Learning and Language at Diosdado Macapagal High School, Pampanga

Featured Research and Development Article

Raymond Hernan Salas

What must be the reason behind students’ poor competence in a language class?

Is there something that can be drawn out on account of the deteriorating language competence of students? Is it because of how teachers’ execute the lessons? Or due to students’ limited exposure to language?

The obvious dropping competence of the Grades 7, 8, and 9 students of Diosdado Macapagal High School (DMHS) in Sto. Domingo, Mexico, Pampanga in the language concerned propelled the researcher in conducting this study. The National Achievement Test (NAT) revealed very poor results. The Mean Percentage Score (MPS) during the first and second grading periodic exam results in 2019 is 55.80% and 56.70% respectively for Grade 7. For Grade 8, results were 57.70% and 58.00% while for Grade 9, results were 59.80% and 60.70%. The goal of 68.00% seem elusive at this point.In Diosdado Macapagal High School where the researcher teaches, grammar was 'teaching and reteach' with a variety of activities for students to have full control subjects. However, quizzes, summative tests and the results showed that almost 45% of the population is teaching her to the student failed to get the graduation rate. Aside from the non-compliance and absence as an excuse for low achievement and performance, lack of learning materials and no book has also become one of the reasons.

Moreover, varied instructional interventions have been eventually carried out to avert the displeasing condition of students’ competence in school. One of which is Project QUANCOM (Question and Answer for Concept Mastery) which is a teaching strategy which targets to increase the level of concept mastery of the students. Through repetition of ideas and concept learned by students in different subject areas, they will definitely learn and master more all of these.

Through Project QUANCOM, the least learned skills will be absorbed more by the learners and later they will master them thoroughly. This innovation gives way to “spaced rehearsal” which is more effective than cramming, especially for retaining what the students have already learned. In like manner, it is reviewing what they have attained the same day they learn it and at intervals thereafter. Through repetition of ideas and concept, spacing them out, will give chance to higher retention level.

One of the problems encountered in the learning process in the school is the learners’ lack of mastery of the concept of the lessons. It is witnessed that as time passes by, learners’ retention of the knowledge which they have learned diminishes; thus students’ retention span is very short which leads to a cause of pressing concern of the teachers.

Caroll (1963) emphasized the importance of aptitude because it plays a critical role, as it requires a considerable amount of time for the learner to master a learning task. Implicit in this formulation is the presumption that all students will potentially master an apprenticeship job, given enough time. If Caroll is right, the mastery of learning is ideally open to all, if we can find the means to support each student.

However, the Congressional Education Commission (EDCOM) has found out that reading should not be ignored as one of the capabilities of higher order thought. Rather, it should be further learned and improved to improve the students ' expertise in different disciplines and fields. The Philippine Association of Graduate Education (PAGE) analysis of the research conducted in 2014 also addressed the need for a systematic approach to understanding how students actually learn and precisely how they vary in terms of learning (Marasigan, 2012).

In a report entitled "RP fast losing edge in English," it was said that only about three out of a hundred applicants and an estimated two percent of college students are likely to land a job in a call centre. The surface causing is the deteriorating quality of the English spoken by most Filipinos (PDI, 2014). Hence, The position of instructors in this regard can not therefore simply be underestimated, because seeking a definite solution to this problem is a crucial component of their pedagogical dedication as educators.

While it is true that the main objective of exhaustive academic / scholarly research has been to improve the ability of students in the English language rooted back in the past, not a single shot has yet been fired that can adequately describe what really causes the problem of students in English. In particular, the researcher suggests that, if not entirely taken for granted, there are certain possible variables seldom explored in the context of teaching and learning.

Definition and identification of students’ learning styles is one of perceived factors to be considered in the teaching-learning process. Learning style after all, is simply the unique way by which a certain student learns.

Undeniably, every teacher inside the classroom had noticed that students have their own way of learning compared with others. Some students tend to focus on facts and data; others go for linguistically oriented task and lessons; some prefer procedural lessons while others demand for memorization. All these things contribute to a very important factor that needs to be considered to yield satisfying competence in education, which is learning style.

It is a common view that one of the aims of defining learning styles is to align teaching methods with styles of learning. The essential point is that the potentially variety of styles that will be visible in the classroom must be addressed when preparing and designing content, assignments and other teaching resources. (Gavin, Reid: 2005).

The concept of learning styles has been applied to language learning in a number of ways.

Hill (2004) developed Cognitive Profile Mapping (CPM) to provide information on how students receive information and process it to derive meaning from their environment and personal experiences. Hill claimed that 90 per cent of students with standard teaching method and media ability was adapted to the cognitive learning style of the school.

Dunn and Dunn (2001) developed and implemented The Learning Style Inventory, a self-reporting questionnaire of twenty-one learning styles, concentrating on common learner factors (environmental, sociological, emotional, and physical variables).

The learner is considered to be the most important agent in the educative process. Having this in mind, as a teacher, it is but expected that almost if not everything about the learner must be considered at all times. The task may sound very tedious, but to anticipate the results would right away bring about a rewarding feeling to the teacher.

The most important thing in here is that teacher and learner are both aware of the nature of learning styles. It does follow that if an individual is focused on how his/her brain best learns, then this individual has a better chance of studying and learning in a way that will pay off when it’s time to take exams. He can also determine how to apply the most effective, comfortable, and practical and most trusted strategies to capitalize on his/ her own learning styles, potentials and strengths. With an understanding of the different styles of learning, the teacher, on the other hand, can adjust his/ her teaching and learning styles so that he/she could respond to the diverse students’ styles, and be flexible enough to be well-balanced on different teaching modalities to cater students not of his/her same style. Thus, the teacher can plan the environment, lessons/ activities and materials to better create a balanced setting to enhance the success of each student.

Kolb (2002, 2004), likewise characterized four adaptive learning modes which constitute a natural learning sequence of cyclic and interactive stages, continuing on an ever deeper and more conceptual level; concrete experience (CE), reflective observation (RO), abstract conceptualization (AC) and active experimentation (AE).

With these different learning style theories, the researcher is motivated to conduct this study with the idea in mind that if the students’ learning styles would be tapped and analyzed as an integral of classroom learning, teachers would become more responsive to the students’ need to learn on the basis of their individual preferred learning styles.

Being one of those educators who have positive view that quality teaching and learning are never far to achieve, the researcher is convinced that quality language instruction will always be at one’s fingertip for as long as instructors spend diligent effort to consider and accommodate individual learning styles.

As a whole, this study aimed to investigate the individual learning styles of the Grades 7, 8, and 9 students of Diosdado Macapagal High School in Sto. Domingo, Mexico, Pampanga to allow the researcher and his fellow teachers cut out their instruction to the learning styles of their students; secondly, to make the learners aware of their individual learning style preferences so that they will learn in the most effective way possible and, lastly, to determine the influence of language motivation to students’ language competence.

Resources available upon request.

About the author

Dr. Raymond Hernan Salas is a teacher from Diosdado Macapagal High School, Mexico, Pampanga. For details, contact the person at facebook.