Best Practices: Teachers' Initiative from PPKBIS 2020

BEST PRACTICES: TEACHERS’ INITIATIVE
FROM PPKBIS 2020



THE RESPONSE

THE POST-TEST

The post-test was carried out on the fourth week after the intervention was implemented.
This was to test the impact of the intervention. One question on an essay entitled ‘Describes
an important family celebration and how you felt about it. Your composition should be about
350 words’. The objective of the test was to test the ability of the students to produce an
organised, well-supported and cohesive essay.

The skills required for the students to answer the question were to write an effective
introduction with a hook, background information and a thesis statement. To produce an
organised and coherent paragraph, and finally, write a good conclusion.

The essays were marked, and the errors processed according to colour codes, yellow for
grammar errors and green for non-grammar errors. In this process the errors were identified,
analysed, and prioritised. The marks of the post-test are presented in Figure 6.

The bar graph shows the results of ten students from my class. Generally, it indicates that
the students managed to get 70 per cent as the lowest mark and the highest mark is 76 per
cent. Four students scored 70 per cent, four scored 72 per cent and one student scored 74
per cent.

Figure 6.
Percentage of Marks for the Post-Test

77 76
MARKS OF THE PRE-TEST76
Student A7574
Student B
Student C74
Student D73
Student E
Student F
Student G
Students H
Student I
Student J
72 72 72 72

72 70 70 70
71 70
70
69
68
67

4C STUDENTS

My next step, I compared the results of the post-test with the pre-test. Overall, the score
showed good improvement. There was an increase in the score of the post-test for about
ten per cent in which the grades move up from B to A-.

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Figure 7.
Percentage of Marks for the Pre-test and Post-Test

80 70 74 70 70 70 72 76 72 72 72
70 64 62 62 60 60 64 66 60 66 60

60

Marks 50

40

30 Pre-test
Post-test
20

10

0 Student A
Student B
Student C
Student D
Student E
Student F
Student G
Students H

Student I
Student J

4C Students

Detailed analysis was even more rewarding where the gaps identified in the pre-test seemed
to be gone. The essays were more organised where the parts such as introduction, body
paragraph and conclusion were seen. Paragraphs were completed with topic sentences,
well-elaborated with supporting sentences and the main ideas were well concluded in
closing sentences. The conclusion was written well which rounded the topic of the essays.

Although grammar mistakes emerged in the essay, generally these did not impede the
meaning and clarity of the essays. The analysis of the errors revealed the top four errors
which were verb tenses, subject-verb agreement, spelling and vocabulary. The grammatical
errors altogether were not serious and many. Some inappropriate words were used and
spelling errors. All in all, reading the essays, I felt a smooth transition from paragraph to
paragraph and the central ideas were pictured. Hence, there was an increase in the overall
performance.

REFLECTIONS

Generally, the intervention on the organisation does improve the students’ ability to write
better essays. My method of teaching writing before the intervention was not systematic and
comprehensive. I used to give general guidelines only without proper techniques. I did not
give an outline nor emphasis on its importance. Then there was not enough output on
paragraph organisation dan writing. Many students asked for guidance in writing therefore I
formulated this technique by borrowing ideas from Pinterest.

Interestingly, I used the techniques with my other classes especially my form five classes.
They used the method of Traffic Signal System in writing, hence it helped them scored A+
or A on the SPM examination for English Language Paper. Other teachers in my school
borrowed the notes I prepared for my students hence used the ideas. It eased their teaching

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and helped the students to write better. However, I need to do more interventions that focus
more on sentence structures and vocabulary in future

APPENDIX A

WENDY, MERCY AND BRIDGETTE ‘S SAMPLES OF WORK

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THE D.E.E.P.S-
S.P.E.E.D: A
SOLUTION TO
EXPANSION OF
IDEAS

DR. AMALORPAVARMARY VAIRAPPAN@ PAULINE

BETTY D PRIMUS

THE SETTING

SM Holy Trinity is a secondary school located in Tawau, Sabah with an enrolment of 714
students. This urban school usually has around 120 to 140 SPM candidates yearly. Although
English Language is taught as a second language, but the reality is it is more often a third
or fourth acquired language among the students. Most students in this school are users of
the national language and followed by their mother tongues. The average number of
students in most classes is around 30-35 but for science stream classes (in upper
secondary) the number is relatively smaller, between 15-20 students merely. Most students
in this school come from below average economy group.

I have taught English Language as second language for 14 years in the current school.
Almost all these years, I have taught upper secondary with exam classes as the focus. As
a believer of lifelong education, I constantly put effort to improve myself in knowledge, skills,
and qualification and this has resulted in my completion of my Phd in TESL as an attempt
to be a better teacher. The students I teach in this school can be divided into those who
want to achieve better grades in English language and those were merely wanting to achieve
a pass in this subject. As a teacher I often must adapt to the changes and demands of the
teaching trend and students’ need. One of the current needs is the 21st century learning
where students’ learning method is the focus. Having said that, my focus in teaching English

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language lies on making students as accountable learners and take language learning as
an active and ongoing process in which new methods are learnt and acquired.

Learning of English language as speakers of other language is made more challenging with
traditional learning models and the treatment of language learning as merely like another
subject. Having no specific purpose or goal for learning English language among these
students is another big challenge for a teacher. The lack of time to acquire this language too
poses a big problem since students depend only on the limited classroom time to learn this
language. Next is the lack of interaction to proficient speakers and exposure to English
language. Not to mention, the lack of confidence to use English language is a big obstacle
to the learning of this ‘foreign’ language.

In 2020, I decided to carry out an investigation and thus initiated a study involving 17
students in a science stream class, 5 Lily, which, their English proficiency level for 15 of
them was average while 2 others can be categorised as below average. They merely used
English language, both written and spoken, during English lessons. As their English
language teacher since form 4, I observed that their main weakness lies in their writing skills.
Problems would lies ranging from unable to expand ideas well, especially in their ability to
provide solid and supporting ideas to. elaborate and justify the main ideas in their essays.
In addition, their other challenges would be the weaknesses in language use.

As a result, their scores for the writing section is affected, thus jeopardizing their grades as
this section contributes a big proportion to the overall score. Although these students were
able to produce ideas to support their writing, they lacked a constructive manner or method
to elaborate the ideas. They needed a solid formula or a specific frame to distinguish valid
and invalid discussion to justify and support the ideas in their essays.

Although using 5W1H has been a common practice among some teachers in expanding
ideas in essays, my students needed a less abstract and more specific method. In finding a
solution or remedy for their need, I had come up with DEEPS-SPEED, a model to elaborate
an idea. So what is DEEPS-SPEED? The acronyms is best represented as in the
subsequent figure.

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Figure 1.
The D.E.E.P.S and S.P.E.E.D acronym

The concept of D.E.E.P.S-S.P.E.E.D is: When a main point is stated, more details on the
point helps to clarify the idea. Then the idea is explained, and examples are given to
strengthen it. Proverbs can be added to beautify the language aspect and statistics can be
included to justify the point. The sequencing of the steps is not necessary although it can be
useful for those who are newly exposed to this method of idea expansion.

MP: Main Point/Ideas is stated
D- details are added
E- explanation is made
E -examples to strengthen
P - proverbs to beautify
S - statistics to justify

Upon observing my students’ issues, I decided to investigate how much DEEPS-SPEED
method can help my 17 selected students in their writing skills, mainly in scoring for the
section of content. Marks for content section can be fully obtained if these students can
elaborate and develop the main ideas. Then I am left with another bigger challenge on how
to address and find solution to their weaknesses in the language area. Well, this is the reality
of a language teacher’s journey- keep finding solutions for every challenge that arises in the
teaching and learning of English language.

