0
FREQUENCES
PERCENTAGE 16.67 20 26.67 16.67 13.33 6.67 0 0 0 0
(%)

General Results
60

50
48 47
46 45
40 44 43
42 41
40 39
38 37
36 35
SCORES

30 34 33
32 31
30 29
28 27
26 25
20 24 23
22 21

10
0 0 6 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
3 4
0
1 1 2 3 1 1 2 1 1 1 2 1
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28
NUMBER OF FREQUENCES
 11
Figure 3
SURVEY QUESTION

 What are the causes resulting to students difficulties in grammar.

OPTIONS NUMBER OF PERCENTAGE

FREQUENCIES (%)
A. Often use of Tagalog and Ilocano 7 23.33
dialect as the language in reciting and
answering questions.
B. Confused in some rules of English 18 60
grammar on how to use to use it in
formulating sentences.
C. Both 5 16.67

Figure 4
T DEPENDENT TEST
t-Test: Paired Two Sample for Means
  POST - TEST PRE - TEST
Mean 37.5 34.03333333
Variance 42.32758621 45.55057471
Observations 30 30
Pearson Correlation 0.979679171
Hypothesized Mean Difference 0
df 29
t Stat 13.98395946
P(T<=t) one-tail 1.01074E-14
t Critical one-tail 1.699127027
P(T<=t) two-tail 2.02148E-14
t Critical two-tail 2.045229642
 From the tables above it shows that in the pre-test in the first part which is using

verbs correctly, there are16 students representing 53.33% obtained 8-10 scores. While in

the post-test there are 23 students representing 76.67% got 8-10 scores.

For the second part which is using pronouns correctly, there are 11 students

representing 36.67% got the scores of 8-10 in the pre-test. After conducting the

12

intervention, there are 12 students representing 40% got the scores of 8-10 in the post-

test. It shows that from 36.67% to 40%, there are increases of 3.33%.

For the third part which is using prepositions correctly, there are only 3 students

representing 10% got the scores of 8-10 in the pre-test. In the post-test, there are 30% of

increase in the passing scores which there are 12 students representing 40%.

The fourth part is using prepositions correctly, there are 9 students representing

30% scored 8-10. In the post-test, there are 15 students representing 50% got the passing

scores of 8-10 points.

For the last part which is apostrophe’s exercises, there are 18 students

representing 60% respondents got 8-10 scores. In the post-test, there were 19 students

representing 63.34% got the scores of 8-10.

The general results shown in figure 1 in the graph shows that there are 11 students

representing 36.27% got the passing scores out of 50 items in the pre-test. However, we

can see improvements after conducting the intervention which is through discussing the

common mistakes they had in the pre-test. It is shown in the graph of figure 2 that there

are 16 students representing 53.33% scored the passing score in the post-test. This shows

that from 36.67% to 53.33%, there are 16.66% increase in the respondents’ scores.
 In the results of a survey question shown in figure 3, the most cause that results

to students difficulties in grammar is option B which consist of 18 students or 60%

students. The second option is option A consist of 7 students or 23.33% students and last

is option C, 5 students or 16.67% of the respondents answered both.

13

In the table shown in figure 4, since [P (T<=t) one tail 1.0 1074E-14 ] which is (P

value=0.000000000000001) > 0.05, there is a significant difference between the pre–test

and post–test of the respondents. Since discussions depend upon students’ willingness to

talk each other, it’s important to create a classroom atmosphere in which students feel

secure in offering their opinions for public scrutiny. As internalize through exercises

involving repetition, manipulation and grammatical transformation.” Researchers agree

that it is more effective to teach punctuation, sentence variety and usage in the context of

writing than to approach the topic by teaching isolated skills (Calkins, 1980; Distefano

and Killion, 1984; Harris, 1962). Furthermore, Weaver (1998) proposes that “What all

students need is guidance in understanding and applying and writing those aspects of

grammar that are most relevant to writing, Teachers should prioritize and provide

instruction on the grammatical elements that most affect their students’ ability to write

effectively.” By participating in oral and written sentence-combining activities, students

better understand the ways in which sentence structure, usage and punctuation affect

meaning.
 CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

This chapter presents the conclusions and recommendations based on the results

of this study.

Conclusions

Based on the analysis of the results of the study, the following conclusions were

drawn:

1. The causes resulting to students’ difficulties in grammar are confused in some

rules of English grammar on how to use it in formulating sentences. The researcher found

out also that through a survey question, another cause is often use of Tagalog and Ilocano

dialect as the language in reciting and answering questions.

2. There is level up in the scores of respondents after conducting the post-test. The

mean of pre-test is 34.03 and the mean of post-test is 37.5 which shows that there is

increase in the scores of respondents.

 3. There is a significant difference between pre-test and post-test regarding on the

performance of the students since the results using t dependent test is (P

value=0.0000000000000014) < 0.05.

15

Recommendations

Since the researchers found out that there is great improvement after conducting the

intervention, the following recommendations are offered:

1. To ensure improvement about qualities of grammar among the students, English

teachers should have a good standard and techniques starting from the elementary for that

is the stage where the students’ skills in grammar starts to develop.

2. It is recommended that correct adaptation and formation of straight words may give

clearer explanation or justification on their grammatical structures.

3. It is recommended that giving pre-test, discussion and post-test among learners are

another way to apply for them to develop and improve their understanding in grammar.

4. It is recommended that teachers may conduct regular reading, writing and

assessment among learners to identify individual learning needs to enhance their

knowledge about grammar.

 16

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