THE USE OF TASK-BASED LEARNING ACTIVITY: A STUDY ON THE THREE

NARRATIVE COMPONENTS AS SEEN IN THE SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL

REFLECTIVE ESSAYS

JONETH D. VIBAR
(2019), Philippines

ABSTRACT
Improving the writing skills of the students has been one of the most challenging tasks
that educators encounter to help learners achieve academic success. This study aimed to look
into the three narrative components using reflections written by the Senior High School students.
Since, reflections allow students to express thoughts willingly within a contextualized topic, it
enabled the leaners to share ideas which they hesitantly give during classroom collaborative
works. It was reflected that from the three narrative components: Ideational, Interpersonal, and
Textual, the students found Textual components as the most difficult to observe in their written
reflections. This involved the rules in subject-verb-agreement, consistency of verb forms,
prepositions, and usage of transitional words to name the few. It also revealed that between GAS
and ABM students, there was a consistent result in terms of the comparison between the two
strands. ABM students had higher average or mean than GAS students in all the three narrative
components. The researcher also conducted a focused-group discussion to know more about the
respondents’ views on the tasks given. According to their feedback, reflections are good
strategies for them to enhance their writing skills with the facilitation of the teacher coupled with
available resource materials.

Keywords: Reflective Essays, Narrative Compositions, Task-Based Learning, Senior High

School Students

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the Study

The notion of global competency is a manifestation of a certain degree of mastery on

the necessary knowledge and skills that the students need in the 21 st century. Part of this
competency, requires that a globally competent student can effectively communicate ideas in
both verbal and non-verbal discourse situations with an expected diverse set of audiences. In
this light, effective writing techniques and strategies may be employed by the learners as they
try to express their thoughts. The ability of a person to write and exercise self-expression can
be a jump start to one’s academic success. There is a need that writing skills must be acquired
in an early stage of education in order to let it enhance as the learner progress academically.
Writing competency; therefore, is vital in the total development of literacy education and
communicative skills among Filipino students.
In the early stage of learners’ exposure to language education, writing must be
introduced because it provides varied skills and competencies deemed beneficial in building
English or language arts skills in general. Many studies supported that teaching narratives can
make students acquire the skills, as mentioned by Martin (2010). She further stated that it was
necessary to become a proficient writer first by being exposed to different type of models of
well-written narratives. Eventually, students received formal teaching in the conventions of
written language and also taught the structure of the different genres of writing. This teaching
of the structure of different written forms occurred not only through explicit instruction from
the teacher, but also through exposure during everyday literacy activities.
Senior High students in today’s generation had been given different writing genres;
however, viewed writing activities as one of the most challenging tasks in the class. They
exhibited difficulties in writing as they tried to communicate their thoughts in most of their
narrative works. Part of the reasons of students’ apprehension in writing is the manner on how
they view activities provided in class. Some are viewed laborious others required a long
process that there are so many sub-components which need to be pulled together. This study
aimed to explore the common narrative components seen in their reflective essays. Since
reflection is an opportunity to put experiences into writing, students may be able to express
meaningful events as a way to improve communication skills.
This is a crucial stage in their lives because students would be exposed to a more
challenging world after high school, others continue in college, while others start to enter the
world of work. In order for them to be ready to whatever phase they choose in life, the school
is responsible in providing the learners with 21st century skills expected in today’s generation.

1.2 Statement of the Problem

The study aimed to analyze the narrative components in the reflective essays of the
students. Thus, the study seeks to answer the following questions:

1. What are the difficulties in narrative components committed in the reflective essays of
the students?
 2. Is there a difference between the difficulties of narrative component between GAS and
ABM students?
3. What task-based activities provided more language opportunity as viewed by the
learners?

1.3 Significance of the Study

This study was intended to contribute to the field of English language learning
specifically on improving the writing skills of the learners. In addition, it had some relevance
within the context of learning to the following groups:
1. School Administration – The administration must ensure well-planned programs essential to
students’ academic development, monitor the improvement of the action plan in every
subject area, provide seminars and teacher trainings, procure instructional materials needed
for instruction, and provide funds for out-of-school activities given to both teachers’ and
students’ development.
2. Teachers – If learners were found weak in this area, the teachers were encouraged to provide
learning interventions appropriate to students’ specific needs. Adopt instructional materials
proven effective to address learning competencies in writing narratives. Educators were also
empowered to constantly search for new innovations and instructional materials to intensify
the teaching and learning process, and foster a spirit of resourcefulness for quality education
to happen.
3. Senior High School Students – For those whose narrative competencies required attention
and enhancement, they were encouraged to adjust their learning processes and able to assess
personal needs in order to prepare themselves in more challenging tasks. The result of this
study served as their reference to seek opportunities for learning and strive to acquire 21st
century skills expected in their generation.
4. Researcher – The result of this research paper served as an initial basis for future study on
teaching narratives to the leaners by employing other formative activities. The researcher
continued to give enhanced task-based writing activities and suggested to utilize it in other
subject areas and other types of learners. The used instruments also required enhancements
for learners’ future use in order to address other difficulties in language.
1.4 Hypothesis

