Chapter 1
INTRODUCTION
Rationale
English is quite a struggle for non-native English learners all over the world. It is one of
the hardest and most complex languages that has ever existed because of its structure, spelling
and grammar rules. One of the biggest reasons that learning and using grammar correctly is so
difficult is that there are so many exceptions to every rule. … Pay attention to different
collocations and especially to phrasal verbs and verbs with prepositions, because those are
typically the hardest to remember. It takes time to learn all these exceptions, and unless you use
English (or any other language, for that matter!) enough, it will be almost impossible to be able
to learn and master all these different exceptions. With these being said, high school students
nowadays are still struggling to master grammar rules and find it hard to construct English
sentences due to lack of mastery of subject-verb agreement.
Despite the economic benefits of being an English-speaking nation, Filipinos have not fully
maximized Its potentials. Studies show that the Filipinos’ grasp of the English language is slipping
while other Asians are catching up fast. In 2008, an online article by Karl Wilson in “The National”
revealed that Filipinos scored an overall mean of 6.69 for the macro skills in English in terms of
listening, writing, reading, and speaking. This indicates a rather low profile at the backdrop of
international standards. Historically, the English proficiency of Filipinos has been consistently
stable across 1993 to 2000 before a gradual decline has been reported in the following years.
Even more alarming is the rising percentage of those who are incompetent in English which
doubled from a measly 7% in 1993 to 14% in 2006 (UK Essays, 2013).
Based on the preliminary research conducted on August 6th, 2016, by interviewing the
English teacher in SMP Islamiyah Kotaagung, Meta Famelia, the researcher asked about the
students’ capability in mastering grammar. The teacher said that the students did not master
grammar well. Then the researcher asked about the students’ ability in using subject-verb
agreement in some sentences that have been taught. Those are simple present tense, simple
past tense, and present perfect tense. The teacher said that she has taught about the use of
subject-verb agreement when she taught tenses but did not use term subject-verb agreement
and the teacher said that actually she did not explain the material of subject-verb agreement
clearly. The teacher only taught that the subject should agree with the verb.
The researchers believe that this study will help grade 10 students of Lingig National High
School in determining their weakness in learning English and this is the subject-verb agreement.
It helps them focus on the most necessary rules and in learning English and enables them to
master it. Moreover, it also benefits the English teachers of Lingig National High School for this
will inform them that their students are still having struggles on the rules of subject-verb
agreement and can lead them to focus more in teaching the Grade 10 students about this topic.
Going back to the problems, Indonesian students learn English as a foreign language after
learning their first Indonesian language as the national language or the local language. As a result,
English is difficult to learn due to big differences between the two languages. The Difference
almost occurs in all language aspects: morphology, syntax, and semantics. Those differences can
influence the students ability in studying skills of the Language. English as other languages
consists of four skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing. Writing is the most difficult skill for
students. It is because writing needs the process in which the students have to learn words,
phrases, clauses, and to arrange them into a grammatically correct sentence.
Brown (2000) states that intralingual transfer refers to the target language as the main
factor of errors in learning other language. It means that the factor comes out from the target
language. It commonly happens to the students who have already known such knowledge about
the target language. It is because they begin to operate the target structures within the target
language. This problem can be solved in Indonesia if the teachers also have enough knowledge
on the basic rules of subject-verb agreement to be able to help their students solve their struggles
as well. Brown (2000:226) explains students often make errors because of a misleading
explanation from the teacher, faulty presentation of a structure or word in a textbook, or even
because of a pattern that was rotely memorized in a drill but improperly contextualized. This
means that the sources of errors in the context of learning the language are teachers and
materials.
