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THE READING PROFICIENCY OF THIRD YEAR ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS OF SCHOOL OF TEACHER EDUCATION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF BAGUIO SY 2012-2013

A Reaserch Presented to the Faculty of the School of Teacher Education University of Baguio

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Bachelor of Secondary Education

by CHRISTINE TINAPNGAN LAPNAWAN SY 2012-2013

Chapter 1 THE PROBLEM Background of the Study

Reading maketh a full man, said the 16th and 17th century English essayist, philosopher, and statesman Francis Bacon (1626). In spite of the huge gap that separates Bacons time from the present time, the statement has not lost its relevance even amidst the dizzying changes in todays ultra-modern world of cybernation, computer science, and information and communications technology. Like listening, reading is a receptive skill. As such, the same fundamental obligations apply: the reader must understand, evaluate, and act. Early reading practices require the reader to sound out the words. The practice of reading originally involved the additional skills of speaking and listening. Bachman (1990) notes that language proficiency is not a single unitary ability (Oller, 1983). It is the term capability as particular competency in order to determine the extent to which they can function in real language use situation (Farhady, et al., 1983).

The English language proficiency has different levels. Students have difficulties in the contents and concepts of the course by depending on their English language proficiency (Savingnon, 1983). It means that the students English proficiency is strong predictor of their English language development (Snow, Burns & Griffin, 1998(for academic studying because of the many books in English and there is no way to develop and improve students proficiency in series, and difficult social knowledge with English (manila Bulletin 2003). Kegel and Stevens (1993). Notes that educators have long realized that the poor reading ability has been the basic cause for many academic failures. The recognition of the fact occurred first in the elementary school, where reading was considered a fundamental part of the curriculum. Slowly but surely, the idea that poor reading ability is the cause of failure in school subjects climbed the academic ladder into the high school, where it is still but reluctantly recognized. Finally, it has invade the sacred precincts of the college and university, that college professors would have to make allowance for poor readers was never a welcome thought-the teaching much simple skills was not regarded as part of the work of the

college. But the higher skills could not be achieved so long as the students had not learned the rudiments of meaningful reading. Traditionally, literacy has been commonly defined as the ability to read and write at adequate level of proficiency that is necessary for meanings. Technological literacy, mathematical literacy, and visual literacy are just a few examples. While it may be difficult to gauge the degree to which literacy has an impact on an individuals overall happiness, one can easily infer that an increase in literacy will lead to the improvement of an individuals life and the development of societies. While in developed nations as it was stated in the website http://article.wn.com/view/2009/07/29/Reading s role/, the majority of the population over the age of 17 possesses basic literacy skills in reading and writing, the rate hinders the further development of such nations. International agencies like UNESCO are campaigning to raise literacy rates worldwide. While progress has been made and literacy rates have increased, the growth in population worldwide has led to a further expansion of illiterate individuals. UNESCO has found a correlation between

illiteracy and poverty, low life expectance, and political oppression. Based from the SWS survey: Filipinos proficiency in English shows substantial recover: Filipinos self-assessed proficiency in the English language has recovered in the last two years after a decline over the previous twelve years. The SWS interviewed 1,200 respondents nationwide for the survey, which has a margin of error of +-3%. The April 2008 results was showed that, compared with the March 2006 results, more Filipinos rate themselves proficient in understanding spoken English; reading, writing, and speaking English; and thinking in English. Three-fourths of Filipino adults (76%) say they understand Spoken English75% say they were English; close to half(46%) say they speak English; about two-fifths (38%) say they think English; While 8% say they are not competent in any way when it comes to the English language. This is recovery from the precious survey of March 2006, when about two-third of Filipino adults (65%) said they could understand spoken English; another 65% said they could read English; about half (48%) said they could write English; about a third (32%) said they could speak English; a fourth (27%) said

they could think in English; while 14% said they were not competent in any way when it comes to the English language. (http://www. Promoteenglish.com/images/pic.jpg). Filipinos believe they now understand, reading, writing, speaking and thinking English better than they did two years ago, a new Social Weather-Stations (SWS) survey revealed (Flores et. al, 2009). Latest study results show Filipinos posting an 11 percent increase in self-assessed understanding of English, a 10-percent increase in reading and a 13-percent increase in writing English. The nationwide survey, conducted from March 30 to April 2, and which covered 1,200 respondents, also revealed a 14-percent increase in speaking English and a 1percent increase in the way Filipinos think in English. The Philippine Star news article authored by Punongbayan (Updated May 16, 2008 12:00 AM) MANILA, Sept. 3 (PNA) stated that to improve students reading proficiency, Education Secretary Jesli Lapus reported that the library Hubs help in solving the inadequacy of supplementary reading materials in public schools. The hub provides supplementary reading materials in plastic bins that are sorted by subject area or theme.