There is a difference on the use of task-based learning activity in improving the narrative
components in reflective essays of the students.

1.5 Scope and Delimitation of the Study

This study was limited only to describe the language difficulties committed by the
students through the narrative components in their reflective essays. The said components were
composed of: the ideational, interpersonal and textual dimensions. Based on the study of Henry
and Ho (2014), they had been provided that the writing instructions were focused on the three
dimensions that created meaning in texts. Their study introduced the text-based approach to
teaching English as the Second Language (ESL) using the series of completed texts to teaching
writing.
The target respondents belonged to the public senior high school students of District 1C
whose courses offered General Academic Strand (GAS) and Accountancy Business and
Mathematics (ABM). The respondents usually displayed difficulty in their written outputs;
therefore, the process included learning information through the use of task-based approach. In
order to maximize the process of instruction, the study was done during one of the senior high
subjects, Personal Development where most of the reflective activities were done per module.

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE AND STUDEIS AND THEORETICAL

FRAMEWORK

This section discussed studies and literatures relevant to the current research and
provided further readings to describe the current need of the learners in writing reflective
essays.

2.1 Related Literature

2.1.1 Task-Based Learning Approach
Task-based language teaching was an approach rather than a method which created a
natural context for using the target language in the classroom. It allowed students to explore
choose their ideas and as stated by Abraham (2017). It also gave teachers an opportunity to
develop activities in the form of interesting tasks on familiar subjects. The lesson was based on
the completion of a task and the language studied was determined by what happened as the
students proceeded with the work.

It was an approach that offered students material that they had to actively engage with in
the process of their learning, enabling them to explore their ideas freely and use their own words
without worrying about mistakes in grammar, vocabulary or other mechanical aspects of writing.
When they practiced to write continually and complete their tasks, they can build their
vocabulary and improve their handling of grammar, spelling, punctuation, and useful
expressions. The familiarity of the topic and the enjoyment of the task were solutions to students’
writing difficulties.

In addition, the main advantage of the task-based approach was that it gave students
much freedom and natural context in which they can use the target language in class. Hence, they
had varied exposure to language and they were exposed to a good range of lexical phrases,
collocations and language forms. However, the focus was essentially on writing per se rather
than correctness of grammar, syntax etc. Students can explore their ideas and choose their own
words with the result that they become active learners. They were free to explore ideas without
worrying about mistakes in using tenses and appropriate words. The last part of the task-based
learning process can be devoted to corrections and improvement. Task-based learning was
learner-centered and has a strong communicative approach where students spent their time
fruitfully and creatively.

The role of instructional materials had a very significant effect on the learners. A wide
variety of materials had been used to support communicative approaches to language teaching.
Unlike some contemporary methodologies, such as Community Language Learning,
practitioners of Communicative Language Teaching viewed materials as a way of influencing the
quality of classroom interaction and language use. Materials thus had the primary role of
promoting communicative language use. There were three kinds of materials currently used in
communicative language teaching and label these text-based, task-based, and realia.

There were several objectives which students needed to accomplish in using task-based
approach. Tasks given to the students may vary based on set competencies they needed to
improve; therefore, generally using this approach in learning, students must be able to
understand and produce a range of genres using format, layout, structure, grammar and register
appropriately. They were to interpret and respond to values, attitudes and indigenous knowledge
systems reflected in texts. To explain how language and images may shape and reflect values
and attitudes, identify and explain socio-cultural and political values, attitudes and beliefs that
were implicit or explicit in texts. Finally, to understand metalanguage in order to have the words
to discuss texts correctly.

As described by Barkaoui (2007), text-oriented research saw second language writing

development in terms of the features of the texts that second language learners produced.

