JOSE RIZAL MEMORIAL STATE UNIVERSITY

The Premier University in Zamboanga del Norte

Main Campus, Dapitan City
Grammatical Competence of Pre-service Teachers

A Research Paper Presented to the

Faculty of the College of Education
JOSE RIZAL MEMORIAL STATE UNIVERSITY
The Premier University in Zamboanga del Norte
Main Campus, Dapitan City

In Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Degree
Bachelor of Secondary Education Major in English

ANGELIQUE KAYE T. RANARIO

SHAIRA MARIE M. LAROT
ALCEL JOYCE S. ANSING

May 2023
 Republic of the Philippines
JOSE RIZAL MEMORIAL STATE UNIVERSITY
The Premier University in Zamboanga del Norte
Main Campus, Dapitan City

COLLEGE OF EDUCATION

CERTIFICATION

IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT of the requirements for the degree BACHELOR OF

SECONDARY EDUCATION, this research titled “GRAMMATICAL

COMPETENCE OF PRE-SERVICE TEACHERS,” has been prepared and submitted

by ANGELIQUE KAYE T. RANARIO, SHAIRA MARIE M. LAROT, and ALCEL

JOYCE S. ANSING and is hereby recommended for FINAL ORAL DEFENSE.

NAOMIE B. DAGUINOTAS
Adviser

ii
 Republic of the Philippines
JOSE RIZAL MEMORIAL STATE UNIVERSITY
The Premier University in Zamboanga del Norte
Main Campus, Dapitan City
COLLEGE OF EDUCATION

APPROVAL SHEET

The research titled “GRAMMATICAL COMPETENCE OF PRE-SERVICE

TEACHERS” prepared and submitted by ALCEL JOYCE S. ANSING,
ANGELIQUE KAYE T. RANARIO, and SHAIRA MARIE M. LAROT has been
reviewed and approved by the Thesis Committee.

NAOMIE BAGUINAT-DAGUINOTAS
Adviser

APPROVED by the PANEL OF EXAMINERS ON ORAL DEFENSE on July

20, 2023 with the rating of Passed.

EMMA JENELYN I. CAINTA JUNRY O. VILLARBA

Panel member Panel member

NAOMIE BAGUINAT-DAGUINOTAS
Panel member

APPROVED by the Dean of the College of Education,

JOJI T. RECAMARA, EMD

Associate Dean

Date Signed: _______________

iii
 ABSTRACT

Over the years, researchers have delved in grammatical competence. However,

there are little studies conducted in the area of Pre-service teachers anchored on

Chomsky’s Linguistic theory. This research aims to explore and evaluate the grammatical

competence of pre-service teachers, recognizing the pivotal role that grammatical

competence plays in effective teaching and communication. The study determined the

grammatical competence of the College of Education pre-service teachers through the

grammar areas prepositions, correlative conjunctions, possessive nouns, demonstrative

pronouns, modifiers, and subject-verb agreement, which were necessary components to

assess their competence level. The results showed that students were competent in five

grammar areas but were less competent in prepositions, which insinuated that

respondents lack knowledge of the language because they are not the native speakers of

the English language. Perhaps, they were not able to grasp the correct usage of

prepositions while they were studying the structures of English. The findings led to

implications that the teachers needed step-by-step teaching of prepositions and should be

prepared for incidental grammar teaching and students should always review on grammar

rules while using their preferred learning strategies. Through the results, the study also

concluded that despite not being akin to the language considering that English is a second

language for Filipinos, Chomsky’s theory in universal grammar helped the respondents in

the correct usage of the grammar areas.

iv
 DEDICATION

It is with genuine gratitude and loving regard that we dedicate this work to God

Almighty, our strong pillar, our source of wisdom, knowledge and insight,

To our parents and friends, who proudly recognized and supported this work as a

fruit of countless and arduous sacrifices,

To Jose Rizal Memorial State University, school administrators, pre-service

teachers, and students who are all exerting efforts to meet the demands of the teaching-

learning process,

To our adviser, Ms. Naomie B. Daguinotas, who guided us in this process and

never gets tired of pushing us beyond our limits in reaching our goals in life.

The Researchers

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 ACKNOWLEDGMENT

The researchers wish to express their heartfelt thanks to the following who in one

way or another have helped in the realization of this study:

To Dr. Joji T. Recamara, for the approval of the study and for pushing the

researchers to their limits so they can finish on time;

To Ma’am Emma Jenelyn I. Cainta, Sir Junry O. Villarba, and Sir , for their

valuable comments, suggestions, and recommendations which were gratefully

incorporated in the study that greatly improved the work;

To Prof. Naomie B. Daguinotas, for her invaluable guidance throughout the

research process. Her vision, dynamism, and motivating words had driven the researchers

to make this research work as clear and successful in any ways possible;

To the dearesr Pres-service Teachers of BSED Science, English, Mathematics,

BCAEd, and BPE, for gladly accepted the offer to be one of the respondents;

To their parents, for their constant love and support;

To their friends, for showing them support and comfort whenever they had trouble

times during the process; and

Above all, to God Almighty, for the blessings He had showered throughout the

research work to make this study a successful one.

All of you have helped in making this research come into reality.

The Researchers

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 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

TITLE PAGE i

CERTIFICATION ii

APPROVAL SHEET iii

ABSTRACT v

DEDICATION vi

ACKNOWLEDGMENT vii

CHAPTER

1 THE PROBLEM AND ITS SCOPE

Introduction 1

Theoretical/Conceptual Framework 3

Statement of the Problem 8

Significance of the Study 9

Scope and Delimitation of the Study 9

Definition of Terms 10

2 REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

Pre-service Teachers 12

Grammatical Competence 19

Understanding the Areas of Grammatical Competence 25

Demographic Profile of the Respondents 36

Grammar Test 43

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 Synthesis and Gap 43

3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Research Method 45

Research Environment 45

Research Respondents 46

Research Instrument 46

Validation of the Instrument 47

Scoring Procedure 47

Data Gathering Procedure 48

Statistical Treatment of Data 49

4 PRESENTATION, ANALYSIS AND 50

INTERPRETATION OF DATA

5 SUMMARY OF FINDINGS,

CONCLUSION, AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Summary 67

Findings 68

Conclusions 69

Recommendations 70

REFERENCES

APPENDICES

A. Grammar Test 76

B. Letters of Approval 77

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x
 Chapter 1

THE PROBLEM AND ITS SCOPE

Introduction

Quality pre-service teacher education is a key factor in quality education. During

the learning process until practice teaching, the students are secured with the fact that

language is an essential component in the delivery of instruction (Jaca & Javines, 2020),

which means that to ensure quality education, teachers are expected to be fluent in using

the media of instruction. However, due to the reason that learners not focusing on English

language teaching undermine the importance of grammar rules, for as long as they are

able to convey their message (Tafida & Okunade, 2016) and due to the pandemic in the

past two years that kept the students in their homes, the pre-service teachers lack

foundation in the language as they were not able to delve deeper and hone their skills

more.

In the Philippines, Cabigon (2015) stated that the country needs to scale up with its

efforts to improve the teaching and learning of English, considering that this is a vital

skill of the workforce and an initiative that can potentially strengthen the country’s

distinct economic, political or educational advantage in the world. Since English as a

second language enables students to speak, write, and to make presentations with the

accepted English that is grammatical, fluent, and appropriate for the purpose, audience,

context, and culture (Rosales & Ilagan, 2019), the students’ communicative skill is

developed by linking it to grammatical development as grammar is the foundation for

communication (Hans & Hans, nd; Praise & Meenakshi, 2015). Hence, in using the
 2

language as a medium of instruction, pre-service teachers, regardless of their

chosen programs, are expected to be grammatically competent.

On that note, the study chose the suggestion of Low et al. (2014) that is to survey the

baseline proficiency levels of all pre-service teachers using English as a medium of

instruction and not just those specializing in the teaching of English Language as a

subject. Being in a university that focuses on developing effective communicators, the

researchers chose to study the pre-service teachers of programs using English as the

medium of instruction such as English, Science, Mathematics, Physical Education, and

Culture and Arts. Moreover, there are a few researches anent the grammatical

competence of Pre-service teachers, which should be crucial considering that they are

about to perform in actual classrooms. In line with this, the researchers focused on Syntax

or the study of the rules for the formation of grammatical sentences in a language, which

was inspired by the study of Morales and Ilagan (2019) that dwelt in Morphology,

Semantics, and Syntax.

In this study, a grammar test was set up to assess the grammatical competence of the

pre-service teachers. Through this, the researchers produced outputs of strategies that

helped the pre-service teachers be competent and ever ready in the field of education. The

study allowed more programs to be initiated to ensure the achievement of the university’s

goal. Furthermore, the study also enabled teachers to be more hands-on regarding the

guidance of their students who were deployed off-campus.

 3

Theoretical/Conceptual Framework

The study is moored on the Linguistic Theory of Noam Chomsky as cited by

Mamborol (2017), which proposed a novel idea that all human beings may be born with

an innate understanding of how language works. Chomsky reacted against the empiricist

approaches that were dominant in linguistics in the 1950s. Behaviourists argued that

stimulus—response models could explain how language was acquired. Chomsky replied

by observing that such accounts of language learning cannot take account of the

potentially infinite number of utterances that the language user will create and encounter,

thus certain aspects of language use and acquisition must be innate to the human mind,

and not the product of individual learning (Mambrol, 2017).

The theory proposes that there is a theoretical language acquisition device (LAD)

somewhere in the brains that is responsible for learning a language the same way the

hypothalamus is responsible for maintaining body temperature. If language was partly

biological, it could explain why humans seem to have far more complicated

communication patterns than any other species. The role of the LAD is to encode the

major skills involved in language learning, but with a focus on the encoding of grammar.

For example, children automatically grasp the correct way to arrange dependent sentence

structures without being taught. They know to say “The boy who is swimming wants to

eat lunch” instead of “The boy wants to eat lunch who is swimming.”

Furthermore, the idea that humans are genetically endowed with knowledge of the

linguistic features is called Universal Grammar. It is the idea of innate, biological

grammatical categories, such as a noun category and a verb category that facilitate the
 4

entire language development in children and overall language processing in adults and is

considered to contain all the grammatical information needed to combine these categories

into phrases. For example, children instinctively know how to combine a noun (e.g. a

boy) and a verb (to eat) into a meaningful, correct phrase (A boy eats) (Lemetyinen,

2012).

On that note, the study made use of the grammar areas: prepositions, correlative

conjunctions, possessive nouns, demonstrative pronouns, modifiers, and subject-verb

agreement.

Preposition is a word placed before a noun or pronoun to form a phrase modifying

another word in the sentence. Therefore a preposition is always a part of a prepositional

phrase. The prepositions used in the study are the following: over, below, in, behind, up

to, on, among, and of. Over is used to talk about movement or position at a higher level

than something else. Below is most commonly used as a preposition meaning ‘lower

than.’ The preposition in can mean a point within an area or a space, within the shape of

something or surrounded by something, into something, during a period of time, wearing

something, a state or condition, and involved in something. The preposition behind

means towards the back of somebody or something. Up to is used to indicate extension as

far as a specified place. “On” means touching and supported by the top surface of

something. Among is used when someone or something means in the middle or included.

The preposition ‘of’ means involving or part of someone or something.

Correlative conjunctions are conjunctions used to illustrate how two words or

phrases within a sentence correlate to each other. Correlative conjunction always come in
 5

pairs. These are the correlative conjunctions used in the study: both...and/not only...but

also, either/or, and neither/nor. The first pair is used to to emphasize the link between two

things. The second pair is used to affirm each of two possibilities. The last pair connects

two or more negative alternatives.

The Possessive nouns that are utilized in the study are: teachers’, children’s,

parents’, woman’s, father’s, mother’s, babies’, Mr. James’, Mary’s and girls’. A noun is a

word for a person, place, thing or idea and it shows possession by adding ‘s just like the

phrase “ Jeremy’s car” and adding s’ if the noun is plural or ends with an s such as” the

girls’ project.”

Another grammar area used in the study is Pronoun, specifically, Demonstrative

pronoun, a pronoun that points to a specific noun or noun phrase in a sentence. The

demonstrative pronouns used in the study are: that, this, these, and those. This and that

are singular and these and those are plural. This and these are used to point to things and

people that are close to the speaker or writer, while hat and those are used to point to

things and people which are not easy to identify in a situation and are distant from the

speaker.