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THE INVESTIGATION

To carry out this investigation, I first administered a pretest on a directed writing in a
stipulated time to the 17 students involved in this study. Then their answers were marked
and their scores for each section were recorded. The awarded marks were for format,
content and language as required in the SPM examination. Then I introduced the DEEPS-
SPEED as intervention in the aim to improve their ability to expand ideas and score better
in the section of content in directed writing. After the intervention phase, I carried out a post
test on another directed writing to all the 27 students. An important note here is both the
pretest and post test questions were similar in format, length and even level of difficulty to
ensure the reliability of the instruments used in this study. The post-test too was marked and
their scores for format, content and language were recorded. Since this study ‘s focus is the
ability of students in expansion of ideas, the mark score for content in the pretest and post-
test were compared to conclude if the intervention on the DEEPS-SPEED method was
effective in helping my students to improve in idea expansion in their writing skills.

The pre-test question on article is in accordance with SPM syllabus and based on standard
examination format. It aims to expose students to the technical aspects of an article writing
besides testing students’ knowledge on the topic (factual). It requires students to use the
ideas given as rubrics in the question and expand using language flare and skills in terms
of grammar, sentence structures and vocabulary to produce a quality essay script. When
administering the pretest, students were asked to answer the essay individually in the given
time (an hour). At the end of the pretest, the essay scripts were marked according to the
SPM standard marking scheme and the students’ scores were recorded.

Figure 2.
Percentage of Mark for 5 Lily Score for the Pre-Test

90 77
80 71 71 69

70 60 51 54 57 49 57 49 49 54 57 60
60 51 49

50

40

30 SCORE (%)

20

10

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

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Table 1.
Pre-test Mark Scores According to SPM marking scheme

NAME MARK Format Content Language
(%) (3) (12) (20)
STUDENT A 60 3 8 10
STUDENT B 71 3 9 13
STUDENT C 51 2 7 9
STUDENT D 54 2 7 10
STUDENT E 57 2 8 10
STUDENT F 49 2 7 8
STUDENT G 71 3 8 14
STUDENT H 51 2 7 9
STUDENT I 49 2 7 8
STUDENT J 57 3 7 9
STUDENT K 77 3 10 14
STUDENT L 49 2 7 9
STUDENT M 69 3 9 12
STUDENT N 49 2 7 9
STUDENT O 54 3 7 9
STUDENT P 57 3 8 9
STUDENT Q 60 3 8 10

On the total mark score of the directed writing, only 3 (17.65%) students scored above 70
marks while 14 (82.35%) scored less than 70 marks. The overall score is given based on
format, content, and language skills as of the examination marking scheme. Although
securing marks for content section is relatively easier to obtain, students showed clear
disability in providing solid ideas to expand the main ideas provided in the essay as stimulus.
The elaboration provided are mostly repetitive in nature and did not dive deep into the main
idea. Most discussions lacked strong supportive arguments or details.

In the section of format, 9 (52.94%) students scored full marks while another 8 (47.06%) of
them scored 2 out of the 3 marks allocated. For the content section, only 1 student scored
83.33% of the total marks allocated (12 marks) for content. 2 students out of 17 scored 75%
of the total marks for content while 14 of them scored less than 66.66% of the total marks
for content. As for the language, only 1 student scored more than 50% of the total language
score while the rest of 16 (94.12%) of the students scored less than 50% of the total
language score. The students showed weaknesses in areas like subject-verb agreement,
singular and plural noun usage, modal verbs, and sentence structures.

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THE INTERVENTION PLAN

The pre-test revealed that students scored poorly in areas like content and language use.
In this study I decided to first help my students improve their scores and skills in developing
ideas so they may score better and achieve full marks for the area of content in directed
writing. I decided to use the DEEPS-SPEED method to help my students improve their
weakness in idea expansion in writing. This method can also help them in continuous writing.

As such an intervention plan was carefully planned and designed for a 4-week period.
English language subject was taught 3 days weekly, and each session lasted for an hour.
For this study, each week 2 days of English language lessons were allocated, so 8 sessions
were used to teach, expose, and train my students on DEEPS-SPEED. In the first session,
I introduced and explained the DEEPS method as a constructive way to guide these
students in determining what to be included as supportive ideas to the main point. I explained
each step and the representation of each alphabet used in the acronym besides provided
examples to enhance my students’ understanding of this method. In lesson 2, I distributed
a worksheet in which students needed to show their understanding and knowledge of
DEEPS-SPEED as taught in the previous lesson. They had to mention what each alphabet
in the acronym represents in written form. Then my students exchanged their answers with
peers to compare their understanding of DEEPS-SPEED. I gave a summary, more
explanation and examples on this method that can be useful in expansion of ideas in their
essays.

From session 3 to 6, my students were divided into group of three (5 groups) and two peers
(1 group). In each of these sessions, students were given hands on task to prepare the
expansion of ideas using DEEPS-SPEED method using. For each session, each student
received the DEEPS-SPEED frame for writing down their expansion of ideas. Then they
presented in the class, and I assessed those ideas by grading and commenting on them.
My feedback was found to be useful to my students as they said my feedback clarified their
doubts or uncertainty of what contributes to mark awarding and to help distinguish what
adds meaning to the main ideas presented in their writings. In the last 2 sessions (session
7 and 8) each student worked individually in using DEEPS-SPEED method to expand ideas.
I then marked their work and wrote feedback that might be useful and needed by my
students. I noticed that almost all 17 of them attempted each step in DEEPS-SPEED
although it was an individual task. After 8 sessions in the intervention phase, my students’
group and individual tasks shows they have a fair understanding of DEEPS-SPEED method
and can use it to expand ideas in directed writing.

THE RESPONSE

After the intervention, I did a post-test in which I tested my students on another directed
writing. The post-test question was another article writing which is in accordance with SPM
syllabus and based on standard examination format. It aimed to expose students to the
technical aspects of an article writing besides testing students’ knowledge on the topic
(factual). It required students to have language flare and skills in terms of grammar,
sentence structures and vocabulary to produce a quality essay script. The post- test also

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aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of the intervention plan carried out for four weeks prior
to the post-test. It was used to measure the improvement of students (if any) in the problem
area as seen in the pre-test assessment.
The Result of Post Test- Analysis and Findings

At the end of the post-test evaluation, here are some of the findings based on the analysis
made from the data obtained: The post test showed an improvement in the overall score
for directed writing.

All 17 students (100%) showed an increase in the score for Article Writing in directed writing.
Each student showed improved performance and more confidence in expressing bold ideas
in their essay. The content and ideas presented in the expansion of ideas show more
substance in terms of explaining, clarifying, or justifying the main ideas. Most importantly,
students can reduce dull and repetitive ideas in expansion of ideas. 7 (41.18%) of students
have scored above 70 marks in the post-test.

The total mark score shows students can produce better quality scripts in terms of content.
Students used the DEEPS method to elaborate the main ideas, and this contributed to the
increase in scores, especially in the aspect of content which indirectly contributed to the
increase in overall score in the essay.

Figure 3. Post (%)
Percentage of Marks for the Post-Test of 5 Lily

Post (%)

90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0

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PRE-TEST (%)
POST-TEST (%)

Figure 4.
Percentage of Marks for Pre-test and Post-Test of 5 Lily

90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10

0

Table 2:
Post-test Mark Scores According to SPM marking scheme

NAME MARK Format Content Language
(%)
STUDENT A 66 2 11 10
STUDENT B 77 3 11 13
STUDENT C 66 3 11 9
STUDENT D 71 3 12 10
STUDENT E 66 3 11 8
STUDENT F 63 2 11 9
STUDENT G 74 3 12 11
STUDENT H 57 3 10 7
STUDENT I 57 2 11 7
STUDENT J 69 3 12 9
STUDENT K 80 3 12 13
STUDENT L 66 3 12 8
STUDENT M 80 3 12 13
STUDENT N 74 3 12 11
STUDENT O 63 2 11 8
STUDENT P 71 3 12 10
STUDENT Q 66 3 11 8

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REFLECTION

Through this study, I have learnt that students need a more concrete and student friendly
method in language learning. The method that I adopted DEEPS-SPEED managed to
provide a guide and a frame for my students to learn the skill of expanding ideas by
producing valid and substance filled elaborations.

