geographical locations that they are used.

Regardless, the main principles are all related to one

another. According to Bacon, even if there are different grammatical rules in each language, they

can be understood when put into comparison with one another because they have similarities. He

says: “In its substance, grammar is one and the same in all languages, even if it accidentally

varies” (Bacon, 2005). Therefore, there should be no struggle in learning English grammar and

using it in various forms. Problems will only arise if people are not given opportunities to learn

and practice the language and if they are being taught incorrectly. These are the only factors that

can lead to the flaws in the process of gaining grammatical competence.

Ehrenworth (2003) argues that there are only two possible reasons why students fail to

gain grammatical competence through the direct instruction methods inside educational

institutions and these are the resistance theory and confusion. First, Ehrenworth argues that

almost all direct grammar instructions inside schools are very confusing to students. There are

rules that students are taught but these are put side by side with a wide number of exceptions that

make these rules confusing to begin with. This hinders the ability of students to think

independently about grammatical rules and schemes. The resistance theory on the other hand says

that the existence of boredom and resistance prevents students to learn grammar. Students may

find English education as threatening, intolerable, and rather very boring and teachers have a very

active role here. In order to properly teach grammar and not bore the students and bring them to a

point when they are not willing to learn, teachers must have a conscious grasp of grammatical

concepts and a deep understanding of the language that requires intensive training on their part

too. Ehrenworth says that there are only a few teachers who are actually well-trained and

prepared to teach English or teach other subjects using English. Therefore, teachers use their own

improvised ways of teaching the language or with the language, which greatly affects the

grammatical competence of the students and their academic performance as well.

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Orthography

Brown (2002) says that “spelling is logical, learnable, and critical to reading as well as to

writing.” However, the most important thing is for it to make sense. In working with students,

teachers and educators have the responsibility to “facilitate the acquisition of literacy and

language — classroom teachers, speech and language specialists, special education teachers,

administrators — may benefit from an awareness of this reconceptualization of spelling and its

implications for learning”. The skill of learning according to Brown’s work is in the

understanding of the educators and their teaching capabilities.

Berninger & Fayol (2008) says that learning to read and write is a very important

component of the education process that children go through in the American elementary school

setting. Spelling is considered as a very critical factor in literacy learning. Studies show that skills

acquired from spelling instruction actually improve the reading abilities of students.

Joshi et al. (2008) believes that learning to spell changes the way children think about the

sounds that can be found in the language that they use. It is important for children to recognize

how the sounds and letters in words are related to each other. However, this is not always an easy

task. The same authors said that regularities in letter-to-sound correspondences support accurate

English spellings for nearly 50% of English words. Thus spellings are directly related to the

ability to recognize and understand sounds in the language.

Reading Comprehension

Rice’s article (2005) claim that when one has read a text and understood it,

comprehension also happens there. However, comprehension can only be understood if

considered as a process through which a reader interacts with a text to construct meaning rather

than a particular outcome or product. This view of comprehension highlights the deliberate,

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strategic, problem-solving processes that readers go through as he or she engages with a text.

Therefore, the meaning a reader understands from a text is influenced by “his or her own

knowledge (including knowledge of language and print), experience, and perceived purpose for

reading”.

The process of deriving meaning from a text is what Durkin (1993) describes as the

essence of reading. There is no point in reading a text without the intention of understanding it.

Therefore, the ability to comprehend what a text is all about is very important in terms on overall

literacy.

Semantics

The Reading Rockets publication (2012) describes how calendars help young children

learn the basics of the days of the week and the months of the year. The calendars only contain

numbers and months but as long as the children learn what these numbers stand for, the children

get the semantics of the whole calendar. Things as simple as family calendars and other things

that can be found in the immediate environment serve as opportunities for learning. The same

publication suggests that families select interesting words for the month, develop timelines, and

strengthen the understanding of numbers. This numeracy or numeric literacy highlights the ability

of numbers to serve as signifiers that represent actual meanings.

Spring (2003) defines the goal of semantics as “properly characterize semantic

competence”. Semantic competence can be defined as the ability to determine the meaning of a

particular string of words beyond what has been uttered. Since a particular string of words may

correspond to more than one syntactic structure, semantic competence can also be defined as the

ability to determine the meaning of a particular syntactic structure which entails the ability to

determine the relationships between the meanings of distinct syntactic structure. Moreover, these

relationships include entailment, equivalence, and contradiction – all of which need to be

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understood to be good at semantics.

Studying the meaning in language forms is very problematic according to most linguists

and makers of dictionaries since people can have different understandings of what words mean.