Modifiers, as their name implies, are words that modify. Specifically, they are

words that modify their sentences’ meaning. It can be used on how you describe what

somebody looks like or how you describe how an action is performed. These are the

sentences present in the study to analyze the correct placement of modifiers: Jessie ate a

bowl of cold cereal for breakfast/Jessie ate a cold bowl of cereal for breakfast, The

shopper only looked at ties/The shopper looked only at the ties. The clerk sold the scarf
 6

with the red print to the woman/The clerk sold the scarf to the woman with the red print, I

remembered after I got home that I had forgotten my keys/I remember that I had

forgotten my keys after I got home, We returned the toy that was broken to the store/We

returned the toy to the store that was broken, She serves hamburgers on paper plates to

the children/She served hamburgers to the children on paper plates, My friend uses a pen

with a gold cap to write his essays/My friend uses a pen to write his essays with a gold

cap, The instructor just nodded to Elvis as she came in/The instructor nodded to Elvis just

as she came in, and The shop keeper almost sold all the pots/The shop keeper sold almost

all the pots.

In the area of Subject-Verb Agreement, the options present in the study are:

disagree/disagrees, is/are, seems/seem, have/has, need/needs, was/were, work/works, and

understands/understand. A subject-verb agreement is the grammatical rule that the verb

or verbs in a sentence must match the number, person, and gender of the subject. Verbs

must agree with the subjects in number and in person.

The theory was used in order to justify that the pre-service teachers make use of

their existing and stored knowledge of grammar areas through a grammar test to assess

their level of grammatical competence and use the results for implications to teaching and

learning.
 7

Implications for Teaching and Learning

Subject-Verb
Prepositions Agreement

Grammatical
Correlative Competence Modifiers
Conjunctions of
Pre-service
Teachers

Possessive Demonstrative
Nouns Pronouns

Figure 1. Schema of the Study

 8

Statement of the Problem

The study aimed to determine the College of Education pre-service teachers’

grammatical competence along the six grammar areas in Jose Rizal Memorial State

University Main Campus, Dapitan City in the Academic Year 2022-2023.

Specifically, the study sought answers to the following questions:

1. What is the demographic profile of the pre-service teachers of JRMSU in terms of:

1.1 Age;

1.2 Gender;

1.3 Program;

1.4 Language Spoken at Home; and

1.5 Media Exposure to the English Language?

2. What is the respondents’ level of grammatical competence along lines of:

2.1 Prepositions;

2.2 Correlative Conjunctions;

2.3 Possessive Nouns;

2.4 Demonstrative Pronouns;

2.5 Modifiers; and

2.6 Subject-Verb Agreement?

3. What is the implication of the study’s results for teaching and learning?

Significance of the Study

 9

This study provided research-based data and knowledge of the level of grammatical

competence of pre-service teachers.

Specifically, the study would benefit the following:

Students. Pre-service teachers would be informed of what needed to be improved

anent their usage of the grammar areas to be more vigilant in using the English language

rules as English is a medium of instruction.

Teachers. They would be able to determine the struggles in terms of grammar

among students and were aware of what they needed to focus more in training and

teaching before deploying the pre-service teachers.

Institution. The university would be guided of the programs to be conducted to

enhance the grammatical competence of future educators.

Scope and Delimitation of the Study

The study of grammatical competence was conducted for the pre-service teachers

taking Bachelor of Secondary Education programs using the English language as the

medium of instruction in JRMSU Main Campus, Dapitan City, during the first semester

of the academic year 2022-2023 to assess their mastery in terms of grammar. Out of the

157 pre-service teachers, only 108 voluntarily responded to the grammar test which was

answered through Google forms.

Moreover, the study delimited itself to the assessment of grammatical competence

level based on the results of the grammar test through the correct usage of the grammar

areas: prepositions, correlative conjunctions, possessive nouns, demonstrative pronouns,

 10

modifiers, and subject-verb agreement. Also, the study was delimited to the demographic

profile of pre-service teachers along age, gender, program, language used at home, and

media exposure to the English language. On that note, the study was focused on the

BSED programs English, Science, Mathematics, Physical Education, and Culture and

Arts. The implication of the study was based on the results of the level of grammatical

competence.

Definition of Terms

To provide a common frame of the study for comprehensibility, the following are

hereby defined:

Pre-service Teachers. These are the fourth year education students deployed to gain

experience in teaching of JRMSU Main Campus taking up BSED English, BSED

Mathematics, BSED Science, Bachelor of Culture and Arts Education, and Bachelor of

Physical Education, which are programs using English as the medium of instruction.

Grammatical Competence. This refers to the ability to sight proper usage of

grammar in terms of the six grammar areas: Prepositions, Correlative Conjunctions,

Possessive Nouns, Demonstrative Pronouns, Modifiers, and Subject-Verb Agreement

through the grammar test conducted.

Prepositions. These are words that are used before a noun, a noun phrase, or a

pronoun, connecting it to another word.

 11

Conjunctions. This refers to words that link other words, phrases, or clauses

together. The study chose Correlative conjunctions, a pair of conjunctions that work

together to connect equal parts of a sentence.

Possessive noun. This grammar area explains and demonstrates apostrophe usage

in the English language to show possession.

Pronouns. This refers to the substitute of nouns. The study focused on one type---

demonstrative pronoun, a pronoun that points to a specific noun or noun phrase in a

sentence.

Modifiers. These words, phrases, or clauses modify the sentence through giving

information about another word in the same sentence.

Subject-Verb Agreement. This is the grammatical rule that the verb or verbs in a

sentence must match the number, person, and gender of the subject.

Implication. This is the conclusion that can be drawn from the results for the

development of teaching and learning.

Mean Percentage Score. This formula is used to determine the grammatical

competence level of the pre-service teachers.

 Chapter 2

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

This chapter provides useful materials that are connected in the study and serve as

supporting data in order to elucidate the variables of the study.

Pre-service Teachers

Practicum teaching is an integral part of the education curriculum since it is a good

avenue for Pre-service teachers to apply the theories they learned in the real classroom

setting (Ulla, 2016). It is also the real practice of the teaching process as it allows

students to develop life skills such as independence in problem solving, group work with

colleague teachers, and developing positive attitudes toward the teaching profession and

career values because of their knowledge about the teaching profession (Ebrahim et al.,

2017). A study by Jaca and Javines (2020) stated that quality pre-service teacher

education is a key factor in ensuring quality education in the Philippines, based on RA

7722, Article 1, Section 1. The quality of teaching in schools depends on the quality of

training student-teachers receive during teacher education program (Cansiz & Cansiz,

2015). Teachers’ professional development is a long journey and it should start from

college. The growing interest in teaching gradually increases year by year and this

phenomenon is a great opportunity as well as challenge as it requires to prepare the

students to be professional teachers.

Practicum experiences for incoming teachers provide them the hands on experience

in teaching and the chance to be supervised by the seasoned teachers. According to

Johnson (2015), a pre-service teacher is expected to learn from his or her mentor teacher,

as the mentor teacher serves as a role model, modelling teaching abilities for the
 13

pre-service teacher. Likewise, Kabilan (2013) mentioned that pre-service teachers

showed signs of maturity, personally and professionally. Aside from the fact that they can

get exposure to the real teaching profession, they will get to understand the culture and

context in which they are working. As a result, teachers emerged as professionally ready

after the practicum experience.

Consequently, pre-service teachers might merely replicate the varieties of teaching

they received in their own schooling while not fastidiously considering various

approaches. The knowledge and skills in teaching should always be emphasized before

taking up the work. In other words, pre-service teachers training must be held for and

attended by teachers to be prepared for the teaching profession. Pre-service training

would be a good avenue for teachers to practice and acquire good and effective teaching

skills. Starkey and Rawlins (2012) emphasized that understanding the teaching

environment in which the student-teachers would be exposed in a significant factor

towards learning during practice teaching. In this way, student-teachers already knew

what they were supposed to do and why they were supposed to do it.

Many empirical studies focused on learners' grammatical competence. Fikron

(2018) pointed out important role of grammatical competence in developing the learners'

communicative ability. He clarified that the grammatical competence is not only

responsible for learners' production, but also it monitors their language production.

Accordingly, it is important for the instructors to focus on fostering such underlying

system in their learners.

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Furthermore, Cuéllar (2013) conducted an action for the development of

Columbian students' grammatical competence. The results revealed that using writing

activities in a contextualized manner in teaching grammar boosted students overall

linguistic elements. Pre-service teacher education courses critically contribute to

educating new generations by preparing skilled and qualified teachers. Pre-service

teacher education lays the groundwork for the teaching profession and provides the first

step in the professional development of teachers. Effective teaching is highly dependent

upon successful completion of pre-service teacher education, with “fulfilling his or her

responsibility and duties effectively” (Yuksel, 2012), which in time leads to the status of

Qualified Teacher.

Research literature emphasized some challenges that practicum may underperform

in transferring theory into practice. Researchers agree that the concept of practice is

highly neglected and that short and inefficient Citing a variety of sources, Salihoğlu

(2012) illustrated a number of challenges on practicum as being a field that is neglected

or subject to short and inefficient practice sessions. At this junction, Salihoğlu (2012)

claims some vague reasons may be the cause of the lack of opportunities for practicing

what the candidates have learned.

Teachers should be educated to boost the whole and personal development of

students by enabling them to learn, live, and work together, and to develop habits of

responsible actions. Hence, teachers must be equipped with the necessary skills to guide

the learning activities by various techniques. There is more to teaching than directly

transferring knowledge: It is a profession and a way of life by itself; it requires a set of

particular proficiencies. TE should be fruitful and measurable, and proficiency – which

 15

serve as scaffolds that support teacher candidates for quality growth and development –

should be determined (Abazaoğlu, 2012).

Özcan (2012) identified that pre-service teacher education should prepare students

with standards like, “general knowledge, content knowledge, learner development,

learning differences, teaching strategies, learning environments, communication skills,

planning for instruction, assessment, reflection and growth, social relations and

collaboration, idealism and dedication, democracy and the rights of children, and

environmental consciousness." In other words, the student-teachers preparedness is to

ensure fulfilling the teaching profession effectively and prolifically with an expected

proficiency component.

These competencies are framed under three categories, namely professional

knowledge, professional skills, and attitude and values.The document through which the

new competency areas are presented also includes a detailed explanation for each area

and the sub-categories. Another change in the curriculum is in the number of hours in the

program which has decreased from 175 to 155 hours, reorganizing the balance among

different areas of teacher education as content knowledge (45-50%), professional

knowledge (30-35%) and cultural knowledge (15-20%), and an increase in the number of

elective courses in these three areas. It seems positive that the program has been built

through a participatory approach based on several meetings and workshops with

educators from different parts of the country. The changes in teacher education curricula

appear to be in line with suggestions by Ell et al. (2019), a researcher based in Australia,

in that they put forward the enhancement of student learning and the development of
 16

competent teachers with the help of essential “knowledge, skills and dispositions” to

reinforce learning.

A very recent decision announced by Cohe (2020) also highlights the dynamic and

continuing tendency to review and revise the pre-service teacher education curricula. The

decision enable each university and faculty of education to revise and redesign their pre-

service education curricula according to their specific contexts and needs. Although the

overall framework for all teacher education curricula is set as including content

knowledge, professional knowledge and cultural knowledge, the universities are now

authorized to redesign their pre-service teacher education curricula. This very recent

amendment introduced by CoHE once again underlines the significance of conducting

research studies, mapping the specific needs and desires of both target groups and

stakeholders in institutional contexts, and revising the pre-service education curricula

accordingly. To this end, exploring the opinions of pre-service teachers on the overall

structure of pre-service teacher education curriculum that is pursued by them appears to

provide a better understanding of the effectiveness of these curricula and to contribute to

set better grounds to review and revise them.

The perspectives of in-service teachers about pre-service teachers’ development

should be considered. The former once experienced first-hand what it was to be on the

other side of the fence. After a while, as in-service teachers, they began to put into

practice what they had learned as pre-service teachers. To illustrate, Faez and Valeo

(2012) included in their research in-service teachers working less than three years. Their

research is about how they perceived their own preparation as teachers of English to

speakers of other languages (TESOL) right after graduation and up to three years of
 17

experience, how successful they felt after some practice in adult education classrooms,

and how useful the courses they took towards their degree were.

