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Factors that Contribute to the Poor Writing Skills in Filipino and English of the Elementary Pupils

2020; RELX Group (Netherlands); Linguagem: Inglês

1556-5068

Analyn Saavedra,

Educational Assessment and Pedagogy

This study primarily aims to know the factors that contribute to the poor writing skills in English and Filipino of the Six Grader elementary pupils in one of the Divisions in the Zamboanga Peninsula. Using purposive sampling, 43 language teachers teaching English and Filipino who are teaching the subjects from five years and above were selected as respondents. They too are teaching in different public elementaries in the same Division. A standardized survey questionnaire which had undergone validation, reliability, and pilot testing served as the instrument of the study. Using the mean score and standard deviation through the SPSS, the researchers interpreted the data using the 5-point Likert scale, which was rated by the language teachers. The data revealed that there are five factors that language teachers considered to have influenced the poor English and Filipino writing skills of the elementary pupils. Based on their experiences and observations while teaching writing to the pupils, the following was recorded: 1) lack of vocabulary in the target language; 2) difficulty in conveying and organizing ideas; 3) pupils’ perception that writing is a hard task; 4) lack of motivation and interest in writing; and 5) the difficulty in spelling, grammar and sentence construction are the reasons why many elementary pupils have poor writing skills in English and Filipino. These factors can be attributed to the first languages of the pupils (Chabacano, Bahasa Sug, and Cebuano), where English and Filipino are considered as L2 only. Despite the effort of teachers, they acknowledged that elementary pupils’ writing skills still did not meet the standard in writing. That is why they are optimistic that following the K to 12 curricula will pave the way for improving the writing skills of the pupils, which has long been deteriorating. It is also an interesting point that curriculum planners, especially the language specialist, should look to help our pupils improve their writing skills in L2 eventually.