According to Leech (1981), there exist seven types of meaning including Conceptual Meaning or

the logical content; Connotative Meaning or what the language refers to; Social Meaning or

meanings derived from social circumstances; Affective Meaning or the feelings of the speaker;

Reflected Meaning or associations with another Sense of the same word; Collocative Meaning or

associations with words which co-occur with another word; and Thematic Meaning or the theme

that is obvious in the way the message is organized. All of these are used just to derive meaning.

At times, this can be very confusing.

The same kind of semantics can also happen in social interaction according to Rendsvig

(2011). Even though there are multiple levels of understanding possible on social conversations,

it is necessary to understand the semantics so that statements can be identified correctly. For

example, the host of the party asks one of his guests if he has brought extra wine. The guest

replies by saying: “Yes, but the car is locked. My brother has the keys.” Though it was not

evident in the statement, the meaning of the statement is that he cannot get the wine, it is in

the car, and his brother who has the key to the car is not here. These information need to be

determined before the party host can say that he understood the semantics of the social

conversation.

Local Literature

Grammar

San Diego (2008) stated that Communicative Competence is a strong and common

characteristic Filipinos as evidenced by the demand for Filipino workers in other countries. Many

nations compete for international job opportunities but Filipinos have the edge due to the ability

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to use English properly. In the colonial times, San Diego argued that Filipinos have always been

brilliant in using the language and even sounding like the colonizers. This ability impressed

Americans and put the Philippines on the map. Unfortunately, the ability of Filipinos in speaking

the language correctly is deteriorating over the past few years. Over time, the country is reshaped

by technology and the competence in English language started to fall. Filipinos are no longer that

good in English, especially in terms of grammar. A few factors that influence this decline are the

media, the school curriculum, and the lack teachers that are competent in English grammar – all

of which needs to be addressed.

Orthography

One of the best instructions for orthography in the country is a document called ‘The

Orthography of the National Language’ (Commission on the Filipino Language, 2007) which is a

product of the series of consultations with various educators and linguists and details a number of

important factors including the Filipino alphabet, punctuation marks, Filipino accents, borrowed

words, and most importantly, spelling guidelines that will help people understand how to spell

words that have foreign origin. Spanish and English are the two main foreign languages that have

influenced Filipino words and their orthography since the time of colonization and this mix can

make orthography somewhat confusing in the local setting. It is very important for people to

understand how the orthography of these words is adapted to Filipino phonology or when it

chooses to adapt the original foreign spelling.

Reading Comprehension

Many students consider reading comprehension as a major problem mainly because of

three causes: language problem, foundational skills of reading is not yet automatic, and not

decoding the written word. The ability to read language is affected by the lack of understanding

of the language and thus affects comprehension. Having an automatic ability use the language

also affects comprehension because the attention of the reader is divided between the text and the

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language. If the reader is unable to decode the written word, no reading comprehension is

possible because the readers cannot understand the text. Therefore, reading comprehension can

really be traced back to understanding the language and being able to use it effortlessly

Makisig(2001).

Semantics

Ethan (2008) says that it is always a process working with vocabulary words and this

does not happen in the initial stages of education; it also continues even to the tertiary stages and

even during the professional careers of individuals. The ability to use the language correctly in

sentences oftentimes depends if the person already had a previous experience with using that

word. Of course not everyone has a wide array of experiences to cover the whole vocabulary so

researching through books or online materials can significantly increase vocabulary and ability to

form proper sentences and paragraphs.

Foreign Studies

Grammar

Raimes (2008) stated that grammar is a very important gauge of language mastery.

Though Raimes focused on writing, he also stated that people often have difficulty in using the

language and there is always a risk for errors. Using English language involves more than just

producing words and sentences. People must know how to produce a connected series of words

and sentences which are grammatically and logically linked, so that the ideas that people have in

their mind will be communicated to the readers, audience, or listeners. Correctness of form,

appropriateness of style, and the unity of topic are all very important in using the language.

Raimes also stated that there is a very close relationship between the understanding of grammar

and correctly using it. The ability to think with the right grammar is a valuable part of any

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language course or subject. Therefore, correct language, punctuation mechanics, and logical

content are all necessary in English usage.

Since English is now the universal language, grammatical competence is necessary.

According to Ramos and Sanchez (N.d.), it is essential for a person to have a good working

knowledge of English grammar rules because it will not only make him appear intelligent and

educated but it will also give him credibility and it is one of the most sought after evidence of

being educated nowadays. Knowledge and the ability to use English language with grammatical

competence is an advantage for people looking for jobs since they will have a great advantage

over other applicants whose grammar skills are below average.

