Project DEWS21: An Intervention Program to Improve English Writing Skills of Selected Senior High School Students at Gen. E. Aguinaldo National High School

Abstract

INTRODUCTION

Using the English language is important to learners in order to communicate effectively especially to the subjects requiring its usage. According to the recent McGinitie test conducted by SHS English teacher, Ms. Jennelyn J. Lopez, there are more than 40 students who got low scores thus interpreted as "Frustration" and "Instructional". Likewise, Practical Research 1 teacher, Mary Ann B. Gatpandan identified that the major difficulty learners had encountered during the making of their qualitative researches is constructing English sentences. It is with these plights that SHS teachers decided to come up with the DEWS21 program.

METHODS

The researchers used a quantitative method to compare the level of English proficiency of the selected students before and after the 12 sessions implementation of the program, reflecting mostly on the figures from pre-test to post-test. The said test was created by the researchers. The purposive sampling technique was used in the selection of the recipients. Documentary analysis of the qualitative method was also employed to see if there were improvements in English sentence construction. The module created by the researchers was used as the major tool all throughout the conduct of the intervention.

RESULTS

Based on the result, there was a mean gain in the achievement level of 15.20 and the percentage of increase is 96.63. The posttest scores are remarkably better than the pretest for obtaining a mean score of 30.93 compared to 15.73. The results showed that (29) = 20.40, p is<0.0001 is significant at p ≤ 0.05. It indicates that there is a significant increase in English achievement test scores from pretest (mean = 15.73, SD = 5.08, N= 30) to the posttest (Mean = 30.93, SD = 5.68). Therefore, there is a significant difference in the level of English proficiency before and after the implementation of DEWS21.

DISCUSSIONS

After the research, the following are evident: (1) that there is a significant increase in the level of proficiency of the students in terms of English grammar, (2) the data gathered proved that the program has positive effect on the students' achievement based on the purpose of the study and (3) some of the commonly identified students' difficulty in writing are the mechanics in writing like homonyms, correct usage of subject-verb agreement, use of prepositions, use of possessive pronouns and use of past and past participle of verbs which requires more activities in the module.