CHAPTER IV PRESENTATION, ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION OF DATA
1. Levels of Students’ Proficiency in the Four Modes of the English Language
As students enter the tertiary level of education, there is a general requirement to assess their linguistic proficiency especially in the English language, this being important for the University to be assured that the new student is competent and capable of successfully pursuing their tertiary studies. This linguistic proficiency assessment would be evaluating the four modes of the English language not only to gauge student competence but also identify deficiency areas that can be used as basis by linguistic departments in the formulation of their basic courses to level up freshman students’ language competence. In this study, the proficiency of freshman students of Thai Nguyen University in the four modes of the English language namely reading, writing, speaking and listening are evaluated in order to gain insights on their competence and preparedness, and at the same time identify areas for linguistic interventions.
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1.1 Student's proficiency in the modality of reading. Reading is a performance modality that freshman students should demonstrate reasonable proficiency. Students at the tertiary levels are expected to have developed their reading skills to cope with their education requirements. Insufficiencies in the reading skill and lack of adaptive skills could hamper effective learning in different areas of their tertiary education. The English language performance of the student respondents of this study were assessed in the modality of reading. The reading test include 18 items consisting of five items each for context clues, summary statements, fact and inference and three items on topic sentence and main idea. The test is presented to the student respondents to answer and correct scores are tallied and analyzed accordingly. The result of this test evaluation is presented in Table 2.
Table 2
Levels of Proficiency of Students in the Modality of Reading
Test Group Reading
Frequency of Correct Item
Percent of Correct
Items
Verbal Interpretation
1. Context clues 312 82.05 Good
2. Summary
statements 161 42.32
Low Average
3. Fact and inference 263 69.26 High Average
4. Topic sentence and
main idea 262 68.86
High Average
Mean 248 65.26 High Average
Number of student respondents: 380
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As shown in the table, it can be observed that the students generally have an average proficiency in all the test areas in the performance modality of reading with an average correct rating of 65.26 percent and a verbal equivalent of average. The highest proficiency was observed to be in the reading area on context clues, with a percentage of correct score of 82.05 percent, followed by almost equal proficiency rating for fact and inference and topic sentence and main idea with a percent correct scores of 69.26 percent and 68.86 percent respectively; and lastly by summary statements with a percent correct score of 42.32 percent.
Three out of the four component items had percent correct scores above 50 percent and only one is below which means that it is only on this area that the students were performing poorly. This further means that in general, the students are generally competent in the performance modality of reading.
1.2. Student's proficiency in the modality of writing. Writing is another learning modality that students have to demonstrate proficiency.
Students must be able to confidently express their ideas in writing especially in the foreign language like English. Proficiency in this modality means that the individual has undergone formal English language education. This is so because most often, speaking and listening skills can be develop informally
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through social encounters or a matter of habit or interest, while the skills of reading and writing requite formal training and coaching in order to achieve learning and proficiency as rules in grammar and composition are important requisites of comprehension. The performance of student respondents in the learning modality of writing was evaluated using the same test instrument consisting of five items each on the component areas of spelling, words in sentences, punctuation, modifier placement and adjectives and adverbs. The performance of the students is summarized in Table 3.
Table 3
Levels of Proficiency of Students in the Modality of Writing
Test Group Writing
Frequency of Correct Item
Percent of Correct
Items
Verbal Interpretation
1. Spelling 265 69.68 High Average
2. Words in sentences
312 82.16 Good
3. Punctuation 70 18.42 Very Poor
4. Modifier placement 133 35.05 Low Average
5. Adjectives and Adverbs
257 67.53 High Average
Mean 207 54.57 Average
Number of student respondents: 380
As shown in the table, it can be observed that the students generally showed an average performance with an average correct score of 54.57
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percent. This value may appear high and above 50 percent, but upon examining the performance in the component areas, it can be noted that only three of the five items had high values. These are words in sentences, spelling, and adjectives and adverbs in the order from highest to lowest. These means that the students have developed proficiency along these three component areas with most adeptness gained in words in sentences where they get the high average rating. The two low scoring items are punctuation and modifier placement with the former acquiring the lowest performance rating of 18.42 percent. This means that the students have not developed a reasonable proficiency along these two areas with lowest proficiency level in punctuation.
Punctuation is one of the more tricky areas of the modality of writing as it does not only follow strict rules but also entails comprehension on what constitutes a phrase and a clause in a sentence where correct punctuations are required. Furthermore, there are established punctuation conventions that are only learned by experience or by frequent readings or depending on the frequency of encounter on the context of their proper use.