The results of the English Reading Test (ERT) showed that out of 32 schools divisions with Hubs, 15 registered a 50 Mean Percentage Score (MPS) or higher 2005-2006. The MPS generally improved in 2006-2007. In 2006-2007, Tanauan City in Batangas topped the list in reading comprehension with an MPS of 70.89 percent or an improvement of 1.39 percent. In 2007-2008, Cavite province came out on top with an MPS of 52.78 percent in 2005-2006. In Baguio City alone, foreign students such as the Koreans, Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Indians and several others who are not proficient in the use of the language are having difficulty in dealing with each other. The mushrooming tutorial centers help the foreign students as well as the Filipinos who can afford to be tutored to upgrade their level of proficiency in the use of language. Call center agents also mushroomed because it is the worlds demand especially for the working students who want to learn and improve their proficiency in English at the same time. In the University of Baguio, the School of Teacher Education, highly value English proficiency since students are soon to become teachers. The macro skills are often integrated in the teachers discussion especially for the

content subjects as one way of improving the proficiency of the students. In public speaking for example, impromptu speech is the most feared part of the subject since students are expected to voice out their thoughts with a good use of the language. In Development Reading, students are also expected to be a good reader. Education students are expected to be communicatively and linguistically competent in their course. Most of these students were not exposed to the world of reading; therefore, non-exposure affects their level of proficiency. Students could hardly express their thoughts because they hesitate to commit errors, thus, their hesitance to commit errors hamper their capability to master the four-macro skills of language. Most of the teachers integrate their lesson with literature so as to role in molding the students to be competent in the use of language. The researcher believe that reading is very important for the education students. It is a pathway for the students in order to develop the other macro skills. They believe that if a person does not have the love for reading, it is very difficult for him or her to be proficient in the use of language. As early as first year,

students should already have the ability to read fast and the ability to comprehend what he or she is reading. In order to develop the reading proficiency of the education students, the researcher decided to focus on the third year English major education students since they already have their own field of specialization. Third years are expected to be proficient in reading since they have learned various strategies or techniques in reading in their first year level. According to some testimonies of the third years, they are fluent in reading but at times its a challenge for them to comprehend the implied meaning of what they are reading. According to the Philippine ESL Journal, Vol. 7 (2011) by Illustre, the field of specialization in college students is correlated with text comprehension. Moreover, the results suggest that there are English majors who are having a difficulty in text understanding. The researcher decided to work on the level of reading proficiency of the third year English major students in order to look for their weaknesses in reading and do something about it. English majors should develop and possess the skills in reading for them to be linguistically

and communicatively competent. This will determine the level of reading proficiency of the students that would help the researcher in developing effective reading suggestions and proposals based on the result of their reading proficiency. Conceptual/ Theoretical Framework Ehris Model Phase of Learning to Read Ehri (1995, 1999) has proposed and provided evidence for a phrase theory portraying the acquisition of word reading skills for normally developing readers and for struggling reader (Ehri & McCormick, 1998). Four phases of word learning are distinguished, each characterized by the reader understands and use of the alphabetic system to read words. The four phases are: 1) A pre-alphabetic phase Pre-alphabetic phase readers have no ability to decode words or to analogize. They handle the task of reading words by memorizing their visual features or by guessing words from their context. 2) A partial-alphabetic phase

Students know at least some letters of the alphabet, usually their names, and can use them to remember how to read words by sight using partial-alphabetic cues. They can guess words using context and partial letter cues. 3) A full-alphabetic phase Readers possess extensive working knowledge of the graph phonemic system, and they can use this knowledge to analyze fully the connections between graphemes and phonemes in words. They can decode unfamiliar words and store fully analyzed sight words in memory. 4) A consolidated-alphabetic phase This phase actually begins in the full-alphabetic phase. Students consolidate their knowledge of graphemephoneme blends into larger units that recur indifferent words. This phase has also been called the orthographic phase to indicate that the focus is on spelling patterns. Word learning becomes more mature. Theories of Learning The starting point for all language teaching should be an understanding of how people learn.