The findings show that as the in-service teachers became more experienced, they

realized that they were more prepared. Another study by Farrell (2018) focuses on novice

in-service teachers discussing problems that usually surface once pre-service teachers

become in-service teachers. Farrell explains the gap between before (during preparation)

and after (during development), and how this gap could be bridged, stating that in-service

teachers face a different reality once they graduate. They have to take care of everything

by themselves, from planning classes to teaching, and so on.

They do not have anyone on whom they can rely. Thus, Farrell makes several

practical recommendations for pre-service teachers to feel more confident moving to the

role of in-service teachers. He suggests that their program of study should equip them

with three areas: “the content of L2 [what they need] …the pedagogies… taught in L2

teacher education programs [how they should teach], the institutional forms of delivery

through which both the content and pedagogies are learned [how they learn how to

teach].”

As three basic requirements of teaching profession, a teacher needs to have

professional content knowledge, teaching pedagogical skills and general cultural

knowledge. For this reason, prospective teachers should learn the basic concepts and

principles of their profession and they should be trained to work in different teaching-

learning environments in pre-service teacher education (Bostock, 2019). Even though

beginning teachers have received a qualified pre-service education, they need

 18

comprehensive guidance in the first years of their profession. Therefore, mentoring has

long been considered as an effective tool to support and adapt beginning teachers to the

profession during the induction period (Bressman, Winter & Efron, 2018).

There is a general belief that teacher education curricula prepare prospective

teachers for real classroom conditions. However, many of the beginning teachers have

many difficulties in their first year of profession (Kumi-Yeboah & James, 2012). Many

beginning teachers think that after they have graduated from pre-service their teacher

education, they will be able to apply what they have learned during the profession.

However, especially during induction years of teaching, most of the teachers experience

shock because of the challenges of a new context of teaching. Therefore for many

beginning teachers professional experiences becomes extremely hard as they struggle for

adapting to the new profession (Farrell, 2016).

Pre-service teacher education should enable prospective teachers to develop their

teaching views and allow the students to experience a linkage between practice and

theory (Hennissen, Beckers&Moerkerke, 2017). The limited experience in pre-service

teacher education causes the gap between theory and practice. Therefore, pre-service

teachers are needed to develop learning and teaching experiences that meet pedagogical

demands of the profession especially in induction years (Lancaster & Bain, 2019).

Beginning teachers are a different group experiencing inadequate working conditions that

can result in their leaving the profession. As they are exposed to different professional

experiences, it is important to determine their commitment to the profession and their

experiences.
 19

Teachers' view of the profession affects their attitudes and beliefs towards students

(Michel, 2013). Thus, it is thought that beginning teachers' professional commitment may

affect the challenges they face in the first year of the profession.Professional commitment

of teachers and their job satisfaction are two important elements. In order to improve

teacher education quality, it is of great importance to develop committed teachers who

show commitment to the students, institution, the profession itself, society and

professional values (Sharma, 2019). Professional commitment refers to the feeling of

engagement towards the profession which includes two important elements that are being

proud of the profession and having a strong desire for professional development.

Grammatical Competence

In an article written by Cabigon (2015), the Philippines is recognized globally as

one of the largest English speaking nations, with the majority of its population having at

least some degree of fluency in the language. English has always been one of the

country’s official languages and is spoken by more than 14 million Filipinos. It is the

language of commerce and law, as well as the primary medium of instruction in

education. Cabigon further noted that key stakeholders from the government, academe,

private, and nongovernment sectors acknowledged that even if Filipinos are generally

competent in English, concerns on how much of a competitive advantage have been

raised. The stakeholders agreed that the country needs to scale up with its efforts to

improve the teaching and learning of English, considering that these are vital skills of the

workforce. This is an initiative that can potentially strengthen the Philippines’ distinct

economic, political or educational advantage in this part of the world, particularly in the

ASEAN economic region.

 20

Likewise, Eisenmann and Summer (2012) stated that not only has grammatical

competence focus long been considered a necessary part of language instruction; it has

also even to this day often been considered a sufficient condition for successful language

learning. In formal grammar teaching, the classroom contents are typically organized

mainly based on analysis of language forms, rather than language functions and real

communication. The language is often divided into parts and taught in isolation.

The more worrisome dimension of this problem is that such fiasco extends even to

professionals who use English in their lectures or those among the honorable members of

state and national assemblies or those engaged in varied media outfits. Errors in subject-

verb agreement are becoming wide spread and it seems as if many people are either no

longer aware of the rules or they simply undermine the importance of grammar rules, for

as long as they are able to convey their message (Tafida & Okunade, 2016). Grammar

may be roughly defined as the way a language manipulates and combines words in order

to form longer units of meaning. There is a set of rules which govern how units of

meaning may be constructed in any language: one may say that a learner who knows

grammar is one who has mastered and can apply these rules to express him or herself in

the acceptability of the language forms (Chung & Pullum, 2015).

In addition, Ur (2013) described grammar as the way a language operates and

combines words so as to express certain kinds of meaning, some of which cannot be

conveyed adequately by vocabulary alone. These include the way ideas are grouped and

related, and the purposes of utterances such as statement, question, request, etc. Grammar

may also serve to express time relations, singular or plural distinctions and many other

aspects of meaning. There are rules which govern how words have to be manipulated and
 21

organized so as to express these meanings such as when a competent speaker of the

language will be able to apply these rules so as to convey his or her chosen meaning

effectively and acceptably.

Moreover, grammar may speak even louder and more insistently than those of its

denotation; most of the connotations carry a negative overtone, and yet many of the

connotations are based on misunderstandings of the basic definitions of the word.

Developing an awareness of the multiple connotations associated with the subject of

grammar may help English teachers to understand students’ potential aversion to

studying grammar, as well as their own difficulties or confusions about the subject

(Allen, 2013).

Richards (2016) disclosed that grammar is the system of rules used to create

sentences refers to the knowledge of parts of speech, tenses, phrases, clauses and

syntactic structures used to create grammatically well-formed sentences in English. The

rules for constructing grammatically correct sentences belong to sentence grammar.

Eisenmann and Summer (2012) state that not only has grammatical competence focus

long been considered a necessary part of language instruction; it has also even to this day

often been considered a sufficient condition for successful language learning. In formal

grammar teaching, the classroom contents are typically organized mainly based on

analysis of language forms, rather than language functions and real communication. The

language is often divided into parts and taught in isolation.

Furthermore, Chomsky (1965 as cited by Mojabi, 2014) elucidated that

grammatical competence is defined as the ability to recognize and produce the distinctive
 22

grammatical structures of a language and to use them effectively in communication. On

the other hand, Hymes’ (1972 as cited by Mojabi, 2014) view was thought to be more

realistic wherein he defined grammatical competence as the ability to use grammatical

competence in a variety of communicative situations, thus bringing the sociolinguistic

perspective into Chomsky’s linguistic view of competence.

Linguists define grammar as the set of structural rules that governs the composition

of clauses, phrases and words in any given natural language. The term also refers to the

study of such rules and this field includes morphology, syntax, and phonology, often

complemented by phonetics, semantics and pragmatics (Praise & Meenakshi, 2015).

Generally speaking, students are taught the grammar basics in primary education. They

learn how to use punctuation, how to conjugate verbs, and how to think critically, among

other lessons (Frederick, 2015). As basis of language proficiency, being very much

knowledgeable anent grammar is significant.

Manonong et al. (2018) concluded that possessing excellent English grammatical

knowledge makes a pre-service teacher facilitate classroom learning effectively. His

study, employing the descriptive–correlation design, aimed to investigate the influence of

English language exposure to the grammatical knowledge of 65 pre-service Education

students. Furthermore, the study of Cagurangan (2018) assessed the grammatical

competence of the Teacher Education students of University of Saint Louis using a

Diagnostic test and on-the-spot essay. The findings revealed that the students were

grammatically competent on Words and Sentences and Prepositions; but they were not

competent on the combined uses of Verbs, Prepositions and Adverbs, and Conditionals

and Wish. However, they were intermediate on the use of Verbs, Modal verbs, Passive,
 23

Pronouns, Adjectives and Adverbs. Grammatical knowledge seems to be a scarce

phenomenon.

Repeat studies or national reports have signaled weaknesses of teachers’

grammatical content knowledge (Myhill et al., 2012). The same study determined how

teachers’ grammatical knowledge influenced classroom practice and shaped the nature of

learning by students. In the very recent survey, Leonen (2018) reported that in the two-

year study lead by the Hopkins International Partners among 10000 graduating college

students from Luzon who took the Test of English for International Communication

(TOEIC) scored an average of 630 on English proficiency. The said average was lower

than the competency requirement for taxi drivers in Dubai. More so, the average signified

to be comparable to the proficiency of 5th and 6th grade students in native English

speaking countries such as USA and the United Kingdom.

Moreover, having the knowledge to understand the structure and create the new

phrase or sentence with the good structure rule of English is grammatical competence

itself (Persada, 2021). According to Rosales and Ilagan (2019), Grammatical Competence

is considered as the mastery of the codes of linguistics. In the same study, in determining

the grammatical Competence of the learners, it made use of the parameter, “Highly

competent” wherein learners can appropriately apply the morphological, semantical, and

syntactical rules of English grammar in which learners got the 75-100 %; “Moderately

competent” the learners could averagely apply the rules governing the three areas of

grammar and garnering a percentage of 50- 74 %; “Less competent” in which learners’

grammatical knowledge on the three areas is limited with a percentage score of 25-49 %;
 24

and “Not competent” wherein the learners have little knowledge and rarely observe and

apply the correct grammatical rules and get a percentage score from 0-24.

Proficiency in grammar is essential because it is where an individual can express

himself, talk about his ideas and feelings, learn to converse, relate with people, ask for

information, state his likes and dislikes, give advice and assert his intentions. Grammar,

which has been learned extensively by both EFL and ESL students, continues to be a

challenge for some students. While the tools and techniques have been implemented, the

learners continue to struggle with specific difficulties in sentence construction, such as

tenses, adjective clauses, prepositions, conjunction use, and so on (Kholili, 2020). In the

Philippines, many studies focused on determining the grammar skills of students. These

studies focused on grammar proficiency and first language interference of tertiary

students (Cabaruan & Cue, 2018), high school students’ grammar skills (Sioco & De

Vera, 2018), pupils’ grammatical proficiency (Salas & Legaspi, 2020), use of varied

instructional strategies in improving English grammar proficiency (Alvarez, 2017;

Baronia, 2020; Caminade, 2015; Natividad, 2019; Palasan, 2017), teachers’ grammar

skills (Rosales & Coronel, 2017), and positioning Philippine English grammar and

lexicon (Torres, 2019).

Lastly, Tuan (2017) mentioned that grammatical competence acts to promote

accuracy and fluency in second language production (Gao, 2001) as cited by Schmeller

(2017). Believing that practice is the sole criterion for testing truth in terms of the

practical effects of English language teaching, ignoring and neglecting the teaching of

English grammar is not conducive to the promotion of the teaching of English as a whole,

and even affects students’ correct use of English. Further, past studies conducted on
 25

communicative/grammatical competence among teacher education students revealed a

fair competency especially along verb tenses, sentence structure, punctuation, word

choice, spelling, use of prepositions and articles which fall under grammatical,

mechanics/ substance and syntactic aspects of writing English (Batang, 2014; Lasaten,

2014; Uthman, 2015).

The essence of the idea of connectionism with respect to grammatical competence was

the fact that the grammatical competence can be represented as a network of elements

interacting in the intertwining connections (Millrood, 2014). Grammar is an effective

way to train students’ communicative competence in English language teaching.

Grammar and communicative competence should not be in opposition. With a good

knowledge of grammar, students can fully improve their integrated English proficiency

and promote the overall levels of their English. Therefore, teachers who teach the foreign

language should try to reform the current conditions on neglecting grammar teaching in

English education, and strive to explore grammar teaching methods to fully promote

students’ English level.

Understanding the Areas of Grammatical Competence

Grammatical instances (exemplars) are specific examples of language used in

natural communicative situations. Language instances stored in the memory of native or

trained speakers are an integral part of their grammatical competence, which is the ability

to understand and express meaning, producing and recognizing phrases and sentences

correctly executed in accordance with set of principles that govern the amount of

elements that are arranged in a meaningful and complete series or sentence (Amelina,

2014). By grammatical concepts in linguistic competence of students we mean notions

 26

that can be used to describe the correct English sentence. Important concepts for learning

English grammar are parts of speech (noun, verb, adjective, etc.), their function in the

sentence (subject, predicate, minor sentence), the order of words in the English sentence

(direct order and inversion), morphological features of grammatically correct statements

and many others. Grammatical categories are used not just to name but to describe and to

explain grammatical phenomena using appropriate concepts and instances (exemplars).