This study has taught me the importance of adhering to the students’ needs in language
teaching and learning as a responsible educator and then to find solutions or remedies to
help our students. Sufficient exposure and hands-on exercises on the introduced method
must be given so students master it and use it to overcome their weak areas. Like in this
study DEEPS-SPEED was introduced, taught, and practiced till students became familiar
and used it for helping them in directed writing. Students’ errors must be highlighted,
explained and discussed in order to create awareness in their weak areas. In relation to the
area of idea development, students must be given a formula or some form of guidance for
them to learn and practice on how to develop ideas in writing.

The intervention measures or methods must be more focused and worked out based on the
need or disability of students in language learning. Supporting materials must be sufficient
to build the lack of knowledge and to fill the gap. Chalk and talk method must be replaced
with constructive teaching methods and materials. The learning process must be a shared
zone where learners/students take more accountability in first acknowledging the weakness
or need. The teacher takes up the role of provider, guide, and supporter in overcoming the
weak areas in writing or other aspects of language learning. It is undeniable that there will
be some unique cases of learners who show very little or almost no improvement despite
the intervention carried out which will puzzle the teacher for sure. Most importantly, the
teacher must continue researching problem areas and find solutions which will be useful for
the students and the teacher in language teaching and learning.

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Appendix A


The Sample of Students’ work

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ERROR ANALYSIS
FORM TO PROMOTE
CORRECT SIMPLE
PAST TENSE

MAHIRAH BINTI OTHMAN

NORHAZREEN SOHRI

SETTING

SMK Batu Melintang is one of six schools in a small and remote district, Jeli, Kelantan. 486
students are taught by 40 teachers in this school and each form consists of four classes.
There are 72 students from form five classes. The students come from different family
backgrounds of middle-income family. Most of the students are weak learners. Learning
English becomes apathetic for the students particularly when they have problems and
difficulties during the process of learning it. Furthermore, when it comes to English grammar,
most students would admit its difficulty and claim they cannot understand how to use it
correctly even though they have been learning about it for many years. The fact is that they
are too attached to their mother tongue, thus, it makes it harder to learn and acquire second
language. The students often make mistakes and even errors in the process of learning
English, especially when they try to arrange sentences or use tenses in their writing. As a
result, they will write sentences ungrammatically. In all conscience, the ungrammatical
sentences can be influenced by the first language which governs different rules from the
second language.

The teacher involves in this intervention is an options teacher, with Bachelor of Education in
TESL, graduated in 2015. She has been teaching for five years and SMK Batu Melintang is

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her second school. As for personal observation, the teacher discovered during a few lessons
of teaching Tenses, most of the students had problem in simple past tense. There were
many tasks carried out in the lessons to enhance the understanding of simple past tense,
however it seemed that the students were still having problems with this part of tenses.
Thus, this study aims to focus on writing skills which is the most problematic among
Malaysian language learners, specifically in narrative writing.

FOCUS

For this study, 14 Form 5 students from the school were chosen. There were 9 females and
5 male students. The students were chosen irrespective of gender, race, social background,
and English proficiency. Based on their previous monthly test, the majority of the students
in the class scored Grade D meanwhile the minority scored C. Thus, most of them were in
average English proficiency since this class was the first class among the four classes in
the form. They were chosen for this study because these students were spotted to have had
severe problems in using Simple Past Tense verbs in their writing. Their level of proficiency
was average where their skills in writing could be categorized as poor writer.

INVESTIGATION

The study instruments consisted of a Pre-Test followed by intervention sessions which
included writing descriptive paragraphs based on note expansion, and the students were
given the error analysis form during every intervention session. In fulfilling this study, Pre-
Test was applied to measure their initial performance in writing descriptive essay using
correct simple past tense verbs. At the final stage of this study, the students were given a
set of Post-Test question which was the same type as Pre-Test at the beginning of the
session, descriptive writing. The students were expected to reduce their errors of simple
past tense verbs when they had undergone the process involving the error analysis form.

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THE PRE-TEST

A pre-test was first administered to the 14 students before any intervention (treatments) was
carried out. For this purpose, a sample question of Paper 1 taken from the Form 5 exercise
book was distributed to the students (Refer Appendix). Students were asked to write a
descriptive essay; “Describe your first day of school. Explain the scenes on the first day at
school and explain how you felt about it.” Their essays were collected and marked by the
teacher. The following result were obtained and analyzed:

Figure 1.
Percentage of Marks for the Pre-Test

50

MARKS OF THE PRE-TEST 40

30 7 11
8
20 17 18 17 18 16 15 19 15 14 16
10

10

0 Student A
Student B
Student C
Student D
Student E
Student F
Student G
Students H

Student I
Student J
Student K
Student L
Student M
Student N

5E STUDENTS

After analysing their essays, the results were the same as they got in class before, in which
the students did not manage to write the essay grammatically correct. Some of them had
the ideas, but they organised their sentences ungrammatically. The students admitted that
they often faced problems constructing sentences while writing an essay and thus, using
error analysis form in descriptive writing was hoped to help them write better.

For further analysis, the highest marks for the pre-test, which was 19 over 50 marks, while
the lowest mark was 7 marks. From the number of words count, it can be deduced that the
student scored the lowest as he wrote the shortest essay among the other. While other

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participants wrote in only one paragraph, student A, B and G were able to organize their

essays in two paragraphs. Not only student G was able to organize her essay in two

paragraphs, but she also managed to come out with the least frequent errors. Based on the

pre-test, the following observation were deduced:

I. Most of the students were unable to compose a descriptive essay as all of
them scored ranged from 7 to 19 over 50 marks which implied that their essays
were quite poor.

II. Upon marking their essay, the teacher realized that the students were weak of
the following elements in their essay.

a. Overgeneralization of Past Tense Verbs

b. Mix tenses (Past Tense vs Present Tense)

c. Idea expansion

d. Vocabulary building

III. This eventually resulted in poor and weak essays, and thereby affected their
marks.

IV. The teacher decided to make intervention on correcting the usage of simple
past tense verbs in the descriptive essays focussing on three main categories
of errors which are omission of some required element; addition of some
unnecessary or incorrect elements; selection of an incorrect element.

THE INTERVENTION ACTIVITIES

ESL teachers would normally discover students’ problems during the process of learning
since English is their second language. According to that, teachers must get by this
phenomenon by introducing effective and relevant methods or treatments to students
replacing the older ones which were less successful. Any intervention is mainly aimed to
see students’ development in the language proficiency, while at the same time having fun
learning it. Therefore, in this study, the teacher had come out with an intervention of using
note expansion and error analysis form to promote correct simple past tense verbs in
enhancing descriptive writing.

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The main reason students are making errors in their writing is because they were not aware
of their errors. This leads to worse students’ performance since errors were made repeatedly
consciously that those errors are wrong in English grammar. To adjust this situation to a
better progress, teacher needs to carry out error analysis intervention. Error analysis is a
method to help students analyse their errors. In this intervention specifically, past tense
verbs was the main focus. While note expansion is chosen for its effectiveness in helping
students to generate ideas and write longer.