According to his orientation, to be able to write narratives effectively, young writers

needed to learn the orthography, morphology, lexicon, syntax, as well as the discourse and
rhetorical conventions of the second language. For instance, among the competencies that second
language learners needed to attain to achieve proficiency in second language writing were the
ability to produce lengthy texts that have appropriate metadiscourse featured like conjunctions,
transitional words and appropriate set of vocabulary. Barkaoui also mentioned the ideas of
Cumming (2001), that leaners also needed to use different patterns of overall text organization
this could be seen in their descriptive essays, narrative essay, and argumentative essay, and to
relate relevant ideas suitable to the context in order to make writing effective.

Task-Based approach in teaching had evoked interest among the teachers, scholars,
researchers as well as learners. The “task” according to Ellis, 2003; Willis, 1996 as mentioned in
the study of Rashid (2017) was taken as a construct of equal significance to second language
acquisition researchers and to language teachers as well.

Task based language teaching was a new methodology of teaching language. It was in
contrast to the traditional methods of teaching foreign language. The aim of the method was for
the improvement of functional use of communication language. This method provided a free
environment to the learner. He learned language without any external pressure as in the
traditional methods of teaching language, the teacher controlled the whole environment but this
approach was learner centered. He chose the forms of target language which help him to
accomplish the communicative goal.
 Using this approach in learning how to write an effective narrative according to Ludwig
(2018), students with the linguistic components needed to accomplish real-world tasks. These
included: how to introduce themselves, how to talk about themselves, their families, their
interests, their likes and dislikes, their needs, etc. in the right socio-cultural context.

By moving the focus away from mechanical drills—although such drills did still have
their place even today in language teaching, especially when teaching highly inflected languages
—task-based teaching focused on communication and interaction, using appropriate language at
the correct time.

2.1.2 Reflective Writing

Shon (2017) explained that through reflection, can surface and criticize the tacit
understandings that have grown up around the repetitive experiences of a specialized practice,
and can make new sense of the situations of uncertainty or uniqueness which he may allow
himself to experience. As writers, students have less tacit understanding of how to construct texts
generally and much less tacit understanding of how to construct texts in their new content
disciplines. Thus, the first major contribution of reflective writing for students as writers is that
such work allows student writers to examine their tacit understandings to see where and how
those might be elaborated for the complex or uncertain rhetorical contexts they write within.

In addition to this advantage of reflection, many teachers of writing have found that
students who reflect about their writing processes and decisions are able and careful critics of
their own work. They often see exactly those shortcomings that a target reader will identify.
Students can, then, anticipate the responses that teachers give to the text, often in productive
ways if the reflective writing occurs before final submission of a writing assignment. Teachers
who assign reflective writing, however, are not solely concerned with having students consider
their writing processes and rhetorical decisions. Many teachers across the curriculum strongly
believe in the value of reflecting on one's knowledge and practices, particularly in clinical,
professional, and classroom settings.

Reflection according to Sharif and Zainuddin (2017), encompasses critical and analytical
capabilities is a critical 21st century skill for students to develop. To ensure students are
equipped with this skill, reflective writing has been identified as a possible tool. Teacher
feedback on students’ written output therefore plays a role in developing students’ reflective
skills.

Moreover, Philip (2015) emphasized that by the nature of reflection writing among
students, reflective practice is difficult to teach, difficult to encourage and not a process that
students and indeed some staff are entirely comfortable with. Personal Development Plans
require substantial reflective practice; however, these generally, take a long-term approach, and
so by their nature may sit outside the curriculum. Often only the keenest students take these
seriously and take full advantage of the support offered, and yet these students are perhaps the
least likely to need the benefit. So we must find ways of building reflection into the curriculum
to meet the needs of all our students and to help them gain the most from their academic learning
in addition to gaining self-awareness for career gain. Reflection itself may be a threshold
concept but it can also be a tool to help learners through other threshold concepts by encouraging
and fostering a deep learning approach.

