STATE: SABAH

DISTRICT: KUALA PENYU

TEACHERS NAME: SUZIEWATI BINTI MAT YAAKUP
SCHOOL: S.M.K PEKAN KUALA PENYU
TITLE OF REPORT: AN ACTION RESEARCH ON IMPROVING
ESL LEARNERS WRITING IN SMK PEKAN KUALA PENYU BY
BASIC SENTENCE PATTERN CONSOLIDATIONS

SCHOOL SUPPORT PLAN INTERVENTION

1.0 INTRODUCTION

The School Support Plan is a component of the English Enhancement Program for
Secondary Schools 2015-2016 or known as Program Peningkatan Penguasaan
Bahasa Inggeris Sekolah Menengah (PPPBISM). Its involved English Teachers in all
1191 hotspot schools by 2020. These schools were labeled as hot spot schools
because they scored low grades in the English Language in past SPM examinations.
The majority of students marks in the hotspot schools were ranged from 30% to
40% in the English Language.

The aim of this course is to enabling teachers to apply the data-driven approach
in designing context- and needs- based interventions to foster students
improvement. Through the course, the teachers should be able to examine their
practices of pedagogical problem solving, determine the type of data that is
available for teachers to use in fostering student improvement and articulate how
the data can support teachers in improving students performance.

This program process is based on the coaching cycle which is guided planning,
identifying students needs, planning, implementing, assessing, replanning and lastly
is reflecting, reviewing and assessing. Throughout the cycle, it helps teachers to
design context according to needs-based interventions to improve students
outcomes.

The researcher analyzed the pre-test to find out the gaps and the suitable
intervention for the students.

The intervention plan designed based on the

students pre-test data and the researcher focusing on the format and idea
organizing, vocabulary, Subject-verb agreement (SVA), Modal verbs, Simple present
tense, connectors and organizing the idea.
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2.0 ACTION PLAN DESIGN

2.1 Population
As already established, the objective of the study had been to identify Form 5 ESL
learners improvement after the intervention program. The action research was
conducted in Kuala Penyu district where the population comes from the
marginalized community in the rural area. As in most rural places, the exposure of
English language is limited and English is hardly heard and used and the only
exposures for some of the learners are getting only from the English Language
classroom. The problem of low proficiency in English is mostly prominent in rural
areas where the failure rate in English subject is rather high.

The students were chosen among the low achievement group of students.
Moreover, population plays a great role in every research. The population is the
group to which the researcher would like the results of a study to be generalizable; it
includes all individuals with certain specified characteristics. In this study, the
population thus consisted of the entire Form 5 Amanah learners in SMK Pekan Kuala
Penyu. The action research was carried out among the 17 male learners in which the
author served as a teacher and the researcher. The action research was conducted
within 7 weeks.

2.2 Instruments
Directed writing essay test was taken to identify English writing problems before the
action plan was implemented in this research. Among all the writing problems
sentence problems ranked first. Then writing pre-test was also taken before the
research and its writing material was selected based on the English Language KBSM
syllabus.

Then, during the School Support Plan Course Phase 1, the researcher was guided
by the ELTC trainer to analyze the learners essays on the chosen topic and format in
order to confirm the result was convincing. In course of carrying out the action plan,
two interviews were made beside of the researcher observation for the planned
adjustment. In the eight weeks, the directed writing essay posttest was conducted
and the material was also selected from the same topic and format as the pretest.

3.0 DESIGNING THE PLAN

Since writing incorrect and inappropriate sentences is in the first place among all the
writing problems, the researcher designed an action plan (clearly seen in Table 1) to
help them with their sentence problems in writing and improve their writing scores
and abilities. The directed writing essay test was conducted to seek out the causes of
writing problems and then help to identify the research problem and the test marks
taken as the pre-test marks.
The exposure to related vocabulary and the article format and sentence frame
that used in writing the article in English writing were conducted in the first and
second week. Sentences in high score compositions and low score ones were
compared in class. Moreover, from the analyzing words and phrases in various
samples essays activity the learners can gain ideas and vocabulary on the topic.
Then, the students learned on how to organize the idea (topic sentence and
supporting points) by transferring the information to the Graphic Organizer.
However, after some interview with the learners, the researcher decided to
invite the learners from high achievement class to be the mentor for the
participants. In order to motivate and expose the learners with the conducive
collaborative learning environment, the researcher conducted collaborative lesson
where learners need to expand the idea on the given topic and present it in the
group. Then, learners can learn from others in the Gallery Walk activity.