Thai students spend twelve years studying English in primary and secondary schools, but
the results are questionable. When compared to people in neighboring countries, Thais’ English
proficiency is relatively low. The 2010 Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) showed that
Thailand ranked 116th out of 163 Countries. The Netherlands topped the list with an average
score of 100 out of 120, followed by Denmark and Singapore with the average scores of 99 and
98 respectively. The international average score was 80 but the Thai Average score was 75, which
was a little higher than the average scores of Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, and Myanmar, but was
trailing far behind other ASEAN countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and
Singapore. On the 2011 report, the Thai average score was still the same, 75 (Test and Score Data
Summary for TOEFL, 2011-2012). Upon examining the English-language classes, many
researchers pointed to a few main factors contributing to the failure of English-language
teaching-and-learning: unqualified and poorly-trained teachers, poorly-motivated students,
learners of mixed abilities in overly large classes, and rare opportunities for student exposure to
English outside of class time (Dhanasobhon, 2006; ONEC, 2003). Wiriyachitra (2002, citing
Biyaem, 1997.
On the other hand, here in the Philippines, discrimination is one of the biggest problems
in terms of learning the language. According to TEFL and TESOL International Training, They are
probably shy to express themselves because they are not confident enough that their English
grammar is correct. And because they are afraid to get humiliated or be intimidated in public.
Most of the well-educated Filipinos can easily notice the problem and instead of correcting them,
they would just make fun of the person who couldn’t deliver good English, some don’t want to
be corrected because of sarcasm and arrogance.
Mostly, the main problem of struggles in learning English such as mastering the subject-
verb agreement in other countries has something to do with the teacher’s lack of knowledge in
the target language. On the other hand, the deterioration of English proficiency has been linked
to an overall decline in Philippine education. Public schools often lack books and teaching
materials, and even classrooms, desks and chairs. This problem is also experienced in some parts
of Mindanao especially in the remote area where learning resources are not easily accessible and
this would affect student’s ability in learning the language with correct usage of grammar most
especially in subject-verb agreement. Researchers are still in the midst of looking for possible
problems in Bislig in terms of mastering subject-verb agreement as well as the English language
as a whole.
Review of Related Literature
Language plays a significant role in one’s daily living as it is the medium of communication.
English, the lingua franca, is the tool for bridging the gap between different cultures and beliefs.
Thus, it is the key of unity and peace. It is the means of expressing one’s ideas, opinions and
suggestions effectively and efficiently. However, there are certain circumstances wherein people
experienced ineffective communication and one of the reasons is the grammar. In Philippines,
speaking English provides many opportunities as it is one of the qualifications in any occupation.
It has a vital role in the working process as one has to follow the instruction carefully and to give
feedback or suggestions in order to better do the certain work (Basa, 2017). Filipinos are noted
to be fluent English speakers since the current curriculum uses English as a medium of instruction.
However, Senobio (2015) argued that few of the students show lack of speaking and
writing skills though they are using the language since elementary. One of the factors that
contribute to this dilemma is their mediocrity in grammar. Karim, Fathema and Hakim (2015)
emphasized that grammar plays a significant role in the mastery of certain language because it is
the pattern that they must apply so that they can effectively and efficiently communicate what
they want to say. Furthermore, Wee (2009) claimed that poor emphasis on the grammar
contribute to the poor language skills of the students. Grammar is concerned with the rules of
structures that is essential in putting words together to create a paragraph and showing
coherence and unity to create an effective essay.
Subject-verb agreement is a very important lesson to learn in English language. According
to Eastwood, subject-verb agreement is selecting the appropriate singular or plural verb that
comes after the subject (as cited by Iwan Kurniawan, 2016). Subject-verb agreement is like the
backbone of grammar because it is the basis on how you will compose your sentences and ideas
correctly. Also, subject-verb agreement is included in two of the five macro skills in English,
writing and speaking. Tafida and Okunade (2016) concluded that subject-verb agreement plays
an important role in language and even in communication; it shows how far and deep the learner
grasp the rules. It means subject-verb areement is one of the keys to master grammar and
eventually master all the English language skills.