2.2 Related Study

Based on the study Lasaten and Pablo (2018), they concluded that the Grade 11 SHS
students in the Schools Division of Laoag City have difficulties in all areas in writing academic
essays. The prevalent difficulty of the students in terms of content and ideas is the absence of
variety of ideas, while for organization is the absence of connectives. For vocabulary and word
choice, the students’ most prevalent difficulty is the use of incorrect word and word usage, while
for language use is the poor sentence structure. Meanwhile, the prevalent difficulty of the
students along formality and objectivity is the evident use of first and second person pronouns,
while for referencing is the lack of citations.
While Pragasam, et.al (2018) aimed at investigating whether Task-based learning (TBL)
can improve narrative writing composition among form four students. Action research was used
as the research design in their study. The data were collected and analyzed in a qualitative
paradigm. Observation, reflective journal, semi-structured interview and documents were used
to collect the data. A reflective journal with guidance was distributed among the students and
was verified through an interview session for triangulation. Students’ written compositions were
also collected and analyzed to evaluate their performance. The findings reveal that students
performed well in Task-based learning Lesson compared to other lessons. Students perceived
Task-based learning as an approach that could help them in narrative writing skill and reflected
positive responses. The findings of the study reveal that Task-based learning improved students’
performance in narrative writing.
Moreover, the study concludes that the overall quality of the academic essays written by
the students falls within the poor to fair level. Interestingly, the study concludes that more
exposure to academic writing among students produce better quality academic essays.
Lastly, this study conforms to the Cognitive Writing Theory that writing academic essay
is a process-oriented skill, which considers different writing categories such as content and ideas,
organization, vocabulary and word choice, language use, formality and objectivity and
referencing, which all contribute to its overall quality.
In the study of Johari (2018), a number of second language tertiary students find most
difficult to acquire and only a few of them fully master it. Thus her study, therefore, embarked
on the theory that task-based approach together with the exposure of process writing would have
a significant influence on the development of students’ academic writing skills. In this study
students were made to work in groups on real-life tasks which relate to their field of study or
future employment. In the midst of pursuing the group project, the students will have to write
their group proposal and individual writing assignment. This was the stage where the process
writing techniques are put into practice. The paper illustrated an eclectic pedagogic intervention
in the teaching of academic writing skills to second language tertiary students.
Moreover, in the study of Avarzamani and Farahian (2019) explored Iranian EFL
(English as Foreign Language) learners’ reflective writing and the inhibitors which are a
deterrent to write reflectively. The participants consisted of both students and teachers. A
researcher-made questionnaire probed the EFL learners’ reflection in writing. The essays
produced by the learners were also evaluated to consolidate the findings of the survey.
In the second phase of the study, the researchers examined both students’ and teachers’
perceptions about the inhibitors of reflection in EFL writing. To do so, a semi-structured
interview was conducted for the students and the themes extracted from the essays were
categorized. Afterward, the teachers were given a researcher-made survey of the inhibitors to
EFL students’ reflective writing questionnaire (IRWQ).
The findings revealed that Iranian EFL writers have noticeable weaknesses in
implementing higher-order thinking while writing and they are mostly involved in lower levels
of reflection such as habitual actions and understanding. Regarding the reasons, as the results of
the interview revealed, students believed that, among other factors, low proficiency is the most
important inhibitor while their teachers considered teachers’ lack of training, students’ lack of
adequate foreign language (FL) proficiency, and lack of support from the side of teachers as the
most influential factors that limit students to write reflectively.

2.3 Theoretical Framework

Students’ language use and behavior towards task-based activities in writing narrative
compositions is the focus of this paper. This is described by Nunan (2004) when he tries to
emphasis on Willis’s definition by stating that “a pedagogical task is a piece of classroom work
that involves learners in comprehending, manipulating, producing, or interacting in the target
language … and in which the intention is to convey meaning rather than to manipulate form” (p.
4). Based on the observations, students write best if activities are relevant to their personal
experiences. Although there are recoded difficulties like vocabulary development, lack of
supporting ideas or information, limited sentence construction, and unfinished tasks during the
study, the participants are more interested to learn skills in writing using varied learning tasks in
the classroom.
In addition, an important conceptual basis for task-based language teaching is
experiential learning. This approach takes the learner’s immediate personal experience as the
point of departure for the learning experience. Intellectual growth occurs when learners engage
in and reflect on sequence of tasks. The active involvement of the learner is therefore central to
the approach, and a rubric that conveniently captures the active, experiential nature of the
process is “learning by doing”. In this, it contrasts with a “transmission” approach to education
in which the learner acquires knowledge passively form the teacher (Nunan, 2004).
The study revolves on the principle Nunan (2004), that learning is acquires through an
active participation in the tasks where learners primarily learn better by experiencing the whole
nature of the activity. It is a contradictory scenario of the traditional method where teachers
normally provide all the necessary information in the class. Thus, it is significant if other
methods of learning can be done as an alternative way to acquire the language.
In addition, Halliday’s (1994) theory is similar with Nunan’s as he stated that the text-
based approach used the text as a starting point of instruction and provided opportunities for
learners to develop text writing strategies through explicit focus on the ways in which texts were
organised and the language choices writers made to achieve their purposes in particular contexts.
Indeed, the text-based syllabus in writing can be seen as one possible way to raise writing
literacy among learners.