In week 3, subject-verb agreement and sentence pattern were taught by the

researcher. There were lots of sentence practices, such as sentence identification
practice and error-finding practice, identify the subject and verb in the sample
essays, and the practice that uses the substitution Table. Besides, the comparison
between the sentence used in learners pre-test and the sample essay from a
reference book and the internet were made in English writing class and chain
reaction language games. Meanwhile, the teacher assigned after-class sentence
practices for the learners.
In the next week, learners were required to do comprehensive practices on
Modal Verb sentence pattern in order to strengthen their sentence writing abilities.
In the lessons, learners have to learn the list of Modal Verb and identify the Modal
Verbs from the sample essays. Then, learners need to write the sentence that uses
the Modal Verb in the Substitution Table to help the learners exposed to the
sentence pattern.
Then, in week 5, the learners were taught on the Simple Present Tense. The
learning objective for this gap is the learners were able to arrange the phrases,
construct the sentences using the Substitution Table and classify the type of
sentences. The time-constrained was the biggest challenge in this intervention and
the teacher has no choice and was assigned after-class sentence practices for the
learners.
In week 6, learners were taught on the connectors and in the first lesson learners
need to identify the connectors in the sample essays. Then, peer correcting session
was conducted after the explanation of the topic. Some of the activities that carried
out in these lessons are highlight the connectors in the sample essays and fill in the
blank exercises.
Finally, the learners were taught on how to organize the idea based on the given
topic. The lesson started with simple sentence and compound sentence
construction exercises. Then, learners took part in language games called Sentence
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Race. In this game, learners were divided into numbers of the group and they have
to compete with the group by constructing the correct sentence structure based on
the words given. The words used in the language games were from the same topic
as in the pre-test writing essay topic. After that, learners need to design the Graphic
Organizer (GO) and need to write the article based on the GO.
Table 1 Action Plan
Week
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8

Activity
Pre-test
Format & Idea organizing ( vocabulary
exposure)
Subject-verb agreement
Modal Verbs
Simple Present Tense
Connectors
Organize the Idea
Post-test

3.1 INTERVENTION GAPS AND ACTIVITIES

Before analyzing the pre-test answer scripts, the researcher needs to identify the
learners essential knowledge; skills and strategies need in order to master specific
learning outcomes. The researcher needs to describe the skills and knowledge need
to demonstrate when attempting a Directed Writing question. Other skills that
researcher had acquired during the course of phase 1 was unpacking skills of an
exam question in order to support the formulation of goals and strategies during
lesson planning and draw links between the unpacking and planning process.

Learners performance data can be used to inform the planning of the lessons.
The process of analyzing learners writing data is the vital step to help researcher
identifying gaps between expected and actual performance. It also helps the
researcher to interpret data by classifying patterns related to gaps in students
knowledge and skills and use students performance data to inform lesson planning.

The pre-test was carried in Form 5 Amanah, the mix ability learners class. It
consisting 17 students. The pre-test consists question from Paper 1, Section A:
Directed Writing. The question needs students to write an article on the topic given.
The topic is about playing computer games. The students dont have any option than
answering the question because there are no options in selecting the questions they
like.

The learners were given 45 minutes to complete answering the question. There
were no prior notices regarding the pre-test. The pre-test conducted to measure
learners proficiency in writing an article. The researcher was involved in every
process of collecting the data from the pre-test.

After the pre- test, the teacher compiled and checked the paper. The teacher
checked the paper thoroughly and categorized students weakness and errors. Then,
the marks were recorded. Then, the researcher discussed with the ELTC trainer
about the data that has been collected and then, we collaborated to prioritize the
gaps and the suitable treatment for the learners.

With the guidance of the ELTC trainer, we managed to find the learners major
problems. The major problems that the learners mostly faced are the format and
idea organizing, vocabulary, Subject-verb agreement (SVA), Modal verbs, Simple
present tense, connectors and organizing the idea. Based on the identified problem
during the pre-test, researcher composed an action plan to tackle the problem. The
Action Plan and the activities are shown in table two.

Table 2 Action Plan Gaps and Treatment

Gap Identified
Learning Obj.

