ABSTRACT
This study sought to determine the impact of the localized learner’s material as an intervention to improve the academic achievement of Grade 6 pupils in English of selected public elementary schools in the School Division of Bulacan.
The researcher used a pretest-posttest design of mixed quantitative-qualitative research to assess the fundamental impact of the stated intervention on its target population, the Grade 6 pupils of selected elementary schools in each district of the Division of Bulacan. Purposive random sampling technique was used to determine the participants as well as the teachers who would administer it to them.
The Proposed Learner’s Material was administered during the third grading period. The utilization of the intervention was on November 2019 to September 2020, with the approval of the Schools Division Superintendent. T-test results showed that there was a significant difference in the mean pretest scores by district (M=18.945, SD=4.695) and mean posttest scores by district (M=40.876, SD=2.986) and; t(31) = -24.765, p=20.761. These results suggest that the utillization of the localized material in English 6 have an effect on the academic achievement of the Grade 6 pupil-participants in the said subject. The intervention material was useful and had a significant impact to the academic performance of the Grade 6 pupils in English 6.
It is recommended that the proposed localized leaner’s material in English 6 be used by the Grade 6 pupils in the Schools Division of Bulacan. English 6 teacher may use the material in the teaching and learning process aside from the usual curriculum guides currently used in the field as bases of premeditated competencies. School heads should support the needs of the teachers in order to have one is to one copy of the said localized material using local school funds.
Introduction
The clarion call in teaching the English language is said to be a colossal challenge to the classroom teachers in the Elementary Level. DepEd Order No.31 s.2012 states that English proficiency is indeed noteworthy for the implementation of the K to 12 Curriculum since it is a passageway in achieving immense higher outcomes in any achievement test specifically in the Elementary Level. In this perspective, in the educational system, effective classroom teachers should never stop exploring innumerable ways of improving pupils’ outcomes, predominantly in English which is considered by almost all students as a challenging subject.
Conversely, based on the submitted annual reports on the conduct of the English Curriculum monitoring and supervision to elementary schools in the Schools Division of Bulacan, the researcher who is the Education Program Supervisor in aforementioned subject has found out that there are no available materials in English 6. The results of the monitoring tools used by the researcher revealed that 100% of the elementary teachers have no available English learner’s materials to teach the English 6 lessons. Statistically, findings revealed that 93% of the elementary teachers used only the Curriculum Guide in order to plan the lessons and set their pedagogies and strategies suited to the needs of their learners. Elementary teachers affirmed that they experienced difficulties on how they execute the lesson without any reference material which is aligned with the curriculum mandates. They mentioned that they just relied on the available references which were taken from the internet which are said to be without validated facts and information. They also expressed their lamentation on how they hardly taught the lesson without the supporting materials to be used by the pupil-learners for them to come up with the learning episodes of the lessons. It was stated that having a complete set of learner’s material would give gigantic impact on the teaching and learning process; thus, the academic achievement of the pupil-learners.
Additionally, based on the submitted reports of all districts in the Schools Division of Bulacan pertaining to the Learning Progress Research Implementation Program (LPRIP) outcomes relevant to the schools’ academic achievements in all learning areas for the School Year 2017-2018, Elementary Schools obtained only an over-all academic achievement outcome of 62.31% in English 6 which was the identified the Grade Level with no available learner’s material and teacher’s guide. Compared to the lower grade levels with complete sets of English materials and with LPRIP academic ratings of 75.23 (Grade 1), 69.52 (Grade 2), 71.58 (Grade 3), 73.16 (Grade 4), and 74.81 (Grade 5) correspondingly, pupils from the lower grade levels obtained higher learning outcomes than the Grade 6 pupils in their written assessments. Moreover, despite the learning progress outcomes of the pupils, statistics revealed that English subject obtained lowest assessment outcomes compare to other learning areas. It is very evident that elementary school pupils decreased their English academic achievement in the previous school year. With these data, it signifies that one of the major factors of lower academic achievements in English is the unavailability of relevant print and non-print materials.
Also, the results of the aforementioned data have a bearing on the assessment outcomes of the reading level of the Grade 6 pupils. Pupils were categorized based on the reading level such as Non-Reader, Frustration Reader, Dependent Reader, Instructional Reader, and Independent Reader with corresponding ratings. Based on the consolidated reports submitted by the elementary schools pertaining to the Philippine Informal Reading Inventory (Phi-IRI), majority of the pupils were categorized as frustration readers with an over-all percentage of 48.29%. Other pupils were assessed and fell under independent readers (9.6%), dependent readers (25.19), instructional readers (15.31) consecutively. Statistically, it was noted that even in the Grade 6 level, non-readers were also uncovered with a percentage of 2.61%.
With these off-putting data, it is convincingly stated that there is a clarion call for instantaneous actions to change the upshots of the learners in the English subject. Thus, with the proposed intervention materials and with an immense concentration to the identified problem, this prompted the researcher to conduct this research entitled “Proposed Localized Learner’s Material: Its Impact to the Academic Achievement of Grade 6 Pupils in English.”
Specifically, it sought answers to the following questions:
- How may the academic achievement of Grade 6 pupils in English be described prior to the implementation of the study?
- How may the academic achievement of Grade 6 pupils in English be evaluated after the utilization of the said Learner’s Material?
- Is there a significant difference between the pretest scores and post test scores of the pupils after the implementation of the study?
Methodology
The researcher used experimental pretest-posttest design of mixed qualitative and quantitative research as his scheme to determine the impact of Proposed Learner’s Material as an intervention to be individually utilized among the Grade 6 pupils to improve their academic achievement in English. The quantitative part of the study was used to identify the significant impact of the intervention to the learning of the pupils through the conduct of experimentation among the respondents. On the other hand, the qualitative part shall indicate the implications of the said material to the learning of the pupils when their responses were explained by narrating their personal experiences in verbatim using the material through the conducted informal interviews. The result of the quantitative and the qualitative part of the research complemented with each other towards the conclusion of the study.
The Grade 6 pupils of the central elementary schools in the thirty-two districts of the Division of Bulacan shall serve as the main beneficiaries of the study. To establish the gender of the respondents, they were asked to indicate it on their profile sheet. Table 1 shows the number of male and female students in each school.
The academic achievement of all the Grade 6 pupils prior to the implementation of the study was described based on the results of their pretest scores using mean and standard deviation. Their pretest mean scores were emphasized and determined if they were comparable prior to the implementation of the study using t-test.
The academic achievement of the students after the utilization of the intervention was evaluated based on their post test scores using mean and standard deviation.
The significant difference on the result of the pretest and post test scores after the implementation of intervention materials was analyzed and interpreted using t-test. An alpha level of 0.05 will be employed in all the statistical treatments.
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