The teaching materials during the intervention sessions consisted of question papers and
the error analysis form for the students to fill in. It also involved several steps in carrying out
the activities including the implementation of the intervention during the teaching and
learning sessions. The intervention was carried out during double period lesson. Before that,
the students were taught about simple past tense verbs which consist of regular, irregular
verbs and verbs that do not change. During this stage, students were exposed to simple
past tense verbs and how to apply the verbs correctly. The teacher also briefly explained
the students about writing skills.

This intervention process was conducted four times consecutively. The teacher collected all
the data from the students based on their written essays. The intervention session consisted
of two stages which first, students were asked to answer note expansion question and write
one or more paragraphs. Students needed to finish answering the question during the
teaching and learning session and within the estimated time. Next stage was when the
teacher marked and gave back their answer for their correction and error analysis, and
interpretation. Then, students would have to check their answer and see their errors in the
essay. At this point, students were given an error analysis form to be filled in according to
their errors correspondingly. The students would be filling in the boxes which they were
asked about their sentences, errors (omission, addition, and selection), and correct answer
(simple past tense verbs only).

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Error analysis is considered a process. As a process, there must be a kind of procedures
that must be followed as a guideline. This procedure consists of several stages. The
procedures are as follows:

1) identifying errors in the chosen grammar aspect,
2) explaining errors and
3) evaluating errors.

By using the error analysis form, students could clearly see and detect their errors, and were
able to comprehend the grammatical aspect deeply and properly. This could help students
to determine their errors in using past tense. The four intervention sessions were conducted
to see students’ development in using simple past tense.

Figure 2.
Note Expansion

jog on field – hear sound of crashing – run to accident scene – car crash into tree

– pull injured man out – call ambulance – police come – ask questions -

Figure 3.
Error Analysis Form

GRAMMATICAL ERROR EXPLANATION JUSTIFICATION
ASPECT

Example:

PAST TENSE I sleeped early Irregular past tense I slept early.
verbs
VERB

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First Intervention

As been mentioned earlier, the students were very weak in ruling Past Tense Rules in their
essay writing. Teacher had decided to make use of note expansion to correct past tense
verbs in descriptive writing with the objective, by the end of the class, students should be
able to use Past Tense Verbs correctly. Firstly, the teacher explained the rule of Past Tense
Verbs; regular vs irregular verbs. Next, the students were asked to do the note expansion
activity and submit their answers to be marked. Lastly, the teacher took few minutes to mark
the essays; identifying the errors for students’ analysis in the next session by circling the
errors with red pen. Based on the analysis at this beginning, it was found out that students
had committed past tense verbs errors in ‘omission’, ‘addition’ and ‘selection’. As for
omission, student L, M and N committed the errors. Student L had omitted the word ‘were’
as to refer to the pronoun –‘they’.

They (omission) watch television alone..
Correct sentence: They were watching television alone..

Besides ‘omission’, the students also did errors on ‘addition’. They added unnecessary
elements to the words because they had overgeneralized the words. From what they
understood, all verbs have to be added with –ed to show its past tense forms while there
are irregular verbs in English grammar. For examples, the words like ‘heared’ and ‘runned’
which they had added –ed to the verbs. Another type of error is ‘selection’ which the subjects
had selected and written the incorrect elements which formed the wrong words. The
students did not change the form of the verbs which is totally wrong in English grammar.
The examples of sentences are shown below;

I run to accident scene. – (ran)
I decide to call police. – (decided)

Second Intervention

In the second intervention, the teacher had chosen a descriptive writing which required the
students to describe a robbery (please refer to Appendix B) . The steps in the first
intervention were repeated. After the teacher explained the rule of Past Tense Verbs; regular

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vs irregular verbs, the students began to write the essay using the note expansion given.
Then, by using error analysis form, students would have to check their answer and see their
errors in the essay. In the second intervention, the identification of the errors made by the
students and their examples are shown in the following description:

Source Sentence : “Mereka gembira”
Erroneous Translation : “They happy ”
Suggested Translation : “They were happy”

Based on the sentences above, it has been found that the type of error made by the students
is ‘omission’ (omission of “be”), which possible causes of error are, false concept
hypothesized and interference of the learners’ mother tongue, where in Malay there is no
‘be’.

Third Intervention

Just like in the second intervention, the steps in the first intervention were repeated. In this
intervention, students were asked to write a descriptive story entitled ‘A Picnic’ (refer to
Appendix C). The note expansion provided the students with words related to a picnic. As
the teacher marked their essays, it can be seen that, the ‘selection’ error has been reduced
to 15 errors compared to the previous intervention whereby the students committed errors
27 and 21 errors in their writings. The example of errors for ‘selection’ are illustrated below:

Source Sentence: “Kami bermain bola dan mengumpul kerang sepanjang
pantai.”

Erroneous Translation: “We played the ball and collect the seashell along the
beach.”

Suggested Translation: “We played the ball and collected the seashell along
the beach.”

It could be interpreted here that the students were being careless for not changing the word
‘collect’ to ‘collected’ because she had already done for the word ‘played’. Thus, it led to the
subject making error of selection by writing the word in its present tense form.

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Fourth Intervention

For this intervention, the students required to write an essay about “Gotong-royong”. As for
final intervention, students had reduced the number of errors for ‘omission’, while for
‘selection’ it remained constant. Meanwhile, for ‘addition’, it showed an increase of number
which students committed 6 errors compared to 4 errors in the third intervention. The
example of addition from the subjects’ answer is shown in the description below:

Source Sentence: “Guru-guru juga datang untuk menolong kami
membersihkan sekolah.”

Erroneous Translation: “The teachers also comed to help us to clean up the
school.”

Suggested Translation: “The teacher also came to help us to clean up the
school.”

THE RESPONSE

A post-test was intended to see the effectiveness of using note expansion and error analysis
form in promoting correct simple past tense verbs among the 14 students. Whether or not
the note expansion and the error analysis form is considered effective to promote correct
Past Tense in descriptive writing, this test would become the indicator. The strategy of using
note expansion and the error analysis form to promote correct Past Tense Verbs is believed
by the teacher to aid students in writing a descriptive essay depended on the improvement
or the decline of the students’ marks. The students were asked to write a descriptive essay
of 360 words on “Describe a problem you once had while you were travelling. Explain what
you did to solve the problem and what you have learnt from the experience” in forty-five
minutes.The following results were obtained and analysed:

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Figure 4.
Percentage of Marks for the Post-Test

50
40
30 22 24 23 21 20 20 26 21 20 21 19
20
10 7
0
MARKS OF THE PRE-TEST 19
Student A 9
Student B
Student C
Student D
Student E
Student F
Student G
Students H
Student I
Student J
Student K
Student L
Student M
Student N

5SC STUDENTS

The result revealed that all 14 students showed significant increase in their scores of the
descriptive writing except for student L and M. After administrating the pre-test and post-
test, the total mark for the pre-test and post-test are tabulated as below to make comparison.

Figure 5.
Percentage of Marks for the Pre-test and Post-Test

50

40

MARKS 30 22 24 23 21 20 20 26 21 20 21 19 19
20 17 18 17 18 16 15 19 15 14 16

10 11
77 87
10

0 Student A
Student B
Student C
Student D
Student E
Student F
Student G
Students H

Student I
Student J
Student K
Student L
Student M
Student N

5SC STUDENTS

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Based on the result of pre-test and post-test that the gathered in Graph 3, it can be

concluded that the average score of pre-test was 14.2. After the treatment had been

conducted, which was using note-expansion to correct past tense error in writing descriptive

essay, the result of the post-test was different from the pre-test. The mean of the post-test

was, 19.4. This signaled that the students’ competence of the pre-test before they were

given the treatment was poor, but after they were given the treatment, they improved

themselves better. This indicates that there was significant improvement of the pre and post-

test results except for student L and M.