Intervention

PRE-TEST
Week 1&2
Intervention Activities/Lesson Notes
Format & Idea organizing ( vocabulary exposure)
Students will be able to:
1. Gain ideas on vocabulary by analyzing
words and phrases from various sample
essays.
2. Gain ideas on introductions to articles on
disadvantages of playing computer
games
3. Students will be able to rearrange and
rewrite sample essays.
4. Students will be able to identify topic
sentences and supporting points by
transferring the information to a Graphic
Organizer (GO)
Rearrange paragraph & rewrite the sample
essays
Information Transfer (GO)
Brainstorming
Gallery walk
Both group and individual work.

Worksheets/ Other Sources

Exercise 1 : Sample essay

(Jumble up)
Consolidation 1.1
Consolidation 1.2
Consolidation 1.3
Exercise 2 : Information
transfer
Consolidation 2.1
Group Work (Gallery walk)
Consolidation 2.2
Individually
Consolidation 2.3
Individually
Table Gallery Walk

Consolidation 2.4
Individually
Consolidation 2.5
Individually

Gap Identified
Learning Obj.

Week 3
Intervention Activities/Lesson Notes
Subject-verb agreement
1. Students will be able to underline
suitable subject-verb agreement in a
variety of essays.
2. Students will be able to highlight the
subject-verb agreement in the sample
essay
3. Students will be able to construct
sentences using the Substitution Table.
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Worksheets/ Other Sources

Exercise 3 : Contrast
Consolidation 3.1
Consolidation 3.2
Exercise 4: Sample essay

Intervention

4. Students write three paragraphs on the

disadvantages of playing video games.
1. Underline the Subject Verb agreement
exercise
2. Highlight the Subject-Verb Agreement in
the sample essays
3. Substitution Table
4. Language Game: Chain Reaction

Consolidation 4.1
Consolidation 4.2
Exercise 5: Substitution table
Consolidation 5.1
Language Game:
Chain Reaction

Gap Identified
Learning Obj.

Intervention

Week 4
Intervention Activities/Lesson Notes
Modal Verbs
1. Students will be able to underline the
suitable Modal verbs
2. Students will be able to highlight the
Modal verbs in the sample essays
3. Students will be able to construct
sentence based on the Substitution Table

Worksheets/ Other Sources

Exercise 6 : Suitable Modal
Verbs
Consolidation 6.1
Consolidation 6.2

1. Underline the Modal Verbs exercise

2. Highlight the Modal Verb in the sample Exercise 7 : Sample Essay
:(Identify MV)
essays
3. Substitution Table
Consolidation 7.1
(Gallery Walk)
Consolidation 7.2
Consolidation 7.3

Gap Identified
Learning Obj.

Intervention

Week 5
Intervention Activities/Lesson Notes
Simple Present Tense
1. Students will be able to rearrange the
phrases
2. Students will be able to construct the
sentences using the Substitution Table
3. Classify type of sentences
Word chunk card (rearrange)
Substitution Table
Classify the types of sentence
8

Worksheets/ Other Sources

Exercise
phrases

Rearrange

Consolidation 8.1
Consolidation 8.2
Exercise

9:

Substitution

Table
Consolidation 9.1
Consolidation 9.2
Consolidation 9.3
Exercise 10: Classify
sentence

the

Consolidation 10.1
Consolidation 10.2

Gap Identified
Learning Obj.

Intervention

Week 6
Intervention Activities/Lesson Notes
Connectors
1. Students will be able to highlight the
connectors in the sample essays
2. Students will be able to fill in the blank
with suitable connectors
1. Fill in the blank exercises
2. Highlight the connectors in the sample
essays

Worksheets/ Other Sources

Exercise 11 : Sample essay
Consolidation 11.1
Consolidation 11.2
Consolidation 11.3
Exercise 12 : Connectors
(fill in the blank)
Consolidation 12.1
Consolidation 12.2

Gap Identified
Learning Obj.