Therefore, a category always consists of concepts, instances (exemplars) and rules that

make up the little theory as part of the theoretical fabric of grammatical competence of

students. For example, the most important grammatical category for students who study

English language grammar is grammar tense. Without this knowledge, the formation of

grammatical competence of students in English is impossible (Millrood, 2014).

In evaluating the formation of foreign language communicative competence in

addition to content, coherence, lexical adequacy, sufficiency phonetic rules, the

grammatical correctness (compliance with the rules of spelling and punctuation, correct

use of different grammatical structures) is also taken into account. Thus, working with

grammar should not be a separate purpose, but linked to the practical use of language as

aid to successful communication. Therefore, the formation of grammatical competence is

not considered withdrawn from the context, and embedded in the communicative

situation or communicative context (Amelina, 2014).

According to Tafide and Okunade (2016), English Grammar presupposes eight

parts of speech namely: noun, pronoun, adjective, adverb, preposition, conjunctions,

interjections and verbs. Students are taught to be competent in the fictional use of these

grammatical elements. However, the researcher who has relatively spent years in the
 27

English language teaching career has noted that one of the main problems of the students

is their functional grasp of subject-verb agreement. ESL students’ problematic difficulties

in their use of subject-verb agreement are becoming more obvious and rampant, and it

cuts across the different grade levels where students belong. From the primary school

towards the university level, many students are noted in their speech and writing as not

being able to abide with the rules of subject-verb agreement. Errors on subject-verb

agreement were found not only in students’ essays but even in writings of colleagues in

universities.

As to the study of Cagurangan (2018), it revealed that the Teacher Education

students are said to be grammatically competent as reflected by the results of the 100

questions given to the participants. As manifested, they were very proficient in Words

and Sentences. This implies that the students were able to identify correctly the different

parts of speech and the parts of sentences – subject and predicate respectively. Also, they

have the knowledge, ability and skills in using the appropriate words to complete the

meaning of the given sentences. This finding of the current study contradicts the results

of previous studies since the students committed errors including word order (Al -

Khasawneh, 2014); had difficulty in understanding and using syntactical rules (Uthman,

2015); had errors in word choice (Lasaten, 2014).

With the same results in the study of Cagurangan (2018), it implied that teacher

Education students of USL were conscious on the use of prepositions. As compared with

previous studies, the participants in their studies recorded the occurrences of incorrect

preposition use (Chua et al., 2015) and unnecessary use of prepositional phrases

(Sudkaharan, 2015). Besides, preposition was among the most common language
 28

problems manifested by students in their writing (Younes et al., 2015). The participants

had more incorrect English prepositions which are predominantly incurred by females;

and from the result of the study conducted, it implied that both males and females need

improvement in the use of prepositions (Chua et al., 2015). Furthermore, the Teacher

Education students were proficient in the following areas: The Infinitives and “ing”

(gerund) forms, Nouns and Articles and the Use of This, My, Some and a lot of which

was in contradiction with the results of the study of Unggul et al. (2017), who concluded

that their students had difficulty to use gerunds and infinitives.

It should be noted that of all the parts of speech, nouns are perhaps the most

important as they identify a person, animal, place, thing or idea. In this current study, the

students showed competence in its use. This finding was supported by Tuan (2017) where

the students’ greatest strength along linguistic competence is on the function of noun;

however, the study of Tse (2014) contradicted it as nouns appeared among the significant

errors incurred by students. In addition, the Education students displayed proficiency on

articles, which are words that modify a noun, which is a person, place, thing or an idea.

The students were skillful in identifying that articles were used to point out or refer to

nouns.

Also, they were able to name the different types of articles that were used in

writing - definite and indefinite respectively. This finding negates other studies

previously conducted as articles were often misused in students’ free- writing (Fhonna,

2014), articles were the most difficult (Han, 2017), improper use of English articles (Al-

Khasawneh, 2014). These studies cited showed the difficulties of students in the use of
 29

articles, as compared with the proficiency which was manifested by the respondents of

this current study.

With regard to the use of Verbs, the respondents were intermediate users along

grammatical competence particularly linguistic competence and good knowledge on the

parts of speech that is necessary (Tuan, 2017). As such, there must be correct use of

verbs; however, verb tense was often misused in students’ free-writing (Fhonna, 2014;

Mustafa, 2017). Similarly, previous studies found out that verb tenses are the most

common errors of the students (Lasaten, 2014). Reasons for unfavorable results were

caused by learners’ poor knowledge of the target language (English), ignorance of rule

restrictions, first language transfer or interference and limited vocabulary in the target

language.

Also, the Teacher Education students were Intermediate in the use of Modal verbs.

This means that the students in this current study were confused on the use of modals.

The results of the study of Iranmanesh (2015) indicated that teaching modal verbs

through task–based approaches has been more effective than teaching them in traditional

ways.

Furthermore, the respondents were intermediate in the use of The Passive, which is

one of the two voices of Verbs, that is, when the subject of the sentence is acted on by the

verb. In other words, the student - respondents were more competent on the use of the

Active voice, where the subject is the doer of the action. This result negates the findings

of previous studies as passive voice was among the grammar topics that the participants

identified as difficult (Han, et.al, 2017). The fourth year English major students were
 30

competent on active and passive voice (Yan, 2012); however, passive voice was among

the grammar topics that participants consider as difficult (Elturki, 2014). Moreover, the

respondents were also intermediate in the use of pronouns.

In short, the students were able to identify that pronouns can replace a noun and its

function in the sentence such as subject, direct object, indirect object, object of the

preposition and more. This finding is similar to the result of the study which was

conducted among the pre-service elementary teachers who committed more errors on

pronouns (Ocampo, et. Al., 2016 and Fhonna, 2014) that were often misused in the

students’ free–writing; yet, in other studies the students’ greatest strength along linguistic

competence includes the use of pronouns (Tuan, 2017 and Hizbullah, 2014).

More studies delved in the components of grammatical competence. To give a

good case in this point, Teacher Education students of USL were conscious on the use of

prepositions. As compared with previous studies, the participants in their studies recorded

the occurrences of incorrect preposition use (Chua et al., 2015) and unnecessary use of

prepositional phrases (Sudkaharan, 2015). Besides, preposition was among the most

common language problems manifested by students in their writing (Younes et al., 2015).

The participants had more incorrect English prepositions which are predominantly

incurred by females; and from the result of the study conducted, it implied that both

males and females need improvement in the use of prepositions (Chua et al., 2015).

Moreover, the respondents were also intermediate in the use of pronouns.

Additionally, Rodriguez (2015) and Tafida & Okunade (2016) noted that the use of

singular versus, plural verbs and correct subject-verb agreement are more abstract
 31

concepts and require more detailed explanations. Correct use of singular and plural verbs

also depends on the writer's ability to correctly identify the subject of the sentence and to

determine if the subject is singular or plural. Vaurula (2012) also concluded that even

though subject-verb agreement is one of the basic features of the English grammar and

has been referred to as a fairly simple or easy semantic feature, even advanced learners

and sometimes also native speakers fail to use the feature correctly. This is especially the

case with the 3rd person singular –s that is acquired fairly late among the different

morphemes studied in English as a second language.

Seitova's (2016) investigated common English language errors made by Kazakh

and Russian L1 speakers in a corpus of 32 compositions and 32 translations written by 32

participants. The seven most common errors committed were: pluralization, subject-verb

agreement, omission or misuse of articles, wrong choice of words, omission or misuse of

prepositions, spelling, misuse of V+ing form. Hammad (2012) attributed the errors

committed by students when writing in English to the insufficient exposure to English

language input. Furthermore, the results of the present study showed that wrong use of

articles, wrong use of prepositions, subject-verb agreement, word order, and verb tense

were among the most frequent errors committed by the students. These results are

consistent with the findings of previous studies.

On the study of Sanchez (2019), findings revealed that the respondents are highly

competent on subject and verb agreement with percentage of 76.07%. Further, they are

competent on Dangling and Misplaced Modifiers with a 67.87 % respectively. As to

Dangling and Misplaced Modifier, male respondents have more knowledge. Fatimah and

Putri (2020) found that the ability of third-year students to understand dangling modifiers
 32

was poor because the average score was 49. To find out the type of dangling modifiers

that were most answered incorrectly, each answer error in each type of dangling

modifiers would be added so that found 55% errors in dangling elliptical clause type. It

can be concluded that students need to be aware of logic and illogical sentences (dangling

modifiers).

Based on the findings, it can be concluded that the ability of the students was poor.

The average of the score was 46.12 from 29 students as the sample. Meanwhile, the data

which were taken from interview showed that the deviations happened because they did

not know the order of the modifiers in the noun phrase (Tiarina et al., 2012).

On the study of Zawahreh (2012) one reason for these results might be related to

Arabic interference and negative transfer of the mother tongue rules). Mourtaga (2012)

points out that the main reason of writing errors committed by second or foreign language

learners is the lack of practicing English writing. Writing practice under guidance and

encouragement could enhance the students’ performance in English writing. Hence, it is

advisable for Jordanian EFL university students to practice English writing frequently so

that they can enhance their writing performance.

In the studies of Lah and Yoo (2015) and Ahn (2013), a finding which suggests

that students clearly understand where prepositions need to be placed in a sentence. These

researchers have argued that preposition errors are due to students’ inability to distinguish

transitive from intransitive verbs and a lack of knowledge about prepositional verbs.

Moreover, the studies highlighted the need for sufficient exposure to prepositions in

context to help students improve their accurate use of prepositions.

 33

Pandapatan (2020) revealed that a lot of students commit mistakes in choosing the

right verb that agrees to the subject. This finding implies interference of first language

and second language as parcel in mastering the subject-verb agreement which results to

struggle and confusion among the learners. Lack of emphasis on grammar practice in

writing is also a reason in applying the rules especially the basics. Moreover, cultural

difference is a barrier in interpreting the sentences wherein the learners’ vocabulary is

limited. Suggested instructional strategy is a regular practice of the rules in the form of

drill.

The result of the error analysis process showed that students committed error into

four types: omission, addition, selection, and ordering. From the frequency of each error

types, selection was the error which most frequently produced by the students. It took

95.8% of the total errors. Moreover, 3.7% errors fell into omission and 0.3% errors fell

into addition; whereas,the researcher didn’t find any errors in misordering. Besides, the

subject pronoun is the most frequent errors that done by the first grade students of SMP

YMJ with the percentage 68.7%.

Focusing on the preposition ‘of,’ Lah and Yoo (2015) analyzed errors in a learner

corpus containing essays written by Korean university students and found that only 4% of

all the tokens of the preposition of were used incorrectly, suggesting that most students

understood the precise use of the preposition. However, a further analysis revealed that

more than 80% of the tokens were used in what Linstromberg (2010, p. 206) calls an

integrative function (e.g. “the red roof of the house”), demonstrating the students’

inability to use the preposition in a variety of different functions in their writing.

 34

Grammatical morphemes of English emerge in learner language at different times,

and the rates at which they are mastered vary greatly. When it comes to subject-verb

agreement, the plural noun –s is acquired much earlier than the 3rd person singular –s

and, consequently, there have been various attempts at trying to explain the phenomenon.

Therefore, learning plural nouns have more meaning to learners than learning to inflect

verbs as the plurality conveys more meaning than adding a 3rd person singular –s to the

verb.

In the study of Barraquio (2015), to determine the grammar proficiency level of

Letran Calamba College students, she used the following grammar areas: Parts of speech,

Sentence Structure, Plural Nouns, Possessive Nouns, Pronoun usage, Subject-verb

agreement, Verb mood and tense, adjective and adverb usage in a sentence, Pronoun-

antecedent agreement, and Sentence Construction. The grammar proficiency level of

Letran Calamba college students scored a grade of 76.69%, which means that they need

improvement in grammar. Among the grammar areas tested, the highest scores were on

verb mood and tense followed by possessive nouns, rated 81.71% and 80.91%,

respectively.

The lower scoring were subject-verb agreement and sentence construction, rated at

72.71% and 70.91%, respectively. In another study by Sioco and De Vera (2018), despite

the fact that English Grammar presupposes eight parts of speech namely: noun, pronoun,

adjective, adverb, preposition, conjunctions, interjections and verbs; the researchers, who

has relatively spent years in the English language teaching career, have noted that one of

the main problems of the students is their functional grasp of subject-verb agreement.