REFLECTION

Based on the results for pre-test and post-test, it is fairly important to see the nature of the
issue, which is the past tense errors in writing, in order to have better understanding
regarding of the helpfulness of note expansion and error analysis form as mentioned earlier
that the students were expected to have reduced their errors of past tense verbs when they
had undergone the intervention process involving the error analysis form. Regarding to the
findings presented, it also becomes necessary to state the relationship of the result with the
objectives, whether they support each other or end up introducing any interesting issues. In
this case, the most striking results to emerge from the data are; i) errors made by the
students in using past tense verbs are dominant errors in their descriptive writing, and ii)
error analysis form has proven helpful in lessening the errors made by the subjects in using
simple past tense verbs in writing.

i. Errors made by the students in using past tense verbs are dominant errors in their writing

Learners of L2 tend to make a connection between rules in L1, (Bahasa Malaysia) and L2
(English), or it would be best called as language transfer. To simplify on this, the students
thought every rule in their L1 would be applied in the L2 too. Therefore, it was noticeable
that they had difficulties in structures, forms, and categorization of words. Narrowing down
the scope, there is no tenses in Bahasa Malaysia, yet in English, everything is determined
by tenses. Obviously, Bahasa Malaysia and English are different languages and have
different structures that govern the languages. Thus, the issues that arose in this case was,
the students did not fully understand the rules that govern the L2, especially rules for using

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the past tense verbs. Take the sentences below as examples of glaring error made by the

students while using simple past tense verbs in writing.

“I pulled my sister with me and we hided in a cupboard.”

Based on the sentence taken from the student’s note-expansion writing, the error that the
student made was the usage of verb ‘hided’. This sentence is grammatically wrong because
the verb ‘hided’ does not indicate the past tense context. To correct this sentence, the verb
‘hided’ should be changed to its past tense form which is ‘hid’. In the sentence given, the
student used another verb ‘pulled’ which is obviously in the past tense form. It is interesting
to note that, this student wrongly added inflectional morpheme ‘-ed’ after the usage of verb;
‘hide’. This student added the ‘-ed’ affix in referring to the context of simple past. However,
as ‘hide’ is irregular verb, this sentence is grammatically incorrect. Therefore, from the given
sentence it can be concluded that the student had over generalised the rules.

“Yesterday, I jogging on field with Sarah.”

This error is another type of error made by the student in using past tense verb in the writing.
This error occurs because ‘verb-to-be’ does not exist in the student’s mother tongue,
thereby, the cause of errors is called over differentiation in which a certain target language
item is not found in the native language. The second type error made by the student proved
that the student was still affected by their mother tongue. As all know, in Bahasa Malaysia
there are no verb changes such as in English. So, when the students wrote the sentences
of the simple past tense, they were likely to use the infinitive verbs without changing them
into the verb form of past simple because of the effect of their native language.

ii. Error Analysis Form has proven helpful in lessening the errors made by the students in
using simple past tense verbs in writing

Before the intervention, the students appeared to be unsure about the knowledge of the very
brief governed rules in simple past tense. They were overgeneralising and over
differentiation their L1 rules as mentioned earlier while writing an essay. It was understood
that all the students were facing difficulties in comprehending the rules of simple past tense
verbs. They could not write smoothly as their sentences were ungrammatically constructed.
After the intervention of employing the Error Analysis Form, it was observed that the

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students were more confident and motivated to write. They were very enthusiastic making
themselves engaged into the writing. They looked very cautious in expressing their thoughts
and ideas especially while using the past tense verbs. Based on the Post Test results, the
students were very committed in writing down the story thus producing a well elaborated
and interesting story, besides error-less. However, there were four of them who failed to
exploit the Error Analysis Form during all the interventions done. It is observed that the more
they wrote, the higher tendency for them to make errors. In addition, they did not manage to
learn comprehensively from the interventions and thus, kept repeating the same mistakes
all over again.

The intervention of this study, which is using Error Analysis Form, directed the students to
learn independently, to enhance their competency in the language. This intervention is
considered as giving high quality input, in a way, students were correcting their own
mistakes and eventually, becoming aware of such errors made in writing. The Error Analysis
Form acts as stimuli to give brief grammar rules for the subjects. It may be essential to help
students realize their errors resulting from overgeneralization and wrong analogy. Reflecting
upon the data gathered and analysed, the error analysis enabled the students to see the
mistakes and guided the students in a way not to make the same errors in the next treatment.
After treatments by treatments, the students were able to trace and identify their errors
especially with respect to the errors on the use of past tense verbs. This eventually resulted
to good writing with lessen errors made by the students in their writing. The intervention is,
obviously, very systematically conducted to enable the students to come to a realisation and
awareness based on the essays produced.

Undeniably, students faced a lot of problems in transforming the verbs into simple past tense
because most of them were not aware of each word’s form, so they tend to write the same
form of the verbs as well as committed errors in the form. Pertaining to matter as to what
extent the error analysis would help students in writing descriptive paragraph in note
expansion activity, the results have shown the improvement. Most of the students managed
to increase their marks during Post-Test session which indicates they understood the aim
of this study paper.

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Analysing the errors of simple past tense within students gave chances for the teacher to
address the possible causes which lead students in committing such errors. Therefore, to
overcome the students’ errors in using correct form of simple past tense, the teacher would
like to suggest the possible solutions as follow;

Teachers should be quick in identifying which areas that students usually commit
errors. In this case, students are identified to have problem in simple past tense
verbs.
Teachers should always remind students not to bring any mother tongue influences
in writing tasks.
Lastly, teachers should involve students in identifying mistakes in their own essays.
This approach enables students to reflect their own mistakes and correct the errors.
This can help them to drill the correct ways of using the simple past tense verbs
their writing.

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APPENDICES
A) Question 1 (First Intervention Session)

Write one or more paragraphs based on the notes given below. Make your composition as

interesting as possible.

You helped someone who met with an accident when you were jogging. To tell your parents,
describe what happened. You are advised to use all the words below.

jog on field – hear sound of crashing – run to accident scene – car crash into tree – pull
injured man out – call ambulance – police come – ask questions

________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________

B) Question 2 (Second Intervention Session)

Write one or more paragraphs based on the notes given below. Make your composition as
interesting as possible.

Based on the notes given, describe the situation. You are advised to use all the words below.

Boy and girl – home by themselves – watch television – hear noise in kitchen – suspect it
was burglar – pull sister with him – hide in a cupboard – put on ‘ghost costume – creep to
the burglar – make sound to create fear – sister come out – spray pepper spray – at face
– the burglar run away – happy it end

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________________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________

C) Question 3 (Third Intervention Session)

Write one or more paragraphs based on the notes given below. Make your composition as
interesting as possible.

Based on the notes given, describe the situation. You are advised to use all the words below.

picnic – family – weekend - arrive – stay at chalet – prepare food and drinks – play guitar
- swim in the sea – brother and sister – mother read – father sleep – grill barbeque – feel
hungry – eat grilled food –buy handicrafts – pack clothes to go home – sweet memory –
happy and sad

________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________
__________________

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D) Question 4 (Fourth Intervention Session)

Write one or more paragraphs based on the notes given below. Make your composition as
interesting as possible.

Based on the notes given, describe what had happened. You are advised to use all the words
below.

my school – hold gotong-royong – gather at main hall – get into different groups – work
hard – clean and plant the garden – collect rubbish to make handicraft objects – use old
bottles – build camp – enhance friendship – teach team work – school clean and beautiful
– tired but happy

________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________
________________________

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SOS PLAN AND THE

USE OF STUDENTS’

DATA TO BRIDGE

THE GAPS

IDENTIFIED

ZURINA BINTI ABDUL RAHMAN
CHEAH YET THANG

THE SETTING

SMK Jalan Damai, Bukit Mertajam was established in 1970. It was formerly known as
Sekolah Menengah Rendah and notoriously known for vandalism. Since the late 1990s,
there have been numerous positive changes. Today, the school is a well-reputed learning
institution and one of the most sought after in Bukit Mertajam. Due to the tireless and
unremitting efforts of the school administration and teachers throughout the years, we have
witnessed tremendous and continuous improvement of our pupils in the three core domains
– academic performance, co-curricular achievement, and character development.

