The Literary Appreciation Level of Grade 8 Students in Calamba City Public Schools (Cluster B-2)

Abstract

INTRODUCTION

Literature, like life, is not to be defined. Literature defies the foot-rule, and any attempt to treat it as if it was an exact science bound to fail. However, quality education should equip students with better understanding to survive the demands of comprehension. Current efforts are focused on improving academic performance of students in public schools in response to the pressure for educational reform which emphasized the importance of English amidst advance in Science and Technology in the modern Contemporary world.

METHODS

The immediate objective of this research is to assess the level of literary appreciation needed in the literature-based instruction of Department of Education's K-12 program in relation to the academic performance of 329 Grade 8 students from schools in Calamba City.

RESULTS

It was found out that stages 1 "understanding" and 2 "decoding" were assessed by the two groups of respondents as frequently observed with an average weighted mean of 3.61 and stages 3 "losing self,” 4 "finding self" and 5 "venturing beyond self" as sometimes observed with an average weighted mean of 2.90, 3.19 and 3.33, respectively. On the other hand, the level of literary appreciation of Grade 8 students was assessed by the two groups of respondents as sometimes observed based on the overall weighted mean of 3.32. It was also found out that there is no significant difference in the assessment of the two groups of respondents on the level of literary appreciation of students in Grade 8. Moreover, the academic performance of the respondents has an average mean of 80.97, and it was revealed that there is no significant relationship between the level of literary appreciation and the academic performance of the students.

DISCUSSIONS

The more the students are exposed to the activities that will make them comfortable with literature, the more that they will improve their level of literary appreciation. Therefore, the researcher proposes an enhancement program on literature-based instruction strategies to contribute towards the attainment of high English fluency among public high school students.