2.4 Conceptual Framework

The given diagram makes use of the conceptual framework of the study. To analyze the
three narrative components manifested in the reflective essays of the learners through the
accomplishments of task-based learning activities in the class.

Nunan’s
“Experiential Reflective Essays:
SHS Narrative components
Learning” Students

Task-based
Learning

Diagram No. 1: The diagram shows the relationship of Nunan’s principle of Task-based
approach that serves as a guide to the study. The researcher also attempts to analyze its impact on
students’ language learning through their reflective exercise.

2.5 Definition of Terms

This section presents the terms technically and operationally defined by the researcher in
this study.
• Approach – It is a set of principles, beliefs, or ideas about the nature of learning which is
translated into the classroom. This is utilized by the teacher in order to make instruction
more systematic based on the target learning competency.

• Effective writing – It is defined as the ability of the writer to use the language forms
meaningfully and appropriately for the creation of a particular text in a particular context.

• Linguistic Competence – This is the ability of the learners to effectively use the target language
in any given language opportunity. “Linguistic competence constitutes knowledge of
language, but that knowledge is tacit, implicit. This means that people do not have
conscious access to the principles and rules that govern the combination of sounds, words,
and sentences; however, they do recognize when those rules and principles have been
violated. For example, when a person judges that the sentence John said that Jane helped
himself is ungrammatical, it is because the person has tacit knowledge of the grammatical
principle that reflexive pronouns must refer to an NP in the same clause." (Fernandez and
Cairns, 2011)

• Language Learning – The ability of the students to acquire necessary skills in the target
language to be used in any form of communicative environment. Once learned, the target
language serves as the medium for understanding, expression and communication within
any given society.

• Narrative Components – As defined by Henry and Ho (2014), narrative components are

composed of ideational, interpersonal, and textual dimensions.

• Reflective Writing – Operationally defined as a student form of writing based on personal

experience that is expressed through written work.

• Task-based Approach – This is a systematic application of principles, beliefs, or ideas about the
nature of learning which is translated into the classroom in order to achieve the target
objectives set for teaching and learning process.

Task Based Language Teaching is defined as an approach of language teaching and

learning in which tasks are the central points. The difference between task-based
 language teaching and traditional approaches is that in the former approach students are
treated as language users (Ellis, 2003)

According to Abraham (2015), It also gives teachers an opportunity to develop

activities in the form of interesting tasks on familiar subjects. It is an approach rather than
a method which creates a natural context for using the target language in the classroom. It
allows students to explore their ideas and choose their own words, and thus become
active learners.

• Writing Skills – This is the ability of the learners to express ideas and feelings through writing.
According to Galbraith (2009), psychological theories focusing on cognitive processes in
writing center around two themes: (1) Writing is more than just expression ideas into text;
it is a process of discovering the thought and expressing it appropriately; and (2) Writers
need to develop effective writing strategies as the convoluted interacting processes in the
writers’ mind put high demands on the writers’ limited working memory.

METHODOLOGY

3.1 Research Design

The study uses the quantitative: descriptive method to analyze the narrative components
in the reflective essays of the senior high school students. After the accomplishment of the task-
based learning activities coming from different academic strands, the study also seeks to see its
effectiveness on language learning.
To gather relevant data, as described by Aliaga and Gunderson (2002) quantitative
research was an inquiry into a social problem, explain phenomena by gathering numerical data
that were analyzed using mathematically based methods e.g. in particular statistics. This idea
was also supported by the ideas of Creswell (2009) as he stated that the researcher primarily used
post-positivist approach to develop knowledge when quantitative research was selected (i.e cause
and effect thinking, use of measurement and observations, and test of theories), employs
strategies of inquiry such as experiments and surveys, and collects data on predetermined
instruments that yield statistical data.
Furthermore, Fellows and Liu (2008) said that quantitative research methods were
typically adopted because they were scientific methods and they provided immediate results.
Other reason for selecting this approach was due to its efficiency, can test hypothesis and always
aimed at clarifying features, count them and build statistical models to explain what was
observed during research.
On the other hand, to explain and understand the complexity, detail and context of the
respondents’ responses, descriptive method is used. Descriptive method is an appropriate choice
when the research aim is to identify characteristics, frequencies, trends, correlations, and
categories. Since this method can be used in both qualitative and quantitative research, the
research design should be carefully developed to ensure that the results are valid and reliable.
(McCombes, 2019). It is similar with the ideas of Bhat (2020) which defined descriptive method
that describes the characteristics of the population or phenomenon that is being studied. This
methodology focuses more on the “what” of the research subject rather than the “why” of the
research subject. In other words, descriptive research primarily focused on describing the nature
of a demographic segment, without focusing on “why” a certain phenomenon occurs. In other
words, it “describes” the subject of the research, without covering “why” it happens.
3.2 Research Locale
The study was conducted in a public senior high school in Antipolo under the banner of
District 1C, that offer Academic Strands: General Academic Strand (GAS) and Accountancy
Business and Mathematics (ABM).
The participating secondary public school was located within the city although separated
by a certain barangay. It is run by its respective school head/principal. The source of funding
for public education came from the national government. In terms of its curriculum, the
Department of Education (DepEd) set the overall education standards and mandated standardized
policies following the K-12 basic education system.