Orthography

Durkin (1966) discovered that children who learned how to spell before they learned how

to read, their writing lead to their ability to read. This study proves that spelling is indeed an

important foundation of the other skills that individuals have in using English grammar. A person

cannot speak words correctly and use them properly without being able to spell them correctly.

Chomsky (1971) says in his Development of Early Writing Behaviors that children use

their knowledge of letter names and sounds to write words. Sounds are the basic building blocks

of children about words and spellings affect the capability to utter the words properly. Children’s

spellings were attempts to use the phonemic or sound structure of English language which is not

just simple memorization. Simple memorization will not work because there are many

irregularities in English spelling because of the number of words assimilated from other

languages, and the conflict between the uses of English in the Middle English to the Modern

English periods. As language evolves, spellings evolve too and this can be confusing.

Share (2004) had third graders practice reading words spelled in one or another way in

text and discovered that students remembered target letters for over a month even when they had

read the words only once. This study just goes to show how easy it is to make individuals

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remember the spellings of words through familiarization.

Rules of spelling are important in using the English language. Schlagel (2002) identifies

three basic approaches for learning how to spell correctly. The incidental approach is the first,

which suggests that students be taught spelling in school as the need arises. The labeled

developmental word study is second and it asserts teaching spelling should be done in a

systematic manner that directly affects individual development. As students go through

developmental stages, their need to learn spelling is identified and then addressed. The use of

basal spellers is the third approach which suggests that there should be an increasing level of

English orthography difficulty as students go through the developmental

spelling stages.

Learning and teaching orthography to students are becoming increasingly difficult

however because of the explosion of technology. The increasing dependence on technology has

an impact on spelling and it has only been addressed in recent quantitative research studies. One

of the concerns that researchers try to address is the effect of the use of mobile phones to send

text messages, among others including the use of social networking. According to Thurlow

(2006), much media attention has been given to how the use of text messaging may have a

negative effect on the writing skills of students and many scholars believe that this form of

communication affects orthography because it sacrifices standard spelling with the use of

abbreviated forms of language. As people use shortened versions of words, there is a tendency for

forgetting or not desiring to learn how to correctly spell words. The mediocrity that this habit

produces results to people not caring about correct spelling as long as their words can be

understood by the person who receives the message.

Early research studies, however, do not support these assertions about the negative effect

of mobile phone texting and other technologies. There are no strong evidences to prove that there

are indeed detrimental effects of abbreviated language and not conventional spelling methods

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according to Kemp & Bushnell (2011). These researchers also believe that since text language are

usually phonetically acceptable versions of the words they replace, only in abbreviated form, they

actually serve as cues to individuals on how to apply general phonological awareness skills and

strengthens orthography in the process. This theory says that even shortened spellings affect

orthography positively.

Reading Comprehension

Duke and Pearson (2004) say that reading comprehension research has a long and rich

history in both process and instruction. In 1975, a lot of instructions were created and it just grew

very quickly from then on because of the lack of controversy about teaching comprehension

which created a steep learning curve. There were many descriptions made of good readers but not

of good instructors.

Pressley & Wharton McDonald (2006) indicates in their research that good readers of all

ages are able to engage in conscious, active comprehension strategies before, during, and after

reading. Goals are defined before reading, relevant prior knowledge is activated during reading,

and reflection after the reading is over. These are the characteristics that educators must relay to

students to make them able to comprehend text.

The RAND Study Group (2002) explains that “the capabilities and dispositions the reader

brings to the task of reading, his or her engagement in and responses to given texts, and the

quality of the outcomes produced by the act of reading for some purpose are, themselves, shaped

by cultural and subcultural influences, socioeconomic status, home and family background, peer

influences, classroom culture, and instructional history”. The RAND Study Group defines

capabilities as “fluency in word recognition, oral language ability, and domain knowledge.

Dispositions include “reader’s motivation, goals, and purposes.” This study shows that reading is

the foundation of intelligence and people who are skilled in reading tend to perform better

academically, professionally and personally.

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 Wigfield and Guthrie (2005) defines reading comprehension as a very complex task that

requires different cognitive processes and reading abilities over the life span of a person. It is a

constant learning process in both oral and silent reading comprehension abilities. Therefore,

definitions of reading comprehension should include motivation. As much as possible, readers

should be engaged in the process of reading so they can use their knowledge and skill in

comprehension. When motivated, readers tend to exert much effort in understanding the meaning

of the text.