Intervention

Week 7
Intervention Activities/Lesson Notes
Organize the Idea
1. Students will be able to construct simple
and compound sentence
2. Students will be able to organize the idea
on the topic provided in the Graphic
Organizer (GO)
3. Students will be able to write an article
based on the GO.
1. Language game
9

Worksheets/ Other Sources

Exercise 13
sentences

Construct

Group Work (Gallery Walk)

Consolidation 13.1
Language Game:

2. Gallery walk
3. GO

Sentence Race
Exercise 14: Design the GO &
write the article
Consolidation 14.1
Consolidation 14.2
Consolidation 14.2

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GANTT CHART FOR WRITING INTERVENTION IN SMK PEKAN KUALA PENYU, SABAH

ISSUE

WEEK 1

FORMAT &
IDEA

SUBJECTVERB
AGREEMENT

MODAL VERBS

WEEK 2

WEEK 3

WEEK 4

WEEK 5

WEEK 6

WEEK 7

WEEK 8

POST
TEST

SIMPLE
PRESENT
TENSE

CONNECTORS

ORGANIZE THE
IDEA

- FOCUS ACTIVITY
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4.0 DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS

4.1 Data collection
In this action research, in the writing pre-test, 17 pieces of test papers were distributed and
17 pieces of the test were effective. Then, in the writing post-test, 17 pieces of the test
papers distributed and collected.
4.2 Analysis of Gaps in Learners Writing
As mentioned earlier, the treatment was designed based on the major learners writing
problems in writing an article essay. The difference in frequencies of gaps types in learners
Directed Writing essays before and after the intervention is shown in Figure1.

Percentage of Gaps in Learners' Article

Writing
70
60
50
Pre-test

40

Post-test

30
20

10
0
Subject Verb
Agreement

Modal Verbs

Simple Present
Tense

Connectors

Figure 1 Percentage of Gaps in Learners' Article Writing

The bar chart shows the comparison of the result between the pre-test and post-test.
The blue bar represents pre-test and the red bar represents post-test. By looking at the
chart we can see the difference between the two tests. For example, when we look at the
Subject Verb Agreement gap, the post-test shown 70% of the learners did the error.
However, when we look at the post-test result, the mistakes had decreased to 30%.
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Next, we looked at the Modal Verbs. Based on the pre-test analysis, the error did by
the learners were 65%. However, the result on the post-test decreased to 30%. In the other
hand, for Simple Past Tense gap showed some improvement when in the pre-test, the error
was 70% and decreased to 35% in the post-test. Lastly, the pre-test for connectors gap
showed the learners error was 50% compare to 20% in the post-test.
Based on the data, we can see the improvement of the learners performance and
proven as the effectiveness of the intervention. Thus, this shows the effectiveness of the
intervention plan.
4.3 Analysis of Samples of Writing Pre-test and Post-test

The materials of writing pretest and posttest were both selected from SPM writing
reference book and the topic is based on the Form 5 KBSM syllabus. 35 mean the fullmarked writing. All of 17 students took part in the two tests and they were required to
finish the two tests within 45 minutes respectively. The same criteria of scoring were used
in the pretest and posttest. The pre-test was taken before the action research and three
learners writings were chosen to be the samples, one good one, one fair one and one poor
one. The same three learners writings in the writing post-test were used as samples.

Three following points can be concluded from the analysis of these samples. First, all
the three learners were able to write complete passages in post-test, expand the notes
given in the questions and express their ideas and attitudes clearly and they made progress
when writing simple sentences. Second, the lowest achiever ones in the pre-test managed
to score the highest marks in the post test and only made small mistakes in the posttest.
Third, the fair achiever learner in the pre-test made impressive progress in their sentences,
though several mistakes in sentences were still found out. Fourth, all the students still had
problems in writing, such as the inappropriate use of vocabulary, wrong spellings of words,
lack of topic sentences and supporting sentences, shortage of conjunctions and the illogical
structure. However, most of the learners showed some improvement in the attempt to
write the essay based on the words count. Finally, the crucial result was some of the
learners mostly were not attempted to write at all. This is maybe because of low motivation
or lack of interest in learning the English Language.
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4.4 Analysis of Scores of Writing Pretest and Posttest

Table 3 T-test of Scores of Pre-test and Post-test

Score

Pre-test
Post-test

N
17
17

Mean
3.71
11.29

Std. deviation
6.070
7.864

T
-4.510

To examine whether there is the difference in the scores between writing pretest and
posttest and whether it is remarkable if there is the difference, a t-test was done by the
researcher. Table 3 shows that there is a remarkable and significant difference between
scores in pretest and post-test (T=-4.510p<0.05), which means the intervention has a
positive influence on learners writing achievement. And the scores of writing posttest are
obviously higher than those of writing pre-test. It is obvious that learners' writing abilities
have been improved through the past seven weeks intervention. Hence, conducting the
action research statistically significant to improve learners writing proficiency.