3.3 Participants of the Study

 The respondents in this research paper belong to one of the Senior high public schools in
Disctric-1C Antipolo. They currently taking GAS – General Academic Strand and ABM –
Accountancy Business and Management, whose enrolment status involved both regular and
irregular.

Based on their language exposure, they have limited access to reading materials at home
and have no interest in reading other educational related articles other than comics and local
pocket books. To study English is difficult due to many unfamiliar words they encounter in
reading which results to lack of interest in accomplishing school requirements specially in
compositions. Because of this concern, it has an effect on their reflective compositions. Most of
the submitted written works of the students are seemed lacking of content and ideas, limited
explanations, no supporting details, and organization.

3.4 Research Instrument

3.4.1 Construction

The task-based activities used in this study were lifted from the competencies in the
senior high school curriculum guide of Personal Development. The said subject has a learner’s
module divided into several chapters with a certain concept of students’ physical, emotional,
intellectual, and social development to name a few. After the discussion of each module, students
got exposed to the specific tasks required of them to accomplish. The culmination of each
chapter required the students to write a reflective essay as to how they would apply the concepts
learned in practical application in life. An activity sheet is prepared by the researcher to
facilitate the format this the reflective exercises.

In order to assess the written output of the leaners, the study used a rubric to determine
the criteria to be analyzed in the output. The said assessment tool was adopted from Montanari
(2004), and Henry and Ho (2014) as they utilized the same rubric in their study, where they
focus on three main components of the narratives: ideational, interpersonal, and textual
dimensions.

3.4.2 Validation
 The researcher seeks the help of experts for professional feedback to validate the material
to be utilized in this study. A validation sheet is provided for validation of content and
improvement which the researcher would comply with utmost attention.

1.) Language Experts – These are school’s coordinators in English Department with
Master/Doctor Degree on the same field, who would determine the construction of
statements, grammar usage, appropriateness of language use, and organization of ideas in
the questionnaire.
2.) Research Coordinator – The person responsible for research approval of the school and
an expert on research studies who would provide further suggestions for the improvement
of the study.
3.) Master Teachers – They provide technical assistance to varied subject teachers. They can
also contribute on the improvement of the instrument content and validity.

3.4.3 Administration

1. Pilot Testing - After the validation of the research instruments, pilot testing among the
randomly selected respondents answer the questionnaires. Initial results are documented
and arrived at the analysis and interpretation of findings. After this initial step, the
instruments are prepared for gathering data.

To identify the students’ ability on narrative components, the study used the
following scales for verbal interpretation.

Percentage Descriptive Equivalent

96% - 100% Mastered

86% - 95% Closely Approximating Mastery
66% - 85% Moving Towards Mastery
35% - 65% Average
16% - 34% Low
5% - 15% Very Low
0% - 4% Absolutely No Mastery
 2. Ethical Consideration – The respondents are properly informed about their involvement
on the study through a communication letter of conducting research duly signed by the
Superintendent of the DepEd Division of Antipolo City. The researcher also secures an
approval to the school principal to permit the said study in the said school within the
academic year of 2019-2020. It is made clear to all that relevant information taken from
the respondents would also be taken with utmost confidentiality.

3. Task-Based Activity – The designed tasks are provided to the students for
accomplishments. The teacher facilitates the instructions and guides only the learners
towards learning the concept in each task. Monitoring of one’s progress can also be done
by both teacher and learners.

3.3.4 Sampling Method

To generate a sample population in this research, random sampling was used. Out of 60
senior high school Grade 11 students both GAS and ABM, 75% of the total population is
determined though random selection in each class. Although, it did not guarantee that every
random sample perfectly represented the population. Instead, it meant that most random samples
were closed to the population most of the time, and that one can calculate the probability of a
particular sample being accurate as mentioned by Francia (2018).