Semantic

Chall & Jacobs (2003) says that “vocabulary is the glue that holds stories, ideas and

content together making comprehension accessible for children.” The word knowledge of

students is a determinant of academic success since it helps students understand concepts and

ideas faster. The steady and continuous growth of vocabulary is important as a student goes

through one level of education to another.

Duffy (2009) discovered that as students progress in school, subject matter becomes more

complex together with meanings of words. Direct experiences no longer become the main source

of meaning and students are forced to learn meanings through reading alone and studying the

words. Categories and subcategories are also introduced and become more complicated. Students

will need to learn semantic mapping to categorize word meanings through identifying key

attributes that distinguish one word from another.

Davis (2002) confirms the assumption that there is a strong correlation between

vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension exists. As a person reads a text and aims to

understand it, the words there are naturally stored in the receptive vocabulary of the reader. This

study shows that “reading comprehension is impeded if individuals do not know 90%–95% of the

total words in the text”. This makes it impossible to understand what the text even means.

According to Sénéchal (2006), a person’s vocabulary contributes to comprehension

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because it provides the building blocks for higher-order thinking skills. The words that a person

knows helps in correlation and understanding other words so the more words a person knows, the

easier it becomes to infer meanings.

Armbruster (2003) says that a person’s understanding of words goes through the

following three stages: the word being unknown, the person being acquainted with the word, and

the word being established in the person’s mind. This is the process of learning and mastering

words and their meanings. When these three stages are completed, a person will be able to use the

words properly.

Local Studies

Grammar

Baniaga’s (2008) research focused on determining the competence of the subjects in

English grammar in terms the following factors: subject-verb agreement, verb tenses, adjectives,

adverbs and prepositions. The study used a pre-tested English grammar exam which was used to

determine the subjects’ grammatical competence of the first year college students from selected

colleges of Baguio Central University. The result of the study showed that most of the

respondents had very poor grammatical competence, especially in terms of subject-verb

agreement and many failed to show that they have grammatical competence. The study

discovered that the schools in which the students graduated from had an effect in their

grammatical competence and proved that in order to produce grammatically competent college

students, schools mush first product grammatically competent high school students. Other factors

also affected grammatical competence including the educational attainment of their English

teachers and the length teaching experience. Students who studied under teachers that have a

higher degree of learning and longer length of teaching experience are better and are more

grammatically competent than those who have been taught be the opposite. The study therefore

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recommended that subjects need to improve their grammatical competence and teachers should

also be subjected to proper learning and training.

Orthography

Most educators need help from linguistics experts in developing a working orthography

from the academe because they are not well-equipped to teach orthography to their students. In

his concept paper, Dr. Ricardo Nolasco writes: “A vital prerequisite for developing educational

materials in a local language is a working orthography consisting of written symbols that

represent the important sound features of that language and the rules for using these symbols. A

working orthography is not the standardized written form of the language. It is the embodiment of

all spelling conventions actually used and decided on by language users for official and academic

purposes at a particular point in time. Such orthography has to be tested, revised and retested in

the crucible of practice before standardization and final decisions can be made by the language

community.”

Reading Comprehension

Laruan’s (2008) study identified the reading comprehension level of the first and second

year students on the following reading skills: noting details, identifying main ideas, following

directions, sequencing events, and making inferences; determined the effects of gender, school

graduated from and parents’ educational attainment in the reading comprehension level of the

subjects; and found out that there are differences in the reading comprehension level between the

first and second year students. The results showed that both first and second year students are

competent in noting details but are weak in the following areas: identifying main ideas, following

directions, sequencing events, and making inferences. Second year students are found to be very

competent. Gender, the school, and the educational attainment of parents were not a factor in

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differentiating reading comprehension levels of the first and second year

students.

Pado (2003) explains that the essence of reading is looking at the printed words and

finding meaning in it. The reader gives life to the printed page through meaning and therefore,

comprehension is necessary from the beginning. From the start of reading instructions, it must be

clear to the readers that they should find meaning and therefore their minds will be focused on

decoding the text and extracting meaning from it.

Semantics

Allay (2008) performed a study determining the level of English proficiency of the senior

students of a local educational institution in terms of synonyms and grammar, the extent of effect

of the teacher, student, and school factors on their English proficiency, and the difference on their

English proficiency depending on the type of material used in the test, curriculum and socio-

economic status are considered. Among 125 respondents, the researcher found out that synonyms

and grammar proficiency are at par with one another. However, English proficiency is affected

more by the teachers than the student and school factors. Therefore, the ability to understand

semantics highly depends on the skill of the teacher to instruct students and make them

understand the meanings.

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