Being the school of choice among the local community, SMK Jalan Damai currently has a
large enrolment of 2450 pupils studying in two sessions. Chinese pupils are the main
demographic group, almost 90 percent followed by Indians and Malays. As most pupils are
from vernacular primary schools, the English language is not widely used in their daily
conversations.

Nevertheless, the pupils studying in this school are at an advantage as the school is involved
in Dual Language Programme (DLP). Hence, the English language is the medium of
instruction used to teach Mathematics and Science in the school. The implementation of

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DLP increases the pupils’ contact hours in English. Consequently, they are more exposed
to the language, and this helps to improve English proficiency among the pupils. Many
pupils are more aware of the importance of learning the English language to understand
Mathematics and Science. It is an undisputed fact that the pupils are more receptive to the
language now compared to those days and they have demonstrated very positive attitude
towards not only learning but also mastering the English language.

There are many factors that can be attributed to the gaps identified which in turn create an
obstruction in learning the English language. Most of the pupils in the school do not speak
the language at home because they mainly use their mother tongue to converse. In other
words, these pupils either converse in Mandarin, Hokkien, Tamil or Bahasa Melayu. Apart
from that, many students are not comfortable to use the English language in their daily
conversation because they are not confident enough to do so. Perhaps this could also be
the reason as to why the pupils are rather passive in the classroom. Such negative attitude
creates a barrier in learning the language effectively. The problem has also impacted not
only their speaking skills but also their writing skills. Many students are not able to express
their ideas well in writing because they lack vocabulary items and they do not have a good
foundation of grammar. Often, their essays failed to sustain the teacher’s interest in reading
because their scripts are dull and unimpressive. From my observation, the pupils who use
English language in their daily conversation at home and read a lot of English reading
materials, have a good grasp of the language. Hence, they are the ones who are able to
produce good essays.

After completing my B. Ed in Teaching English as a Second Language (TESL) in 1997, I
embarked on my teaching journey and SMK Bukit Mertajam was my first posting. Then, I
continued teaching in SMK Jalan Damai since 1998. Being in the teaching fraternity for more
than 20 years has given me the opportunity to understand the students’ plights in learning
the English language. This year marks the 23rd year of teaching English language in the
school. With my basic qualifications in Teaching English as a Second Language and having
taught in the same school for more than 20 years, I am able to use my experience to cater
to the needs of the students and provide insights to guide the students to improve their
proficiency.

Apart from sharing the experience that I have gained over the years of teaching, I also used
to mark SPM English papers for 10 years before calling it quits. Hence, I can guide the SPM
candidates on the techniques of answering SPM questions particularly the essay questions
in Paper 1 (1119/1). I can impart knowledge and share some tips to help the students to
perform well in their SPM examination. Based on my teaching and marking experience, I
noticed some gaps and highlighted some of the common problems in the students’ essays.

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THE FOCUS

Upon enrolling myself in a course to enhance the students’ proficiency in English, I initiated
the effort to conduct a proper planning for my students in 2020 to gauge their performance
in the English language as well as to pin the underlying problems in learning the language.
I selected my 5S2 students who were of mixed abilities. Most of them were average
students. I noticed that only a handful of students in this class were proficient in English.
These students indeed speak the language at home and spend their leisure time to browse
through some English reading materials.

There were 17 Chinese students and 3 Indian students in this class who were involved in
this intervention plan. Most of them did not speak English at home as they mainly conversed
in their mother tongue. Hence, learning English was impeded mainly due to mother tongue
influence. A majority of these 5S2 students lacked confidence in using the English language
too since they had not had much practice in that language.

THE INVESTIGATIONS

I laid out her SOS plans with 5S2 students based on the steps I was exposed to in the course
that I had attended virtually. I knew that I had to have plans that would leave a significant
impact on the students and continually resonate in their write ups. After studying and
scrutinising the students for some time, I mooted some plans that were deemed necessary
and suitable for the students. I applied three basic steps in my plan with my students: Level
1, Level 2 and Level 3. The following sub-headings are the steps.

LEVEL 1

The Pre-Test

I carried out a pre-test to identify the underlying problems that hindered the students from
producing good essays. The pre-test was also carried out to gauge the students’
performance in their writing besides identifying the problems that had hampered their writing
skills. As a teacher who was involved directly in designing the intervention activities as part
of the SOS plan, I would like to put forth the idea to the students that they need to have a
good grasp of grammar and vocabulary to be able to write a good essay.

The pre-test focused on directed writing and the theme chosen was on Science and
Technology. The theme appealed to me because I felt the students would be interested to
write on something that they could relate to. As a matter of fact, the topic was carefully
selected by the teacher as it was relevant to the students who were all from the Science
stream.

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The students were asked specifically to write an article (Directed Writing) on ‘The problems
that occur due to spending too much time on computer games and the solutions to the
problems. The students were reminded to elaborate the points. They were also asked to use
all the points given and on top of that they had to add 4 new points on their own. They had
to come up with 2 more problems and solutions. I included such questions to meet the
requirement of High Order Thinking Skills criteria.

The results for the pre-test were used by the teacher to gather important data to prepare the
teacher for the next step. The teacher would have to think of an intervention plan to aid the
students in learning the English language. So, after much consideration the teacher decided
to come up with an SOS plan. The SOS or intervention plan was designed with activities
that would help students to overcome the underlying problems in writing. Prior to that, the
teacher had collected 20 scripts from the students. The essays were graded and marked
based on the SPM marking scheme. Even though it was an impression marking, the teacher
had paid particular attention on the errors and mistakes that were rampant and prominent in
their essays. Their marks are presented in Figure 1.

Figure 1.
Percentage of Marks for the Pre-Test

After marking and grading the pre-test scripts, I made my own diagnosis on the errors made
by the students. I classified the errors to enable me to see the gaps clearly, so that she could
prepare the necessary intervention activities to address the issues in writing. The errors
were colour coded according to grammar and non- grammar errors. I noticed that many
students tend to commit errors mainly in subject-verb agreement, sentence structure,
tenses, and choice of words.

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Table 1.
The Top Errors based on Grammar and Non-grammar

Grammar Non-grammar

Tenses Vocabulary/ inapt word choice
Verbs Spelling
Subject-verb agreement Missing content points
Sentence structure Organization

After identifying the gaps, I took the initiative to prioritize the errors by analysing the
frequency of the errors. This was done so that I could focus on the problems and work on
them. I decided to put an emphasis on vocabulary, tenses, verbs, subject-verb agreement,
and sentence structure in my SOS plan. Table 1 displays the examples for the process of
prioritizing for my SOS plan.