ESL students’ problematic difficulties in their use of subject-verb agreement are

 35

becoming more obvious and rampant, and it cuts across the different grade levels where

students belong. Hence, they chose to focus on one grammar area only.

Siagianto (2014) stated that conjunction is important as other elements of structure

such as noun, preposition, pronoun, adverb, adjective, etc.According to Rozakis (1976)

conjunction is divided into three types: coordinating conjunction, correlative conjunction,

and subordinating conjunction. As Prawoto (2016) agreed that correlative conjunction is

one of the problems to be encounter because most of the students had less understanding

about the use of correlative conjunctions itself.Since there are a lot of problems about the

use of correlative conjunctions, several researchers have conducted studies related to this

topic. For example, Setyawan (2013) did a research about the students’ errors in using

correlative conjunctions. Furthermore, Prawoto (2016) discussed about the students’

mastery in using conjunction.

The last, Pratama (2016) and Novalia (2018) did a research about students’

grammatical errors in using correlative conjunction. This study has similarities with

previous studies, which are discussing about correlative conjunctions. However, the

difference between this study and other researchers is the instrument used in obtaining

data. Previous researchers used multiple choice tests or essays. However, in this study the

researcher will look at students' abilities by using contextual tests.

According to the study of Oktavia and Rahayu (2020), the students were quite

good in part 3 in which they were good in analyzing the correlative conjunctions error in

a sentence. The most difficult part was part 2 which instructed the students to combine

two sentences by using appropriate correlative conjunctions. Although their overall

 36

ability was fair; there was a part of the test in which students could do it well. The

students have very good ability in identifying correlative conjunctions in a text because

their average score was 95,97.

This finding is supported by Prawoto (2016) who found that the ability of the

students to use conjunction is good because the average score of the students was 65.The

result of the research data showed that the ability of the second year students of SMP

Aisyiyah Sungguminasa found difficult in using Demonstrative Pronoun with the total

mean score 41or classified as fair with highest score was 60 and the lowest score is 1.6.

The finding also showed that among the 26 students, there were 47.25% the students face

difficulties in using Demonstrative pronoun “this” in sentences correctly. While there

were 65.38% the students faced difficulties in using “that”. In using demonstrative

pronoun “these” there were 93.26% the most error. And there were 44.61% the students

faced difficulties in using demonstrative pronoun “those”. The researcher concluded that

almost all of students got the difficulties in using demonstrative pronoun. The difficulties

were caused the students had less understanding about demonstrative pronoun because

they never learned about it before.

Demographic Profile of the Respondents

The ages of Pre-service teachers may also vary, but focusing on Fourth year FS

students mean that the ages would be around 20-25. In line with this, a study by Qureshi

(2021) stated that the influence of the age of exposure on second language acquisition is a

widely debated topic in Applied Linguistics. His study concluded that researchers

generally believe that age effects are limited to naturalistic second language settings,

where the target language is used as the first language in the society, for example,
 37

English in the US. Hence, if learners are exposed to English as a second language (SL) at

an early age (e.g., 2 years) in a context like the US where there are unlimited

opportunities to be exposed to and practice English, they will achieve a higher

proficiency in English as compared to those who are exposed to it at a later age (e.g., 16

years). For foreign language (FL) settings, however, these results have not been

confirmed. Research conducted in FL environments, where the target second language is

mostly restricted to instructed environments like schools, generally do not support an

early-start superiority but some of these studies show late starters exceeding early

learners on some proficiency tasks, such as productive vocabulary task and editing task.

Another study by Yan (2017) concluded that according to age, the fourth year

English major students were competent and as to gender, still the same group of students

was competent. In addition, it is a general finding that the fourth year students are

linguistically competent on the whole system and structure of a language (consisting of

syntax, morphology, inflections, phonology and semantics). They have the tendency to

speak or write authoritatively about a topic or engage in conversation (Tuan, 2017).

Pre-service teachers vary in gender; there are males, females, and members of the

LGBTQI+. Cagurangan (2018) revealed that the grammatical competence of students

does not vary regardless of sex. However, the study of Kana (2015) concluded that there

is a significant difference between the communication skills of Turkish teachers and their

genders; that female pre-service teachers had higher communication skills, which means

that the latter are more likely more grammatically competent. Moreover, a study of

Moghimi and Khalaji (2019) quoted that, most recently, evidence has shown that while

both boys and girls have improved their performances, girls achieved higher marks than
 38

boys in EFL learning. In view of the quantitative findings of this study, it is clear that

female students in chosen grammar point outscored that of the males.

Moreover, another study by Xia (2013) concluded that women pay more attention

to the correctness of syntax. While expressing her thoughts, she would make her

utterance clear by using precise grammar. In addition, they also pay more attention to

using standard language than men do, so they are stricter with the use of language

According to the study of Yan (2017), as to gender, the fourth year English major

students were competent. The males were highly competent on the usage of subject verb

agreement, competent on the usage of verb tenses and active and passive voice, fairly

competent on the uses of prepositions and modals. On the other hand, females were

highly competent on the use of subject-verb agreement, moderately competent on verb-

tenses, competent both on the use of modals and active voice but fair on the use of

prepositions; but female participants recorded more incorrect English prepositions as

compared with their male counterpart (Chua et al., 2015). However, neither gender, nor

age played an important role in his study with regard to grammatical errors incurred by

the students (Murad, 2015).

Language reflects, records,and transmits social differences so it is not surprising to

find reflections of gender differences in language for most societies differentiate between

men and women in various marked ways. Phonological differences between the speech of

men and women have been noted in a variety of languages. Usually women’s

pronounciation are better than men’s, such as the pronunciation of –ing. Lakoff cited by

Eckert et al. (2013) wrote that women usually answer a question with rising intonation
 39

pattern rather than the falling intonation. In this way they can show their gentleness, and

sometimes this intonation shows a lack of confidence.

The study of Low et al. (2014) investigated graduating student teachers’ English

language proficiency, as measured by IELTS tests scores, of graduating English

Language student teachers. The study concluded that continuing research on language

proficiency assessment and baseline levels of proficiency of pre- and in-service teachers

must periodically be conducted so as to provide the empirical evidence needed for

continual programme development and enhancement. Locally, the study can be extended

to survey the baseline proficiency levels of all pre-service teachers using English as a

medium of instruction and not just those specializing in the teaching of English Language

as a subject.

In the study of Sioco and De Vera (2018), descriptive research was engaged in for

its requirement to describe the sets of data gathered from the respondents such as: sex,

grade level, age, grade in English in the first and second grading, first language used,

reading materials at home, types of media exposure, occupation of parents, parents’

educational attainment, and monthly family income. For the respondents’ first language,

Majority of the students’ (74.6 percent) reported “Iloko” to be their first language used.

Over the years, many SLA researchers claimed that the interference of the mother

tongue mainly caused ESL learners to make errors as both the first language and the

targeted second language have their own unique language mechanisms. This can be

supported by the study conducted by Jabeen, Kazemian and Shahbaz Mustafai (2015),

which stated that ESL students lack grammatical accuracy in English writings because
 40

they are greatly influenced by their first language rules. For Shukur (2014), subject-verb

agreement errors made by the 30 ESL learners in the research were caused by their

mother tongue interference and intralingual factors. Furthermore, the frequency of

negative language transfer occurs higher in low level language learners as they rely on

their native language in terms of certain language rules and structures. They tend to over-

generalise the target language rules during sentence constructions (Febriyanti & Sundari,

2016). The differences in syntactics between two languages have been shown to be one

of the main causes for ESL learners to acquire the English language.

ESL learners also make persistent errors because of the incomplete formation of

the linguistic rules and transfer from the first language (Sudhakaran, 2015). According to

the study conducted by Tati, Gedion and Yong (2015), it was revealed that the first

language had caused the errors of word orders, sentence constructions and the use of

English present continuous tenses and subject verb agreements. According to Guo, Liu &

Chen (2014), their findings revealed that the Chinese students’ mother tongue contributed

to the negative transfer in learning the English language.

In order to reduce negative language transfer while acquiring the second language,

it is imperative for ESL learners to have high understanding of the English grammar rules

in terms of how to use them correctly. This is also referred as being knowledgeable in

metalinguistics as this plays an important role in mediating and guiding learners to

understand the grammar concepts of the second language extensively. In addition,

metalinguistic knowledge serves as a tool in problem solving and helps learners to make

effective reasoning to explore form-meaning relationships of the second language’s

concepts (Harun, Abdullah & Zainuddin, 2017). However, SLA researchers discovered
 41

that the lack of grammar knowledge of the second language causes ESL learners to

continuously make errors. (Srichanyachon, 2012). According to Asni, Susanti and

Sulistiyo (2018), the data obtained from their study indicates that most of the learners

made grammar errors in their English written test due to the lack of the understanding of

the grammar rules in terms of past tense materials.

They also memorized the formula of past tense wrongly. Furthermore, they found it

challenging to differentiate between regular verbs and irregular verbs. This can be

supported by Jabeen et al. (2015) as well. The analysis of their data also suggests that

students are unsure of their grammar accuracy in their writing and they are also uncertain

of how to apply grammatical rules correctly in their English writing.

Meanwhile, the findings revealed low abilities of the students in understanding and

using syntactical rules properly which was reflected in the enormous grammatical errors

made by the respondents in the study of Uthman (2015). Wrong tense, errors such as

prepositions and articles were found to be the most frequent ones. The findings also

revealed that negative transfer from the mother tongue language is the major cause of

most of the syntactical errors made by the students in the written text. Results indicate

that that performance problems committed were due to mother – tongue interference, lack

of grammatical knowledge (Ngangbam, 2016). In addition, majority of the errors are

caused by learners’ poor knowledge of the target language (English), specifically

ignorance of rule restrictions. Others are attributed to the learners’ carelessness, first

language transfer for interference and limited vocabulary in the target language (Lasaten,

2014).
 42

Studies assess the level of media exposure to the English language of the

respondents to analyze its relationship to their performance. On that note, a study by

Alaga and Palencia (2015) revealed that majority of the student – respondents used the

English language in using the different forms of print, audio and audio – visual media. In

writing, listening and reading skills, the majority of the respondents were intermediate

level while in speaking skill, the majority of the respondents were fairly proficient.

Lastly, for viewing skill, the respondents were advanced level. Print media affect the

viewing and speaking skills of the respondents while the audio – visual media affects the

speaking skill of the respondents. Furthermore, this led to a recommendation for an

enhanced communicative ESL classroom instruction through the use of the different

forms of media.

In the study of Sioco and De Vera (2018), majority of the students have access to

“textbooks” (80.7 percent), “newspapers” (68.9 percent), “magazines” (57.6 percent),

“online reading materials” (51.4 percent) and “novels” (48.6 percent) in their respective

homes. The students are also exposed to varied media types such as “books” and

“television” (98.9 percent), “radio” (93.8 percent), “internet” (93.2 percent),

“newspapers” (81.4 percent), and “magazines” (67.2 percent).

Moreover, as for social media, its various facets and networks have had significantly

phenomenal influence on the individual life and on the societal, economic, and political

status of their users. The linguistic discourse of interlocutors on social media has also

been influenced. Hence, a study by Jahromi (2020) aimed at measuring how the English

language learning process of non-native Bahrainis has been affected by the use of social

media.
 43

Grammar Test

In the study “The Impacts of Grammatical Competence Towards Students’

Speaking Proficiency in Learning English as a Foreign Language” by Sabarniati and

Zulkarnian (2020), a grammar test was carried out in order to measure students‟

understanding about grammar. There were only two aspects of grammar included in the

test: subject verb agreement (SVA) and gerund and infinitive (GI). Twenty questions

were assigned in the test, with 13 questions for SVA and 7 questions for GI. It is

designed that way because SVA was considered as the most frequent errors in students‟

speaking activities. Moreover, another study by Haque (2019) used the following

methods of exploratory research: Secondary data analysis, Survey questionnaire, and a

Grammar test. The results of the grammar test present a disappointing picture of the

students’ grammatical competence. A few students (2.38%) performed excellently in the

grammar test while majority (16.67%) of them proved to be grammatically inefficient

(C+).
 44

Synthesis and Gap

There are a lot of studies already concluded about the competence encountered by

pre-service teachers. However, such studies tend to only focus on communicative

competence, without delving deeper to a specific difficulty in order of students in terms

of grammar. Thus, this study focused on the grammatical competence of pre-service

teachers through a grammar test. Since all teachers using English as the medium of

instruction may influence a student’s learning of the language, it is significant that despite

not teaching grammar, the teachers are grammatically competent. Additionally, previous

studies, although attempted to present the pre-service teacher training program in the

Philippine context, was very limited as data were gathered from a small sample size of

respondents; concentrating only on ELT pre-service teacher programs of BSED and BA

English curriculum. The study therefore suggested for future researchers to have a larger

scope. Hence, the participants of this study did not only focus on English programs but

expanded its scope to other programs that uses English as the medium of instruction:

English, Science, Mathematics, Culture and Arts, and Physical Education. On that note,

the study then analyzed the implications of the results of the study to teaching and

learning.
 Chapter 3

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This chapter presents the methodology of the study, including the methods of the study

and the research procedure.