Based on the data from the two tests, we can clearly see that the students that have a
higher mark in the pre-test has decreased in their post-test performance. The cause of this
decrement will further be investigated by interviewing students to get an insight of their
perception about the school support plan.

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Table 4 School Support Plan Intervention 2016

No.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17

Name

PRE
17
3
1
0
9
0
1
0
2
5
20
0
2
3
0
0
0

PARTICIPANT A
PARTICIPANT B
PARTICIPANT C
PARTICIPANT D
PARTICIPANT E
PARTICIPANT F
PARTICIPANT G
PARTICIPANT H
PARTICIPANT I
PARTICIPANT J
PARTICIPANT K
PARTICIPANT L
PARTICIPANT M
PARTICIPANT N
PARTICIPANT O
PARTICIPANT P
PARTICIPANT Q

POST
21
11
3
17
13
12
2
10
29
5
24
5
4
11
4
6
15

DIFF(+/-)
4
8
2
17
4
12
1
10
27
0
4
5
2
8
4
6
15

IMPROVEMENT
30
25
20
15
10

IMPROVEMENT

5
0

Figure 2 The Improvement in the Pre-Test and Post-Test

15

Based on the result, there was an improvement in learners performance in the pre-test and the
post-test marks. There were eight learners that increased below five marks. Some of the
learners have attendance problem and one of the learners was not participated in the treatment
because he participated in Football Tournament. Besides that, some of the learners claimed
the feel demotivated to write in English because it is difficult and they were not interested in
learning.
5.0 CONCLUSION

This action research demonstrates that of great help to learners English Language writing.
Meanwhile, it is beneficial for their reading ability improvement, for some reading materials are
easier for them. Besides, sentence pattern consolidations about nice sentences around specific
topics are able to help enrich the contents of the writing. This action research is related to the
idea of reflective practice and the teacher as the researcher takes the initiative in the writing
class. The researcher is an investigator of ESL learners in English Language writing problems and
also is one of the participants in it, thereby improving learners English Language writing.

However, there are still some limitations of this research. Since the research time is short
and many outside the classroom activities were interfered during the treatment, this research is
only about correct sentence writing in compositions, it is impossible to address all the writing
problems.

Apart from sentence pattern consolidations, vocabulary enrichment and complex

sentences consolidations are needed in ESL writing teaching.

In addition, the enrichment of the content and the fostering of English thinking pattern
are needed to improve the writing. Whats more, although students have made progress in
simple sentence writing, they still have problems in the clause and complex sentence writing.

Data results show that sentence pattern consolidations are valuable to develop students'
writing ability, which is one of the effective ways of ESL writing teaching. In addition, there are
many suggestions for English writing teaching as follows.

16

First, there is a need for teachers to give more exercises like sentence making or story
telling in teaching writing. Second, the teacher should assign in-class and after-class sentence
writing tasks. However, it is also important to have the learners that eager and engage in the
exercises and the activity. Third, learners are supposed to learn to form the habit of reading
English Language materials to enhance the exposure to English vocabulary. Fourth, different
genres writing practice is also necessary for writing teaching. And for the next action research,
the researcher may help the learners in these areas.

There are few problems that occur during the intervention process. First, it is suggested to
choose the participants among Form four students, however, the researcher only teach Form
five and that is the only class was available to be assessed.

Secondly, time constraints during the activities. During the activities, learners consumed a
lot of time during the activities. If its in a normal class then its a good thing, but when there are
time frames to complete the plan, it became a problem. I have to continue the lesson in the next
classes. Moreover, when the treatment activity was postponed because of the schools break,
the learners tend to forget all the things that have been learned. Then, some of the learners
prefer to copy their friends answers and this habit cannot bring any benefit to the learners. This
surely will ruin the plans that have been set for them.

However, there are some benefits from the intervention program. Firstly, some of the
learners became interested in learning English. Before the intervention plan, many learners have
less interest in learning English. They even sleep during the class. However, the students started
to change after the second week. They were more eager to learn and were active during the
class. Most of the learners were motivated to learn the English Language lesson.

17

APPENDIX

18