Table 2
Sample of Detailed Analysis of the Pre-Test

No. Student Marks Types and Frequencies of The 4 top errors
1A 25 Errors
2B 23 (yellow=grammatical,
Green=non-grammatical)
3C 27
Word Choice= 1 Spelling=3 Spelling=3
Punctuation=2 SVA=2
Punctuation=2 Sentence Missing Content points=2

Structure=1 Nouns=1 Missing Preposition=3
Subject-verb
Content points=2 agreement= 6
Sentence
Subject-verb agreement=2 Structure=5
Modal verbs=3
Missing content

points=2

Preposition=3

Pronouns=2

Subject-verb

agreement= 6

Sentence

Structure=5

Modal verbs=3

Sentence structures=4,

Sentence structures=4, nouns=5

Spelling=1, Preposition=1, Word Choice/Vocab=5

gerunds=1 infinitive=1 nouns=5 verbs=3

Word choice/ Vocab=5 verbs=3

Based on the data, some significant gaps were identified. It is essential to address the
problems tactfully to help students improve their writing skills. After analysing the scripts, the
teacher reckoned that most of the students were not able to write well because they are
deprived of vocabulary items. Therefore, they could not elaborate and express themselves
well due to the gap mentioned. Their creativity in writing was restricted. From the teacher’s

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observation, most of the students were able to complete the task, but they could only use
simple vocabulary items to form their sentences. Other than that, some lexicons or phrases
were repeated several times. Hence, it can be deduced that the students faced these
limitations because their vocabulary items were not empowered. It was also noted that quite
several students misspelled some common words such as nowadays, furthermore,
problems and in front of.

Generally, several students from 5S2 had deliberately aborted some content points because
they did not know what else to dwell on and they had no idea on how to emphasise certain
points. It boils down to the lack of vocabulary items, so they did not have enough diction to
help them to elaborate their points. Some students failed to include two more new points as
required by the question even though they were proficient in the language. Their
lackadaisical attitude had jeopardised their grades because they did not proofread their
essays. It is evident that they missed out some points because of their carelessness too.

The teacher had also identified some ambiguous and mangled up sentences. As such, it
was difficult for the teacher to comprehend the meaning of the sentences. The teacher had
to re-read the scripts as the meaning of certain sentences did not come true or was rather
vague. This is mainly since the students were not able to construct sentences with correct
structures. Mother tongue influence proved to be a stumbling block for them to construct
good sentences. Besides that, many students used simple structures in their essays. Some
ambitious ones tried to use more complex structures but ended up writing mangled up
sentences. The teacher also noticed that several pupils were not able to organise their ideas
well. They failed to use cohesive devices such as linkers or conjunctions to link their ideas.
As such, their scripts did not seem to have much cohesion and ideas were not well
organized. Other than that, some scripts only had two paragraphs and all the points on the
problems discussed were cramped into one paragraph. It gave the impression the points
were not well- thought out.

Subject-verb agreement is another area that pupils have not really mastered. In addition to
that, pupils also tend to make many mistakes related to tenses. It is fair to say that the
students did not a have strong foundation of grammar.

LEVEL 2

I laid out the intervention plan which I called it the SOS plan. The SOS plan was designed
to bridge the gaps that the teacher had pinned during her lessons and pre-test. The data
collected from the pre-test had provided sufficient empirical evidence for the teacher to plan
some intervention activities to help the students to rectify the errors so that they would not
repeat the same errors in future.

These intervention activities were planned to prepare the students to improve their writing
skills. Apart from that, it is hoped that the activities will bridge one of the gaps identified

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which was related to limited vocabulary items amongst the students of 5S2. The intervention
activity was designed to help students to enrich their vocabulary items. The teacher felt that
it was vital for her to equip the students with more vocabulary items so an exercise to enrich
their lexical items was necessary.

I asked the students to watch a movie at home. I shared the link of the movie from Youtube
entitled ‘Cyberbullying’ in their class Whatsapp group a day before the lesson. This activity
was to prepare the students for the topic and to provide some schemata on the topic that
would be discussed in the classroom.

The next day, the students were given a little entertainment as I allowed the students to
watch part of the scene taken from the movie. The pupils shared their views and opinions
on the movie. Next, the teacher showed some flash cards of words that were all jumbled up
and the words were related to cyberbullying (Appendix 1). This mnemonic device would help
them to remember and memorise some new words they learned for the day. The students
were given 5 minutes to decipher the words.

Next, the students were given another 5 minutes to recall and come up with some words
related to the movie during the brainstorming session. They gave their own definitions of
some words that they had shared. They wrote a few sentences on the board using the words
they had just learned. I corrected some of the sentences and pointed out their mistakes.
This activity ended within 25 minutes.

Then, the students were given another activity before the lesson ended. They were asked
to find some hidden words in the box. At this point, I noticed the excitement on the students’
faces as they were eager to complete the task. They were given 10 minutes to complete it.
The teacher told them to write the list of words into the logbook and find their meanings.
Finally, the students were also asked to solve the crossword puzzle and fill in the blanks
with the correct words which was assigned as homework for them.

These next activities were carried out in the second week which aimed to rectify the problem
pertaining to Subject-Verb Agreement (SVA). The teacher realised that many students had
not mastered SVA despite being taught SVA since their primary school years. From the pre-
test results, some students still did not understand how to use subject-verb agreement
correctly. The students tend to overlook this area especially when they were too engrossed
in writing.

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To kick-start the activity, the students were to listen to a song by Sia Furler- ‘Unstoppable’.
I was glad that they really enjoyed the music and did not show any sign of feeling bored. In
fact, some students started singing too. At this point, the class was a little chaotic, but under
control. After that, I circulated a worksheet for the song Unstoppable to each student. Some
words in the lyrics were missing. I played the song for the second them and asked them to
fill in the blanks. Then, I told them to spend 10 minutes to study the missing words and asked
them which part of speech the words belong to. The missing words were all verbs. After
eliciting answers from the students, I discussed the answers with them.

I incorporated the lesson with the teaching of subject-verb agreement and simple present
tense. I explained the rules of subject-verb agreement and simple present tense to the
students. The teacher circulated the worksheets which required the students to choose the
correct answers for the identified errors. The students demonstrated a better understanding
of the rules of subject-verb agreement and simple present tense after listening to the
teacher’s explanation. The pupils were given 10 minutes to correct the errors. I called upon
a few students to share their answers with their peers. Before calling it a day, the students
discussed the answers with me and gave their feedbacks regarding the activities on exit
cards.

Next, the third week intervention; the objectives of these activities were to help pupils build
sentences and improve the quality of their essay writing. There were two activities: You
Guess It Right! And Unscramble Me, Please! These two activities were arranged as game:
a charade.

As a teacher, I was the timekeeper in this activity. I started the game by calling out the
leader. The leader stepped forward and stood in front of all the members and picked a piece
of paper with a sentence. The team members tried their best to guess the right words based
on the gestures performed by the leader before they could complete the sentence. They
were given 3 minutes to form the correct sentence. Each time a word was correctly guessed
it will be written on the board according to the correct sequence. Only two teams were able
to complete the sentence within the stipulated time. The students were very active, and they
seemed to have a great time.

Next, each student was given a worksheet (Figure 2). The students were asked to
unscramble the words to form meaningful sentences. They were given 15 minutes to finish
the task. After that, I spent some time to discuss the answers with the pupils.

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Figure 2.
The Unscramble Me, Please! Worksheet

The final activities in week 4 aimed at assisting the pupils who were unable to organise and
elaborate their points. I gave a ‘Starter Kit’ to begin the story. The students were divided into
4 groups. Each person took turn to speak. I read the sentence out loudly: “There was a
heavy downpour and I stood …” The first person would listen to the ‘Starter Kit’ and he had
to complete the sentence given.

Then, the next person was called out to continue the story from where the previous person
had stopped. Each pupil was given one minute to speak. This activity continued for another
five minutes. While the students uttered their sentences, a secretary wrote down everything

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that was uttered. Eventually, after the last person was called out the secretary read aloud
what had been written. The students enjoyed the lesson and they participated actively.

Further enhancement activity was given which the students needed to complete the exercise
in the worksheet (Appendix 9). They had to arrange the paragraphs according to the correct
sequence. Each student was given 15 minutes to finish the task before discussing the
answers. In addition, they were asked to sort out the sentences and explain how they
determined the sequence. Finally, the students were asked to write a short paragraph of
about 50 words on an unforgettable event before calling it a day. They could use the points
which had been shared in the activity earlier.