Research Method

This study followed the descriptive-quantitative type of research using random

convenience sampling. It is the appropriate approach since this study aimed to determine

exact numbers for results by seeking to understand a phenomenon through the

measurement of the level of grammatical competence of pre-service teachers according to

the respondents’ availability during the period in which the research is conducted.

Research Environment

This study took place in Jose Rizal Memorial State University (JRMSU), Main

Campus, Dapitan City, which was not exempted in the CoVid19 pandemic and have led

the pre-service teachers’ lack of foundation in the language and affected their

grammatical competence especially that there is an existing mindset that despite having

the English language as a medium of instruction, following the rules of grammar is not as

important as teaching grammar as long as the students understand the teachers’ messages.

On that note, students develop confusion as to which rules are applied along grammar

areas. However, as the university aims for global competence, the most effective way is

to enable the students to fully grasp the language, which is why their grammatical

competence level was assessed to determine the required actions.

 46

Research Respondents

The respondents of this study were the fourth year pre-service teachers which

programs use the English language as the medium of instruction in JRMSU Main and

were enrolled in the first semester of the academic year 2022-2023. They were under the

programs BSED English, BSED Science, BSED Mathematics, Bachelor of Culture and

Arts Education, and Bachelor of Physical Education. There were a total of 157 pre-

service teachers who were taken as respondents. However, only 108 voluntarily

responded during the gathering of data.

Table 1

Profile of the Pre-service Teachers in Terms of Program

Program Population Sample Percentage

English 28 23 21.3%

Science 40 20 18.52%

Mathematics 27 27 25%

Culture and Arts 27 18 16.66%

Physical Education 35 20 18.52%

Total 157 108 100%

Research Instrument

The instrument used in this study was the grammar test which was prepared through

google forms. The first part contained the demographic profile in terms of gender, age,

program, language spoken at home, and media exposure to the English language. The

second part was a 60-item grammar test which comprised of: Prepositions (10 items),

Correlative Conjunctions (10 items), Demonstrative Pronouns (10 items), Possessive

 47

Nouns (10 items), Modifiers (10 items), and Subject-Verb Agreement (10 items). The

respondents were given choices for each item. Hence, their task was to click to choose

the best answers that described them for part one and the correct answers for part two.

Validation of the Instrument

The grammar tests adopted from Haque (2019) were standardized tests from

Advanced Grammar for International English Language Testing System (IELTS), First

Academy, International English Language Testing System (IELTS) Worldwide, and

Spring International Language Center; which were reviewed and validated by the

researchers’ adviser.

Scoring Procedure

In order to assess the grammatical competence of the Pre-service teachers, for problem

number 2, which is the data on the students’ level of grammatical competence on selected

grammar areas, the results were conveyed in terms of Mean Percentage Score (MPS) and

its descriptive equivalent as adopted from DepEd Memorandum no. 160 series of 2012

which is shown below:

Mean Descriptive Interpretation

Percentage Equivalent
Score
96-100% Very Much Competent Mastered
86-95% Closely
Much Competent Approximating
Mastery
66-85% Competent Moving Towards
Mastery
34-65% Less Competent Average

15-33% Low

5-14% Very Low

 48

0-4% Not Competent Absolutely No

Mastery

Data Gathering Procedure

A letter was sent to the office of the Associate Dean of the College of Education of

Jose Rizal Memorial State University Main Campus to seek for an endorsement to field

out the instrument of the study. The letter of the researchers together with the

endorsement letter from the Associate Dean was sent to the program chairs of BSED

English, BSED Science, BSED Mathematics, BPE, and BCAED to secure permission to

collect the list of fourth year pre-service teachers. As soon as the lists were given, the

researchers reached out to the respondents through the Messenger application for their

convenience and asked for their permission to be the respondents of the study and to be

included in their group chats to send the link of the Google form for them to comprehend

the directions better. After the directions and the examples were stated to each group chat

of the respondents, the researchers administered the instrument to the respondents

through the link of the Google Form. As the respondents answered the grammar test, the

responses were automatically tallied in the Google forms. After three weeks, data were

computed and finalized.

Statistical Treatment of Data

The following statistical tools were used:

 49

Percentage Distribution was used to determine the demographic profile in terms

of age, gender, program, language spoken at home, and media exposure to the English

language, with the formula:

P= N x 100% / T

Whereas:

P= percentage frequency

N=number of respondents

T=total number of respondents

100%= constant

Mean Percentage Score was used to determine the level of competence of the pre-

service teachers in terms of the six grammar areas: Prepositions, Correlative

Conjunctions, Demonstrative Pronouns, Possessive Nouns, Modifiers, and Subject-Verb

Agreement; and overall. It is computed as:

MS = TRS / S

MPS = MS / I x 100

Where:

I = number of items

S = number of students

TRS = total raw score

 CHAPTER 4

PRESENTATION, ANALYSIS, AND INTERPRETATION OF DATA

This chapter presents the data to answer the problems of the study through analysis

and interpretation followed by their corresponding tables and charts and are

chronologically presented following the order of the specific problems.

Figure 1
Profile of Pre-service Teachers in Terms of Age

1 (0.93%) 1 (0.93%)

15 (13.89%)

30 (27.77%)

61 (56.48%)

21 22 23 24 31

Age

Figure 1 presents the profile of the pre-service teachers in terms of age. As shown

in the pie chart, 61 (56.48%) of the respondents were 22 years old; 30 (27.77%) were 21

years old; 15 (13.89%) were 23 years old; 1 (0.93%) was 24 years old; and 1 (0.93%) was
 51

31 years old. This signifies that majority of the Pre-service teachers are 22 years old,

which is the average age of college graduates in the Philippines. This is slightly younger

than the global average of 24 years old. In this age, it is expected that the fourth year

students are linguistically competent on the whole system and structure of a language

(Tuan, 2017).

Figure 2

Profile of Pre-service Teachers in Terms of Gender

3.7%

23.15%

73.15%

Female Male LGBTQI+

 52

Gender

Figure 2 shows the profile of the pre-service teachers in terms of gender. As a result,

79 (73.15%) were Females; 25 (23.15%) were Males; and 4 (3.7%) were members of the

LGBTQI+ community.

In JRMSU Main campus, majority of he pre-service teachers are females, justifying

the study of Regalado (2017) that census findings disclose that in the Philippines,

teaching is a woman-dominated profession.

Figure 3
Profile of Pre-service Teachers in Terms of Program

20 (18.52%)
23 (21.30%)

English
Mathematics
Science
18 (16.66%)
Culture and Arts

27 (25.00%) Physical Educa-

tion

20 (18.52%)
 53

Program

Figure 3 presents the profile of the pre-service teachers in terms of their programs.
The results show that 23 or 21.3% of the 108 pre-service teachers who participated are
English majors; 20 or 18.52% are Science majors; 27 or 25% are Mathematics majors; 18
or 16.66% are Culture and Arts majors; and 20 or 18.52% are Physical Education majors.
Hence, 108 or 71% of pre-service teachers responded to the grammar test from the total
of 157 respondents of the aforementioned programs.

Figure 4
Profile of Pre-service Teachers in Terms of Language Spoken at Home

1 (0.93%) 1 (0.93%)
8 (7.40%)

English
Cebuano
Filipino
Tausug

98 (90.74%)
 54

Language Spoken at Home

Figure 4 presents the data of the first language used by the respondents. On that note,

results have shown that 1 or 0.93% of the respondents use English as his or her first

language; 98 or 90.74% use Cebuano; 8 or 7.40% use Filipino; and 1 or 0.93% use

Tausug. The results imply that majority of the pre-service teachers in JRMSU Main use

Cebuano as their First language.

Figure 5
Profile of Pre-service Teachers in Terms of Media Exposure to the English Language

4.63%
3.70%

39.81% Books
Television
Newspaper
35.19% Facebook
Tiktok
Instagram

0.93% 15.74%

Media Exposure to the English Language

Figure 5 presents the profile of pre-service teachers in terms of their media exposure

to the English language. On that note, results revealed that majority or 43 (39.81%) of the

respondents were exposed to Print Media (Books) and 1 or 0.93% was exposed to Print
 55

Media (Newspapers). As seen in the pie chart, despite the advent of technology, Social

Media such as Facebook, Instagram, and Tiktok came second, fourth, and fifth,

respectively; while Broadcast Media such as Television, only came third in the ranking.

Still, most of the pre-service teachers were exposed to Books, as these have been the

source of knowledge in the English language inside the school.

Grammatical Competence along Prepositions

Table 2 presents that the English program was the only program that had the

Competent or Moving Towards Mastery result. The rest were described as Less

Competent or Average but the lowest among them are the Mathematics majors, who had

a 50.74 MPS. The results revealed that 4 out of 8 frequently missed questions in the

grammar test came from the prepositions.

The first question was “We used to be able to hear the sonic boom of Concorde as

it flew ____ the house.” The choices were above, over, and on top of. While the answer

was over, only 45 respondents got it correctly. This means that most of them were

incorrect--- 42 respondents answered above and 21 respondents answered on top of.

For the next question, “The zookeeper was amazing – he calmly walked _____ the

lion and took the bag out of its mouth,” the answer was up to, but only 23 out of 108

were correct. Most of them answered towards and some of them answered near.

Another question from Preposition was “Your appointment with the consultant is

at 6.30______the evening of the 11th.” The choices were in, at, and on. While 62 of them

answered in and some answered at, only 30 chose the correct answer: on.
 56

The last frequently missed question from the grammar area: Preposition is “The

hotel’s bedding is made only______the finest cottons and linens.” 63 respondents

answered with; 11 respondents answered in; and only 34 got the correct answer, which is

of. The overall result revealed that the pre-service teachers are described as average and

less competent in this area. The results insinuates that the pre-service teachers have lapses

and confusions specifically anent Prepositions, which was why they were Less

Competent in the aforementioned grammar area.

Hence, in relation to the study of Chua et al. (2015), the respondents need

improvement due to the occurrences of incorrect preposition use since prepositions was

among the most common language problems manifested by students in their writing

(Younes et al., 2015).

Table 2

Level of Grammatical Competence along Prepositions

PREPOSITIONS
Questions No. of Correct Answers
ENG MATH SCI C&A P.E.
1. We used to be able to hear the 11 8 6 8 12
sonic boom of Concorde as it
flew ____ the house.
2. Is the rank of sergeant _____ 25 17 17 14 14
the rank of corporal in the British
army?
3. The Grand Bazaar _ Istanbul is 20 18 15 15 13
the largest covered market in the
world.
4. The Council is building a new 16 10 12 12 12
office ______ the car park of the
Multiplex cinema.
5. The zookeeper was amazing – 4 3 3 6 7
he calmly walked ___ the lion
and took the bag out of its mouth.
6. Your appointment with the 5 6 6 6 7
consultant is at 6.30____the
 57

evening of the 11th.

7. The walking tour will be 23 21 17 14 16
leaving promptly _______ time in
order to cover the itinerary.
8. Louis was unable to name one 20 23 18 15 12
person _____ all his
acquaintances that he could
truly call a friend.
9. The hotel’s bedding is made 13 7 7 3 4
only___the finest cottons and
linens.
10. Well, __ my opinion, our 23 22 15 15 12
neighbors could be a lot noisier
and more disruptive than they
actually are.
TOTAL 160 135 116 108 109
MPS 69.57 50 58 60 54.5
DESCRIPTION C LC LC LC LC
(INTERPRETATION) (MTM) (AVE) (AVE) (AVE) (AVE)
OVERALL RESULT 58.14 = LESS COMPETENT (AVERAGE)

Grammatical Competence along Correlative Conjunctions

Table 3 reveals that the description of the pre-service teachers of the English program

is that they are Much Competent and the interpretation is Closely Approaching to

Mastery since their MPS is 92.17. The rest of the programs are Competent or Moving

Towards Mastery. Overall, the pre-service teachers are Competent in correlative

conjunctions.