Many researchers have studied about the different errors of subject-verb agreement in
many countries. Sun (2010) applied a corpus-based study of errors in Chinese English majors’
English writing. It focuses on the general features of errors in these students’ English writing, the
reasons for those errors, the developmental features of errors in different grades, and the
reasons for those developmental features. The research design was based on a study by Corder
(1974) that suggested the following four steps in EA research: collection of data, description of
errors, explanation of errors, and evaluation of errors. The corpus of the study consisted of
compositions by English majors in Ludong University of Grade 2008, 2007, and 2006 in the first
semester of the school year 2008–2009. The study found that “grammatical errors” ranked the
highest and agreement errors were estimated at 11.48%. The reasons for these errors were
vocabulary and the influence of negative transfer of the mother tongue.
Ericsson (2008) investigated the subject-verb concordance errors in writing produced by
Eighth-grade students at a Swedish compulsory school. The study involved a written essay and
fill-in-the-gap test taken by twenty-four 14-year-old pupils (12 girls and 12 boys). The research
hypothesis stated that pupils would commit more errors in the essays than in the test. The
research used quantitative methods, which involve the collection and analysis of numerical data
and statistics. The study found that in the essay task 50% of the pupils used the verb form be
(are) incorrectly due to the similarity between the Swedish single present-tense verb forms and
the English forms (the English are and the Swedish ar). In addition, the students faced some
difficulties with unmarked plurals such as “people.”
Wulandari & Erni (2005) explored the analysis and classification of subject-verb
agreement errors in order to determine the frequency of concurrence of each. The sample in the
study was 48 fourth-semester students out of 245 students of the English Department at
Muhammadiyah University of Malang. The data for this study were gained from the results of a
writing test. The study found that there were 107 errors and the highest frequency of occurrence
was due to omission, followed by addition and misformation. The study also found that students
still had difficulties with the differences between singular and plural verbs or singular and plural
subjects, and the highest frequency of errors was for basic subject-verb agreement error
(82.21%).
Shamsudin and Mahady (2010) applied a corpus-based study to examine the writing
errors of first-year students at University Teknologi in Malaysia. The study used 66
questionnaires, and they were distributed to first-year UTM students from the Faculty of
Mechanical Engineering and the Faculty of Civil Engineering. Further, students’ paragraph
samples of were also used to collect data. It was found that the first-year students in the
University were still producing grammatical and lexical errors in their writing. Students writing in
a second language are faced with social and cognitive challenges related to second-language
accquisition, where CAH and EAH can be used to explain the causes of these errors. In
addition,from the 66 paragraphs analyzed, a total of 1,202 errors were found, and 85 of them
were correlated to subject-verb agreement (7.07%).
Marzuki and Zainal (2004) investigated errors produced by students when writing reports.
The participants of the study were Malaysian students studying at University Teknologi Malaysia
(UTM, Johor Bahru). The researcher analyzed 59 examination scripts produced by students from
the Faculty of Science. The task given to them was to write a report of three to four pages using
information given in the examination question. The study found that students tended to produce
grammatical errors, including SVA errors. Subject-verb agreement errors showed a high
percentage of occurrences, registering a total of 95.5%.
On the other hand, Gustilo and Mango (2012) investigated learners’ errors and their
evaluation of Filipino ESL writers. The aim of the study was to examine sentence-level errors. The
data of the study was collected from previous studies, and it consisted of 150 essays written by
freshmen college students during their first week of classes at Metro Manila. The essays were
processed and subjected to ratings and codings for errors. The raters were asked to fill out open-
ended questions to focus on their perspective on the different aspects of writing that impacted
the essay scores. To answer the research questions, the study used frequency counts, standard
deviations, MANOVA and NOVA results, and the data from regression analyses. The study found
that there were errors in subject-verb agreement in the verb category in the students’ writing.
The study conducted by Gustilo and Magno is similar with the present study because both
assessed errors of learners in writing. However, the cited study focused on essay writing and the
different mechanics and criteria including word choice, punctuation and word order; meanwhile,
the present study analyzed Facebook posts and only looked into grammar and usage excluding
the use of punctuations and spelling.
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dhobaib_ma_research.pdf
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