In addition, Francia (2018) emphasized that random sampling or probability sampling,

was a selection procedure wherein every member of the group was given same chance of being
chosen to represent the entire group through random number and lottery or fish bowl method.

Systematic Sampling was applied in the study by choosing every third student from the
students’ master list to be a part of the sample in order to have an equal opportunity for every
member of a population to be selected using this sampling technique.

3.5 Data Gathering Procedure

The following are ways on how to gather information and authentic responses from the
respondents in the study.

3.5.1 Profiling of Respondents

 The first part of the research instrument is the profiling of the teachers based on their
demographic background. In order to prepare the instrument to be used in the study, this data is
necessary so as to properly classify respondents based on the responses which they provided.
The demographic information is as follow: sex, age, year level, academic track. These
background are necessary to classify who among the students’ responses displayed a significant
contribution to the study. In this light, proper interventions would be recommended to address
learner’s improvement of language learning.

3.5.2 Administration of the Questionnaire

The questionnaires are distributed to the respondents during their specific Personal
Development classes. As the researcher discussed the parts of the instrument, the students are
also informed about the aims and purpose of the study. The researcher facilitates the
administration, proctoring and dissemination of information as to the importance of the study.
After answering, the reflective exercises are secured for analysis and interpretation of results.

3.5.3 Focused-Group Discussion

After the administration of the questionnaire, the researcher scheduled a small group
discussion with the respondents. This is to gather authentic feedback based on their personal
experiences on the tasked accomplished. The said encounter is focused on sharing win the group
their views towards the kind of language improvement they had gained and how do the tasks
contribute to their writing performances.

3.6 Statistical Treatment

In response to the study’s statement of the problem, the following statistical tools are
used: Question No. 1 on the difficulties in narrative components committed by the students in
their reflective essays, the researcher would use the mean to determine the average response
among learners. This would identify the most common difficult among the ideational,
interpersonal, and textual components in reflective writing.

Questions No. 2 on the difference between the difficulties of narrative components of

GAS and ABM students, the study used the mean (average) and compared it with the mean of
the other group of students.
 Questions No.3 on the kind of task-based activity that provided more language
opportunities as viewed by the students, the researcher also used the mean or average percentage
to identify which among the activities are beneficial to the respondent or activities that require
modifications.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

This chapter described the analysis of data followed by a discussion of the research findings.

4.1 Difficulties in Narrative Components

Table No. 1: Summary of Difficulty in Narrative Dimensions

Level of Verbal
Dimensions SHS Mean Rank
Mastery Interpretation

IDEATIONAL 45.04 Average 2 Much Needed

INTERPERSONAL 59.90 Average 1 Needed

TEXTUAL 34.89 Average 3 Most Needed

The table above shows the summary of the difficulties in the three components seen in
the reflections of the students. Textual ranked the lowest mean with 34.89 which implies that the
students had difficulty in, dealing with organization of the ideational and interpersonal meanings
into a coherent whole by looking at the notion of theme and theme in clauses (Halliday, 1994). It
was also noted that the textual dimension of students’ reflections also needed to be addressed.

4.2 Difference of Difficulties between GAS and ABM

Table No. 2: Comparison of Students Narrative Components

Ideational Verbal Verbal Textual Verbal

Stran Mean Interpersona Mean Mean
Dimensio Interpretatio Interpretatio Dimensio Interpretatio
d % l Dimension % %
n n n n n

Moving
67.8 41.6
GAS 34.40 57.34 Average 27.14 Towards 25.02 Average
6 Mastery 9

ABM 35.41 59.01 Average 27.78 69.4 28.22 47.0 Average

 Moving
Towards
4 4
Mastery

X
The table above shows the comparison between the mean (average) of the students who
belong to different senior high school strands. Based on the analysis of students reflective
exercises, the ABM students had higher mean and mean percentage among the three narrative
components compared to those who belonged to GAS. In ideational dimension, it was implied
that ABM students were better in terms of thematic coherence and used background elements,
presented the events in chronological order of events, and provided descriptive information
relating to the events.
For interpersonal dimension, ABM students were also higher in mean and mean
percentage which revealed their ability to interact between participants and how speakers/writers
position themselves within a text through the use of linguistic features such as modals. Based on
the scoring system adapted from Montanari (2004), this dimension entailed the writer to use
declarative and complete sentences, and used correct point of view to show distance between
other participants in narration.
Finally, ABM ranked higher than GAS student in textual dimension which implied their
ability to constitute consistency of tense, inappropriate used of reference such as pronouns and
articles, lexical sets, and cohesive devices. In addition, there was also the presence of
inconsistencies on the use of correct tense forms, subject verb agreement, clause construction,
and use of conjunction.