However, in the grammar test, one frequently missed question was from the area

correlative conjunctions. Item number nine states: “My brother Randy won’t win the

spelling bee. My best friend Ron won’t win the spelling bee. They’re both poor spellers.”

From the three choices: both…and / not only…but also; either…or; and neither/nor, the

number of respondents that chose these were 48, 10, and 50; respectively. Hence, only 50

respondents were correct for the item. This indicates that there is only a little confusion
 58

when using the three related correlative conjunctions since there was only one FMQ from

the grammar area.

The results oppose the notion of Prawoto (2016) that correlative conjunction is one of

the problems to be encounter because most of the students had less understanding about

the use of correlative conjunctions itself and the study of Oktavia and Rahayu (2020) who

concluded that the most difficult part was part 2 of their test which instructed the students

to combine two sentences by using appropriate correlative conjunctions. Therefore, the

pre-service teachers of JRMSU have the ability to link the sentences using the correct

correlative conjunctions.

Table 3

Level of Grammatical Competence along Correlative Conjunctions

CORRELATIVE CONJUNCTIONS
Questions No. of Correct Answers
ENG MATH SCI C&A P.E
1. I like spaghetti. I like 22 23 15 15 18
lasagna.
2. Maybe Jed will pick me up 22 22 14 17 19
at the airport in Miami. Maybe
my cousin Ted will pick me up.
3. The student is here. The tutor 21 19 13 17 16
is here.
4. Mrs. Alverado has her green 23 21 18 18 16
card. Her daughter Alicia has
her green card too.
5. I haven’t met my girlfriend’s 20 14 7 12 16
father. I haven’t met her
mother.
6. Fran speaks French. Her 23 19 15 15 16
sister Fern speaks French.
7. Sugar cane isn’t grown in 21 15 17 13 15
Colorado. Pineapples aren’t
grown in Colorado.
8. The Jones boys might play 22 19 14 11 13
 59

tennis this weekend. They

might go sailing instead.
9. My brother Randy won’t win 17 12 8 7 6
the spelling bee. My best friend
Ron won’t win the spelling bee.
They’re both poor spellers
10. Maybe Dennis will get 21 19 15 9 11
accepted by Stanford
University. Maybe he’ll get
rejected.
TOTAL 212 183 136 134 146
MPS 92.17 67.78 68 74.44 73
DESCRIPTION MC C C C C
(INTERPRETATION) (CAM) (MTM) (MTM) (MTM) (MTM)
OVERALL RESULT 75.09 = COMPETENT (MOVING TOWARDS
MASTERY )

Grammatical Competence along Possessive Nouns

Table 4 displays the result of the level of grammatical competence along

possessive nouns. The data shows that the English program has the highest mean

percentage score with 85.65, which means that the pre-service teachers of this program

are Competent or Moving Towards Mastery. The lowest MPS, 60.5, is from Physical

Education. There was also one FMQ from Possessive Nouns. From the question, “I

borrowed a dictionary from Mr. James. It is __ dictionary,” only 47 respondents got the

correct answer: Mr. James’, while 40 answered Mr. James’s; and 21 answered Mr.

Jame’s. Thus, in placing the apostrophe and the letter s in possessive nouns, some

respondents tend to be confused especially if the noun also ends with the letter “s.”

The positive overall result for this grammar area is in consonance with the study of

Barraquio (2015), to determine the grammar proficiency level of Letran Calamba College

students, she used the following grammar areas: Parts of speech, Sentence Structure,

Plural Nouns, Possessive Nouns, Pronoun usage, Subject-verb agreement, Verb mood
 60

and tense, adjective and adverb usage in a sentence, Pronoun- antecedent agreement, and

Sentence Construction. The study concluded that among the grammar areas tested, the

second highest score was from possessive nouns that rated 80.91%.

Table 4

Level of Grammatical Competence along Possessive Nouns

POSSESSIVE NOUNS
Questions No. of Correct Answers
ENG MATH SCI C&A P.E.
1. There are four teachers in 19 15 13 13 12
another office. The __ office is
#311.
2. The children have new 21 15 14 11 13
clothes. The __ clothes are
very colorful.
3. Billy wants his own iPad. 22 13 11 12 12
His father and mother won't let
him use his __ iPads.
4. That woman has 5 children. 22 12 15 14 14
The __ children are all in
school now.
5. My father has a new car. My 12 21 15 14 13
__ car is a BMW.
6. I have one sister. My __ 20 22 14 16 18
daughter is my sister.
7. We have 3 babies. The __ 21 23 18 11 17
rattles are all on the floor right
now.
8. I borrowed a dictionary from 15 11 13 5 3
Mr. James. It is __ dictionary.
9. Mary has a sister named 24 21 15 12 12
Donna. Donna is __ sister.
10. The girls have new phones. 21 18 13 6 7
The __ phones are made by
HTC
TOTAL 197 171 141 114 121
MPS 85.65 63.33 70.5 63.33 60.5
DESCRIPTION C LC C LC LC
(INTERPRETATION) (MTM) (AVE) (MTM) (AVE) (AVE)
OVERALL RESULT 68.88 = COMPETENT (MOVING TOWARDS
MASTERY)
 61

Grammatical Competence along Demonstrative Pronouns

As shown in table 5, 4 out of 5 programs are Competent in demonstrative pronouns

and the highest MPS is from the English program: 80.87. Only Mathematics has 62.59,

which is Less Competent or Average. On that note, there is 1 FMQ from demonstrative

pronouns. From the question “Do you like ___ picture hanging over there on the wall?”,

the answer should be the pronoun that, because the phrase “over there” indicates that the

item is distant in the time of speaking. However, despite majority or 56 of the

respondents chose the correct answer, there were 9 who chose the pronoun These; 29

who chose Those; and 14 who chose This. Hence, the results reveals that there are still

small lapses in determining the correct pronoun to use. The result of the research data

agrees to the results of the study of Pawroto (2016) that there were 65.38% the students

faced difficulties in using “that.” This means that both studies reveal that students have

difficulties in identifying the correct demonstrative pronouns but for this study, the pre-

service teachers only had a few errors and were still described as competent.

Table 5

Level of Grammatical Competence along Demonstrative Pronouns

DEMONSTRATIVE PRONOUNS
Questions No. of Correct Answers
ENG MATH SCI C&A P.E.
1. ____ cakes I saw in the 17 20 9 15 15
kitchen looked so
luscious.
2. ____ result wasn’t 20 10 10 13 12
what she had expected.
3. ___ essay has been cut 13 18 16 14 14
and pasted from a
website.
4. ___ holiday has really 17 17 16 13 16
been an adventure!
 62

5. ____ was a catastrophe 20 16 14 14 18

you should have avoided!
6. __ people standing in 21 14 13 16 14
the corner are from
Albania.
7. Do you like ___ 15 13 9 9 10
picture hanging over there
on the wall?
8. ___ shoes are really 23 17 13 11 9
hurting my feet today.
9. ___ jacket that I’m 19 23 16 14 13
wearing is my favorite
one.
10. ___ socks that you 21 21 16 11 13
wore a couple days ago
were really colorful.
TOTAL 186 169 132 130 134
MPS 80.87 62.59 66 72.22 67
DESCRIPTION C LC C C C
(INERPRETATION) (MTM) (AVE) (MTM) (MTM) (MTM)
OVERALL RESULT 69.54 = COMPETENT (MOVING TOWARDS
MASTERY)

Grammatical Competence along Modifiers

Table 6 reveals the grammatical competence level of the pre-service teachers along

modifiers. The highest MPS is from English with 81.74 which is moving towards mastery

or competent and the lowest is from Mathematics with 64.7 and is described as average

or less competent. Moreover, there are no FMQs in this grammar area but based on the

table, the respondents have the lowest scores on item 4 bearing the choices (1) I

remember that I had forgotten my keys after I got home and (2) I remembered after I got

home that I had forgotten my keys. The latter is the answer. Overall, for modifiers, the

pre-service teachers are competent.

The results are contradictory to Fatimah and Putri (2020) who found that the ability

of third-year students in their study to understand dangling modifiers was poor because
 63

the average score was 49 and the respondents of the study were competent. However,

both can conclude that students need to be aware of logic and illogical sentences

(dangling modifiers).

Table 6

Level of Grammatical Competence along Modifiers

MODIFIERS
Questions No. of Correct Answers
ENG MATH SCI C&A P.E.
1. Select the most 22 20 18 13 10
meaningful sentence.
2. Which of these sentences 13 15 18 12 16
means that he did not buy a
tie?
3. Select the most 21 18 18 15 11
meaningful sentence.
4. Select the most 10 10 11 16 16
meaningful sentence.
5. Select the most 21 20 14 15 13
meaningful sentence.
6. Select the most 19 13 17 15 13
meaningful sentence.
7. Select the most 23 21 16 11 15
meaningful sentence.
8. Which of these sentences 22 22 17 10 15
implies that the instructor
did not offer Elvis a
handshake?
9. Which of these sentences 19 16 11 15 12
implies that the instructor
nodded only at Elvis and no
one else?
10. Which of these 18 18 15 16 18
sentences means that the
vendor did not make a sale?
TOTAL 188 173 155 138 139
MPS 81.74 64.07 77.5 76.66 69.5
DESCRIPTION C LC C C C
(INTERPRETATION) (MTM) (AVE) (MTM) (MTM) (MTM)
OVERALL RESULT 73.43 = COMPETENT (MOVING TOWARDS
MASTERY)
 64

Grammatical Competence along Subject-Verb Agreement

Table 7 presents the data of the grammatical competence level of the pre-service

teachers along subject-verb agreement. The highest MPS is 75.22 from the English

program which means the pre-service teachers of the program are Competent or Moving

Towards Mastery. The lowest among the three average or less competent programs is

Physical education which has an MPS of 61. To justify this, 2 FMQs were from SVA.

The first FMQ was “Several members of staff in the company ___ a higher salary.” For

this item, the answer is need as the subject of the sentence is the several members of the

staff. However, only 52 respondents answered need; while 56 respondents answered

needs. Furthermore, for the last FMQ, “The price of that pair of gloves ____ five euros,”

since the subject of the sentence is the price, then the answer should be singular: was.

However, only 48 respondents answered correctly.

The respondents had several mistakes yet were described as competent for this

grammar area. The results therefore align to Vaurula’s (2012) conclusion that even

though subject-verb agreement is one of the basic features of the English grammar and

has been referred to as a fairly simple or easy semantic feature, even advanced learners

and sometimes also native speakers fail to use the feature correctly. Hence, learners of the

English language as a second language is not an exemption.

Table 7

Level of Grammatical Competence along Subject-Verb Agreement

SUBJECT-VERB AGREEMENT
Questions No. of Correct Answers
ENG MATH SCI C&A P.E.
1. Many of my friends___ 18 25 11 13 18
with me on this topic.
2. Fifteen pounds ___ the 21 24 12 17 15
 65

price of that jacket.

3. Two hundred kilometers 16 11 15 15 13
___ a long distance to
drive just for a party.
4. One-half of the students 18 15 14 15 12
in the class ____ good
marks on the test.
5. Several members of 13 9 9 8 13
staff in the company ___ a
higher salary.
6. Neither the bread nor 17 17 12 8 16
the cheese ____fresh
enough to eat.
7. Two chairs in the table 22 22 18 14 12
by the dining room ____
broken.
8. The price of that pair of 13 15 9 6 5
gloves ____ five euros.
9. Sanjav, my colleague 18 22 18 10 9
and friend, ____ in an
office.
10. Anyone who has had 17 13 14 10 9
children ____ the
importance of discipline.
TOTAL 173 173 132 116 122
MPS 75.22 64.07 66 64.4 61
DESCRIPTION C LC C LC LC
(INTERPRETATION) (MTM) (AVE) (MTM) (AVE) (AVE)
OVERALL RESULT 66.29 = COMPETENT (MOVING TOWARDS
MASTERY)

Implications for Teaching and Learning

The grammar test was an effective way to test the grammatical competence of the

respondents. The pre-service teachers had lapses in choosing the correct answer along the

grammar areas, but since the English language is their medium of instruction, they need

to be competent in the language. On that note, based on the results, the researchers were

able to gather implications for teaching and learning:

 66

Teaching

Teachers have to exert more effort in teaching grammar and continuously check on

the learners progress by having strategies and interventions to enable the students to

grasp the grammar rules better, specifically along prepositions, which resulted as less

competent. On that note, in teaching prepositions, they have to introduce their definitions

separately, highlight their different uses through examples, and discuss how prepositions

differ from each other. Step-by-step lessons allow learners to fully grasp the usage of the

grammar area. For teachers who only use the English language as medium of instruction

and do not teach the language, they too need to be conscious in the usage of the language

and need to review more in order for them to teach learners to communicate well and be

prepared for incidental grammar teaching whenever the students have questions and

confusions during their class because what they say may influence the learners’ process

of learning the language. Being understandable is not enough. Teachers always have to

go by correctness.