1.3. Student's proficiency in the modality of speaking. As a modality like writing, speaking is an oral process of expressing one’s ideas. Although it
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seems less complex and structured than writing, it has its own set of rules. It is more spontaneous than writing and carries with it elements like sound and emotion which are not found in writing. These elements as well as the other components of the speaking modality have to be developed in freshman students. Lack of proficiency in speaking would result to a general lack of capacity to acquire the desired learning derived from oral communication.
The students’ proficiency in the modality of speaking was assessed following an approach similar to that done on the modalities of reading and writing, utilizing the same test instrument consisting of five items each for pronunciation, use of stress, form of words, and word order. The performance of the students is summarized in Table 4.
Table 4
Levels of Proficiency of Students in the Modality of Speaking
Test Group Speaking
Frequency of Correct Item
Percent of Correct
Items
Verbal Interpretation
1. Pronunciation 257 67.74 High Average
2. Use of Stress 94 24.63 Poor
3. Form of Words 311 81.95 Good
4. Word Order 84 22.11 Poor
Mean 187 49.11 Average
Number of student respondents: 380
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As noted in the table, it can be observed that the students generally showed an average performance with a percent correct rating of 49.11 percent. This means that like the modalities of reading and writing, the students were performing at an average level in the modality of speaking.
However, numerically it can be noted that the performance in speaking was lower and below 50 percent. In fact, this is the modality where the students showed the lowest numerical proficiency value indicating this area to be the weakest.
Furthermore, upon inspection of the individual items, it can be noted that the scores were heterogeneous with only two items contributing to the high proficiency rating namely; pronunciation and form of words while the other two the use of stress and words order showing low proficiency ratings. This means that the proficiency of the students in the component items of the speaking modality were inconsistent but reflective of a developing skill. It can be seen that for this group of non-native speakers and novice English language learners, a variable range of skills are developed with the more basic skills being developed first and the other advanced and fine skills lagging behind.
This differential learning and skills development can be the result of the effects of the native tongue either positively or negatively modulating the
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learning process of a foreign language. The more remote and divergent are the root words and the sounds of the native tongue, the more difficult and varied the English language learning will be. This is because of the strain impressed on the cognitive and vocal structures of the learner as he tries to emulate an idea and speak it out in the way a foreign language is delivered.
1.4 Student's proficiency in the modality of listening. Listening as a passive language modality is another performance area for the assessment of students’ linguistic proficiency. As an aural skill, it can undergo multiple stage development among native and non-native learners. How the sound are heard, and cognitively processed as intelligible words conveying an idea or concept and being able to respond logically to the conveyed idea are some of the several elements in the listening modality. Inadequate listening skills either as a consequence of unfamiliarity with the phonetics or vocabulary of the foreign language like English plainly results to a block in understanding and a failure in learning. The proficiency of the student respondents in the modality of listening was evaluated with the test instrument consisting of four component areas with one test item each under topic sentence, meaning of words, sentence constituents, and grammatical word class. The performance of the students is summarized in Table 5.
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Table 5
Levels of Proficiency of Students in the Modality of Listening Test Group
Listening
Frequency of Correct Item
Percent of Correct
Items
Verbal Interpretation
1. Topic Sentence 178 46.84 Average
2. Meaning of Words 101 26.58 Poor
3. Sentence Constituents 325 85.53 Good
4. Grammatical Word Class 297 78.16 High Average
Mean 225 59.28 Average
Number of student respondents: 380
As shown in the table, it can be observed that the students generally showed an average proficiency with an average correct rating of 59.28 percent.
This value appears to be high and above 50 percent, but upon looking at the component items, it can be observed that only the items on sentence constituents and grammatical word class contributed to the high values. The items on topic sentence and meaning of words showed proficiency ratings below 50 percent and reflected on the heterogeneity of the students’
proficiency profile in listening. This means that the students were proficient in grammatical areas of listening and less proficient in vocabulary and main idea finding. This reflects on the kind of training and education in English language that the students had wherein the focus is more on the correctness of the
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grammatical form and less on word comprehension aspects. Thus, the proficiency profile indicates the incomplete development of the students’ skills in the modality of listening.
However, looking at the general pattern, the listening proficiency is next to reading in numerical value where the order of proficiency according to numerical value is Reading>Listening>Writing>Speaking. This indicates that for this group of non-native speakers and foreign language learners, it was the receptive or passive linguistic skills that developed ahead of the productive or active skills. This pattern can be expected as learning generally follows a cycle of input-> process ->output similar to the framework model outlined in this dissertation. It makes sense that the data to support this paradigm was observed and confirmed in this study.