The key to a successful language learning and teaching lies not in the analysis of the nature of language but in understanding the structure and processes of the mind. 1. Behaviorism: Learning as habit formation First coherent theory of learning based on work of Pavlov in the Soviet Union and Skinner in the U.S. Learning is a mechanical process of habit formation and proceeds by means of the frequent reinforcement of stimulus-response sequence. This method was based firstly on the assumption that second language learning should reflect and imitate the perceived processes of mother tongue learning. 2. Mentalism: thinking as rule-governed activity Language learners would not conform to the behaviorist stereotype: they insisted on translating things, asked for rules of grammar, found repeating things to a tape recorded boring, and somehow failed to learn something no matter how often they repeated it (Allright, 1984) (Chomsky, 1964) tackled behaviorism on the question of how the mind was able to transfer what was learnt in one stimulus-response sequence to other novel situations. He dismissed generalization ideas as unworkable because it could not explain how from a finite range of experience,

the human mind was able to cope with an infinite range of possible situations. 3. Cognitive code: learners as thinking beings It takes the learner to be an active processor of information. Learning, then, is a process in which the learner actively tries to make sense of date, and learning can be said to have taken place when the learner has managed to impose some sort of meaningful interpretation or pattern on the data. The basic teaching technique associated with a cognitive theory of language learning is the problem-solving task. Among the areas of cognitive development are information processing, intelligence, reasoning, language development, and memory. 4. The affective factor: learners as emotional beings People think, but they also have feelings. Learning, particularly the learning of language is an emotional experience, and the feelings that the learning process evokes will have a crucial bearing on the success or failure of the learning. (Stevick, 1976) The Cognitive Academic Language Learning Approach (CALLA): The CALLA is an instructional model that was developed to melt the academic needs of students learning English as

second language in American schools based largely on findings of studies on Cognition, the model integrates academic language development content area instruction in learning strategies for both content and language acquisition (www.writing.berkely.edu/TEST-ET). As stated

in the website www.si.unm.edu, Anna Uhl Charrot and J. Michael O Malley have collaborated to produce an instruction model for send language learners intended mainly for use in upper secondary high school. Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (CALP): The other proficiency in cognitive academic language proficiency (CALP). CALP English is characterized as content-reduced, as is found in the written texts in content areas such as Math, Science and Social Studies. Due to its decontextualized nature, ESL students struggle to comprehend what they read and to express what they know in writing. CALP English used in context-reduced academic learning demands high cognition on the part of the ESL students to be proficient in CALP English. Unlike BICS learning, CALP learning is a long-term understanding. Collier (1987; 1989; Collier and Thomas, 1989 (suggests that it can take up to 10 years for ESL students to reach grade-level CALP English depending on the kind of English.

Paradigm of the Study The operational paradigm of this study shows the three procedures that were involved in the conduct of the study, particularly input, process and output. The input involved the Theories on Learning, Ehris Model Phase of Learning to Read, The Cognitive Academic Language Learning (CALLA), and Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (CALP) and the questionnaires. The process involved the analysis of reading difficulties encountered by the second year students through the given reading materials which have measured their wpm for the speed test and their level of comprehension through the comprehension test. The questionnaire determined the reading difficulties they were undergoing. Finally the output identified the reading difficulties of second year students and developed reading activities with the integration of the students weakness in reading.

Statement of the Problem: This research aims to develop a material that would address the needs of the Third Year English Major Education students. It seeks to answer the following specific problems:
1. What is the level of reading proficiency of the third year education students majoring in English as to: a. understanding word in context b. identifying the main idea c. drawing inferences d. explaining the meaning implied in symbolism as presented in the story 2. What is the level of reading comprehension of third year English major students according to gender? 2.1 Is there a significant difference in the level of

reading comprehension considering gender?

3.

What reading activities can be developed to enhance the

results of the level of reading proficiency of the third year education students majoring in English?

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