Learning

The students have lapses in identifying the correct grammar area in a sentence,

specifically in prepositions. Hence, aside from relying on the teachers’ efforts to teach

them, there is a need for the students and even the pre-service teachers to review

grammar rules before they are deployed since the grammar areas in the study are useful

in daily communications and especially inside the learning environment. Moreover, they

have to make use of their preferred learning strategies to be able to grasp the language as

it is a vital skill of the country’s workforce.

 Chapter 5

SUMMARY OF FINDINGS, CONCLUSION, AND RECOMMENDATIONS

This chapter presents the summary of the study, the research findings, the

conclusions drawn, and the recommendations offered.

Summary

The study aimed to determine the demographic profile of the pre-service teachers

along age, gender, program, language used at home, and media exposure to the English

language. The study also aimed to determine the 108 pre-servie teachers’ grammatical

competence prepositions, correlative conjunctions, demonstrative pronouns, possessive

nouns, modifiers, and subject-verb agreement in Jose Rizal Memorial State University

Main Campus, Dapitan City in the academic year 2022-2023 following the descriptive

quantitative type of research. The tools used to convey the results were Percentage

Distribution and Mean Percentage Score (MPS) with its descriptive equivalent as adopted

from DepEd Memorandum no. 160 series of 2012 and the interpretation of competence

level by the researchers.

Findings

The following findings were found:

1. Respondents of the study Cebuano-speaking young adults taking up Mathematics who

were exposed to the English language through books.

 68

2. For the six grammar areas, all programs except English were less competent for

prepositions and the rest of the grammar areas showed that the pre-service teachers were

described as competent or moving towards mastery.

3. Monitoring the grammatical competence of the pre-service teachers play a huge role

in language learning despite not teaching grammar because they can aid in incidental

grammar teaching. In learning, despite prior knowledge on grammar, students have to

delve deeper in order to successfully grasp the rules of grammar through their preferred

learning strategies.

Conclusions

The grammar test paved way to assess the grammatical competence level of the

pre-service teachers. The results revealed that most of the respondents are young adult

Cebuano females taking up Mathematics in the university who are exposed to books.

Based on the analysis conducted, it can be concluded that the pre-service teachers of the

Mathematics program are described average or less competent in the five grammar areas

because despite their prior knowledge, they are not keen with the language given that

they are more exposed to numbers. Moreover, together with Mathematics, the Physical

and Bachelor of Culture and Arts Education majors were less competent in some of the

areas: prepositions, possessive nouns, and subject-verb agreement, due to the fact that

their majors focus more on activities and performances. Furthermore, all of the programs

except English were less competent in prepositions as this grammar area is confusing

considering the orientation of the respondents, being native speakers of the Filipino

language, that makes use of the general preposition “sa.” To explain further,

Mathematics, Physical Education, and Culture and Arts Education majors were less
 69

competent in subject-verb agreement because the rule of verbs conforming to the number

of the subject does not exist in the Filipino language. It only adds the word “mga” for

plural words and the verbs remain the same, which is why learners miss out on the -s

rules of the English language. Hence, the respondents lack knowledge of the language

because they are not the native speakers of the English language. Perhaps, they were not

able to grasp the correct usage of the prepositions while they were studying the structures

of English. Lastly, the overall results reveal that despite the lapses, the pre-service

teachers made use of their prior knowledge of the language which enabled them to be

described as competent. This is in conformity to Chomsky’s notion that Universal

Grammar knowledge, which is responsible for the overall language processing in adults

and is considered to contain all the grammatical information needed to combine the

grammar areas into phrases, justified that despite being kept in their homes which caused

the lack of foundation in the language since they were not able to delve deeper and hone

their skills more and despite not being akin to the language considering that English is a

second language for Filipinos, Chomsky’s theory in universal grammar helped the

respondents in the correct usage of the grammar areas.

 70

Recommendations

Based on the findings, the following are hereby recommended:

1. The students are encouraged to be exposed to prepositions through interventions such

as frequent reviews or activities and grammar tests to assess their knowledge by means of

using the correct prepositions in a sentence.

2. Teachers are expected to train non-English major students and let students engage on

more grammar activities in a step-by-step process that would hone their skills since being

able to share their knowledge on the activities and performances of their respective

majors, being grammatically competent helps them have a better command of the

language they use in the learning environment.

 71

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 77

APPENDIX A
GRAMMAR TEST
Part I.. Profile

Directions: Click the box that corresponds to the information asked.

Name (Optional):

Age:

19

20

21

22

23

Others (Please Specify): _____

Gender:

Masculine

Feminine

LGBTQI+

Program:

___BSED ENGLISH
___BSED MATHEMATICS
___BSED SCIENCE
___BCAEd
___BPE

Language Spoken at Home:

___ English
___ Cebuano
___ Filipino
___ Others
Media Exposure to the English Language:

___Print Media (Books)

 78

___Print Media (Newspapers)

___Broadcast Media (Television)
___Broadcast Media (Radio)
___Social Media (Facebook)
___Social Media (Instagram)
___Social Media (Tiktok)
___Social Media (Twitter)

Part II. Grammar Test

Instructions: Complete the exercises below by choosing the correct answers for each
sentence.

Prepositions

1. We used to be able to hear the sonic boom of Concorde as it flew____the house.

a. Above

b. over

c. on top of

2. Is the rank of sergeant_____the rank of corporal in the British army?

a. underneath

b. behind

c. below

3. The Grand Bazaar_____Istanbul is the largest covered market in the world.

a. at

b. in

c. by

4. The Council is building a new office______the car park of the Multiplex cinema.

a. at

b. behind
 79

c. after

5. The zookeeper was amazing – he calmly walked_____the lion and took the bag out of
its mouth.

a. near

b. up to

c. Towards

6. Your appointment with the consultant is at 6.30______the evening of the 11th.

a. in

b. at

c. on

7. The walking tour will be leaving promptly_______time in order to cover the itinerary.

a. on

b. in

c. at

8. Louis was unable to name one person_____all his acquaintances that he could truly
call a friend.

a. between

b. under

c. among

9. The hotel’s bedding is made only______the finest cottons and linens.

a. of

b. in

d. With
 80

10. Well, _____my opinion, our neighbors could be a lot noisier and more disruptive than
they actually are.

a. from

b. according to

d. In

Demonstrative Pronouns

1. _____ cakes I saw in the kitchen looked so luscious.

A. These
B. Those
C. This
D. That

2. ____ result wasn’t what she had expected.

A. These
B. Those
C. This
D. That

3. ____ essay has been cut and pasted from a website.

A. These
B. Those
C. This
D. That

4. ____ holiday has really been an adventure!

A. These
B. Those
C. This
D. That

5. ____ was a catastrophe you should have avoided!

A. These
B. Those
C. This
D. That

6. ____ people standing in the corner are from Albania.

A. These
B. Those
 81

C. This
D. That

7. Do you like ___ picture hanging over there on the wall?

A. These
B. Those
C. This
D. That

8. ___ shoes are really hurting my feet today.

A. These
B. Those
C. This
D. That

9. ___ jacket that I’m wearing is my favorite one.

A. These
B. Those
C. This
D. That

10. ___ socks that you wore a couple days ago were really colorful.
A. These
B. Those
C. This
D. That

Modifiers

Select the most meaningful sentence.

Jessie ate a bowl of cold cereal for breakfast.

Jessie ate a cold bowl of cereal for breakfast.

Which of these sentences means that he did not buy a tie?

The shopper only looked at ties.

 82

The shopper looked only at the ties.

Select the most meaningful sentence.

The clerk sold the scarf with the red print to the woman.

The clerk sold the scarf to the woman with the red print.

Select the most meaningful sentence.

I remember that I had forgotten my keys after I got home.

I remembered after I got home that I had forgotten my keys.

Select the most meaningful sentence.

We returned the toy to the store that was broken.

We returned the toy that was broken to the store.

Select the most meaningful sentence.

She served hamburgers to the children on paper plates.

She served hamburgers on paper plates to the children.

Select the most meaningful sentence.

My friend uses a pen to write his essays with a gold cap.

My friend uses a pen with a gold cap to write his essays.

 83

Which of these sentences implies that the instructor did not offer Elvis a handshake?

The instructor just nodded to Elvis as she came in.

The instructor nodded to Elvis just as she came in.

Which of these sentences implies that the instructor nodded only at Elvis and no one else?

The instructor nodded just to Elvis as she came in.

The instructor just nodded to Elvis as she came in.

10

Which of these sentences means that the vendor did not make a sale?

The shop keeper sold almost all the pots.

The shop keeper almost sold all the pots.

Possessive Noun

1. There are four teachers in another office. The __ office is #311.

a. teacher's

b. Teachers

c. teachers'

2. The children have new clothes. The __ clothes are very colorful.

a. children's

b. childrens

c. childrens'

3. Billy wants his own iPad. His father and mother won't let him use his __ iPads.
 84

a. parent's

b. parents'

c. parents

4. That woman has 5 children. The __ children are all in school now.

a. womans

b. woman's

c. women's

5. My father has a new car. My __ car is a BMW.

a. fathers

b. fathers'

c. father's

6. I have one sister. My __ daughter is my sister.

a. mothers

b. mother's

c. mothers'

7. We have 3 babies. The __ rattles are all on the floor right now.

a. baby's

b. babys’

c. babies'

8. I borrowed a dictionary from Mr. James. It is __ dictionary.

a. Mr. James’s

b. Mr. Jame’s

c. Mr. James’
 85

9. Mary has a sister named Donna. Donna is __ sister.

a. Marys

b. Mary's

c. Marys’

10. The girls have new phones. The __ phones are made by HTC.

a. girl's

b. Girls

c. girls'
 86

Correlative Conjunctions

1. I like spaghetti. I like lasagna.

a. both ... and / not only … but also

b. either ... or

c. neither ... nor

2. The student is here. The tutor is here.

a. both ... and / not only ... but also

b. either ... or

c. neither ... nor

3. Maybe Jed will pick me up at the airport in Miami. Maybe my cousin Ted will pick me
up.

a. both ... and / not only ... but also

b. either ... or

c. neither ... nor

4. Mrs. Alverado has her green card. Her daughter Alicia has her green card too.

a. both ... and / not only ... but also

b. either ... or

c. neither ... nor

5. I haven’t met my girlfriend’s father. I haven’t met her mother.

a. both ... and / not only ... but also

b. either ... or

c. neither ... nor

6. Sugar cane isn’t grown in Colorado. Pineapples aren’t grown in Colorado.

 87

a. both ... and / not only ... but also

b. either ... or

c. neither ... nor

7. Fran speaks French. Her sister Fern speaks French.

a. both ... and / not only ... but also

b. either ... or

c. neither ... nor

8. The Jones boys might play tennis this weekend. They might go sailing instead.

a. both ... and / not only ... but also

b. either ... or

c. neither ... nor

9. My brother Randy won’t win the spelling bee. My best friend Ron won’t win the
spelling bee. They’re both poor spellers.

a. both ... and / not only ... but also

b. either ... or

c. neither ... nor

10. Maybe Dennis will get accepted by Stanford University. Maybe he’ll get rejected.

a. both ... and / not only ... but also

b. either ... or

c. neither ... nor

E. Subject-Verb Agreement

1. Many of my friends disagree/disagrees with me on this topic.

2. Fifteen pounds is/are the price of that jacket.

3. Two hundred kilometers seem/seems a long distance to drive just for a party.
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4. One-half of the students in the class has/have good marks on the test.

5. Several members of staff in the company need/needs a higher salary.

6. Neither the bread nor the cheese is/are fresh enough to eat.

7. Two chairs in the table by the dining room is/are broken.

8. The price of that pair of gloves was/were five euros.

9. Sanjav, my colleague and friend, work/works in an office.

Anyone who has had children understand/understands the importance of discipline.