4.3 Task-based Language Opportunity

Based on the focused group discussions held after the administration of the task-based
learning activities in the classroom. Students shared that they were able to learn better in sharing
personal experience through reflection. Aside from the tasks accomplished within the modules
of Personal Development, writing activities provided them a chance to express inner thoughts
that they failed to share during the class discussions or group dynamics. During the writing
process, students enabled themselves to monitor language use and develop sentences within the
theme prescribed by the activity.
 The pressure of time was not observed as they try to accomplish the varied tasks
provided. The teacher based on the respondents’ feedback also provided guidance throughout
the writing activity. Materials and other references for learning were also provided which had
great help in the accomplishment of the tasks.
Through task-based learning activities language is learned in an implicit manner where
students learn using experiential exercises that can be adaptable in everyday conversation to
others (Nunan, 2004).

SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS

This chapter presented the summary of findings, conclusions and corresponding

recommendations as an outgrowth of this study.

5.1 Summary of Findings

The salient findings in the study were as followed: based on the computed mean
percentage of the learners, it had an average of 35-70%. Although it reached the 50% and has a
verbal interpretation of an “Average Mastery”, it still failed to reach the expected passing mark
of 75% among all the learning activities expected for the learners to perform. The results would
also refer to the learning competencies that students need to master even in senior high school. It
is evident that students commit difficulty in writing exercises particularly on grammar
consistency, tenses, and subject-verb agreement.
Since the task-based learning activities as reflected in students written reflections had
three dimensions: Ideational, Interpersonal, and Textual, further improvement of the activities
may be provided. These findings were supported by Henry and Ho (2014) in their own study of
teaching narratives as they found out that textual dimension had the most needed competency to
be mastered, followed by the ideational dimension, and finally interpersonal dimension;
regardless of the rank stipulated in the results, the study considered all of them as needed skills to
be address to improve the writing skills of the learners.
There is a consistent result in terms of the comparison between the two strands. ABM
students had higher average or mean than GAS students in all the three narrative components.
As seen in the demographic background of the ABM students, many of them had high academic
average last semester that ranged from 87%-90% which indicated that students were awardees of
academic excellence. Although, the students’ academic standing is not part of the analysis in the
study, this could be another aspect of investigation in the future.
Based on the analysis of results and interpretation of data, the study led to the acceptance
of the alternative hypothesis that there is a difference in the use of task-based learning activities
in improving the written reflections of the students. Students had an interest in involving
themselves in classroom tasks and collaboration among other students. The use of reflections
was also effective because they could relate personal experiences in oral and written outputs.
5.2 Conclusion
Based on the first finding, the senior high students’ writing performance needed to be
addressed. It was evident that they committed difficulty in all the three components in narrative:
ideational, interpersonal, and textual dimensions. It was based on the mastery level of the
students that did not reach the passing mark of at least 75% mastery. Second language learning
would need more exposure to language opportunities or avenue for its usage. The difficulty
comes within the struggle of the learners to learn the language and determining the appropriate
words to say once expressions was put into writing.
Textual dimension ranked the lowest result among the three dimension because it
required also the mastery of rules for subject-verb agreement, consistency of verb, and
conjunction to name a few. This is similar with the study of Widianingsih and Gulo (2016) when
they stated that grammatical rule is among other difficulties found in the process of learning
other languages. This truth also applies to those who are studying English in different levels of
education. Second language learners usually make mistakes in certain grammatical rules.
Moreover, the ABM students were better reflective writers compared to the GAS
students. Aside from their academic standing in class, students in this class were more
determined to excel in their academics. The students were also exposed to business related
reading materials and written reports that the other group; thus, their writing skill was more
exposed to language opportunities.

5.3 Recommendation
 This study may serve as an initial basis for future study. Since there varied limitations in
the gathering of data for analysis, future researchers were encouraged to adapt the methodologies
used and find significant difference using other variables in their own field of expertise.
Educators were encouraged to openly embrace teaching innovations and learning
resources that can be utilized during instruction. Provide learners with appropriate intervention
program so that student can acquire necessary skills in the second language.
The schools may use the results of this study as the basis of student intervention
programs, teacher in-service trainings and seminars, and school academic achievements. It was
also recommended to enhance the instruments to utilized in this research in order to make it more
useful to address other difficulties in students’ learning.

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