THE RESPONSE

The Post-Test

To gauge my interventions or whether my lessons assisting the students really worked out,
I carried out a post test on the 5th week. The post-test was carried out to gauge the students’
performance in writing after the intervention exercises had been carried out. I chose a
question which was parallel to the pre-test. I followed through the same steps as in my pre-
test where the scripts were marked thoroughly, the errors were identified and classified.
These steps were vital because I wanted to find out whether the students still make the
same errors or new errors have emerged. Besides that, I might have to prepare a more
strategic SOS plan to further improve my teaching of the English language. The theme for
the post-test was still on Science and Technology. The post-test question was: ‘The causes
of cyberbullying and the effects of cyberbullying on the victims.

RESULTS FOR THE POST-TEST

Comparison between the pre-test and the post-test showed that most students had shown
an improvement in their writing skills. However, there were still some gaps that must be dealt
seriously. The marks with the pre-test and the post-test are presented in the bar graph in
the subsequent visual.

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Figure 3.
Percentage of Marks for the Pre-test and Post-Test

Based on the post-test results, most students scored better grades compared to their pre-
test grades. The comparison of marks for both pre-test and post-test are presented in Figure
3. After analysing the papers, I found that the same errors were still present in their scripts.
However, many students managed to tackle some of the problems that existed in their
papers before this, and they were able to minimise the errors. Hence, there were able to
write better during the post-test. The results proved that the intervention activities were able
to solve many gaps in their writing. I identified some emerging problematic areas in the
language that must be addressed further which the gaps were classified under grammar
and non-grammar errors.

Table 3.
Emerging Top Errors from Post Test based on Grammar and Non-grammar

Grammar Non-grammar

Passive/Active Voice Vocabulary/ inapt word choice
Cohesive devices Spelling
Subject-verb Organization
agreement Punctuations
Sentence Structure

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REFLECTION

Based on the pre-test and post-test results, most students of 5S2 had shown some
improvement in their writing. Many were able to write better and secure better grades in their
post-test which proved that the intervention plan was effective to solve some gaps. However,
there were still some areas that need to be improved. As the saying goes, Rome was not
built in a day. It is the same as learning the English language. English is certainly not a
language that can be learnt overnight. So, from the post- test results, some new activities
were tailored to tackle the new gaps which had surfaced. At the same time, the activities
designed earlier were amended and improvised.

Suffice to say that the students were more aware of the errors that they often make, and
they tried to apply what they had learned from the intervention activities. I believed that the
activities did have an impact on the students because these students were willing to learn
from their mistakes. They demonstrated a positive attitude as they were receptive to the
language. The clear explanation and exercises given by the teacher also proved to be useful
to most of the students as they were able to rectify some of the gaps that seemed to hamper
their writing. Some skills need to be taught further.

Another area that the teacher focused on is tenses because some students still made
mistakes. The students should hone their skills more in this aspect as they might not have
grasped the grammar rules well. The teacher planned to do more drilling exercise on Simple
Present Tense and Simple Past tense before she proceeds to other Present and Past Tense
forms.

Some of the students still missed out on the points given. This may be since they did not
know how to expand or elaborate the notes given. Limited vocabulary items could be one of
the reasons that contributed to this problem. The teacher planned to give the students more
exercise on answering ‘WH’ questions. For weaker students, the teacher would advise them
to make short and simple sentences. They were also encouraged to read more to enrich
their vocabulary items. Make a list of new words that they have learned and write them into
a logbook. The students can look for the meaning of each word from the dictionary or they
can just google the meanings online. The students were also advised to practise using the
words by writing their own sentences in a logbook. The students can even start writing a
journal. In addition to that, the teacher should tell the students to make a checklist and tick
the points they have written.

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Appendix A

APPENDICES Tseathr
1. Threats
2. Harrasment

3. Rumour Sentmahrra
4. Slander
5. Intimidate

umrrou


lasredn


ittmiadeni



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Appendix B

Source: https://www.education.com/worksheet/article/paragraph-puzzle-1/

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ENHANCING
CONTINUOUS
WRITING:

DESCRIPTIVE
ESSAYS

MARY THRESE @ BERNARDINE SHIREEN
CHEAH YET THANG

SETTING

The school where the interventions were conducted was SMK Convent Pulau Tikus (CPT).
This is a small school with a total of 147 students as it will soon be closing in 2022. The
class involved in the interventions consisted of 17 Form 5 students of diverse ethnic
backgrounds, the majority of whom are from the B40 category. Although Pulau Tikus is
considered an affluent suburb in Penang Island, most of the students in CPT are not from
the families who live in the area, but rather have parents who work there. Many work as food
stall operators, cleaners, labourers or are part of the clerical and nursing staff in nearby
hospitals. Some also own small businesses or are in the hospitality industry.

Most of these jobs are demanding, causing the parents of these students to regularly depend
on their children to either assist them at work or to help out at home. This contributes to a
pattern of absenteeism amongst the students as well as a lack of interest in classes as they
feel sleepy and tired. They also fail to see the importance of learning English as the language
is not essential to their parents’ occupations and is hardly utilized as a medium of
communication or entertainment in their lives. Hence, aside from closing certain gaps in
knowledge, the interventions were introduced to this group as a means of encouragement
to engage during English lessons, as they are designed to be fun enough to stimulate the
students no matter their exhaustion. They also serve to showcase to students the
applications of the language in terms of being able to express themselves better, to teach
them the value of English.

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I have been teaching English for the past 30 years. However, this was my first year in SMK
Convent Pulau Tikus, as I was only transferred there in February 2020 after teaching in SMK
Convent Light Street for the past 20 years. Being a new teacher in this school, the main
problem I faced is getting to know and understand the students, to tailor my classes in a way
that was engaging and of interest to them. This became more challenging as one month into
my teaching we had to switch to online classes due to the lockdown caused by the Covid-
19 pandemic.

The main problem that the students faced is a poor grasp of grammar, which then rendered
them unable to articulate their thoughts clearly or accurately when writing. This can be
attributed to the students having too few contact hours with the English language, be it within
or outside school hours, due to both a lack of interest as well as opportunity.

FOCUS

The students that were chosen to participate in the interventions came from the class, 5
Jaya. This was a class of 17 students. Of the two Form 5 classes, 5 Jaya was the weaker
class. For their final exam the previous year, in 2019, for the English language paper, 9
failed, 3 obtained an E, 2 obtained a D, 2 obtained a C+ and 2 students obtained a B, the
highest grades in the class. In terms of continuous writing specifically, based on the pre-test
conducted, most of the students fell in the E category (12 students), with some in the D
category (3 students) and a few in the U1 category (3 students). Overall, these students
could get better results, however, despite being well-mannered, some lacked interest in the
subject, causing them to be passive in class, making it difficult for them to actively learn and
improve.

The main weaknesses identified were issues when using tenses, incorrect spelling,
inaccurate use of adjectives and the inability to link different ideas or vary sentence
structures using connectors and linkers.

INVESTIGATION
Level 1

The first level of my investigation was conducting the pre-test. The given question was on
narrative essay where the students were asked to describe and explain things that make
them happy. My main objectives of the pre-test were to identify the gaps in the students’
knowledge pertaining to descriptive writing and to identify the band that could be achieved
by each student for continuous writing.

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To answer the descriptive writing question, students required the skill to accurately use
tenses, solid spelling ability, the skill to correctly use a wide range of adjectives and the
ability to utilize different connectors and linkers to vary sentence structure as well as expand
their ideas. This question was chosen as it is a past-year SPM question from the year 2015,
making it plausible that skills needed to answer this question would also be required for the
students to do well during their actual SPM examination. In addition, the question required
opinion and experience, hence, a students’ lack of knowledge regarding facts or data could
be discounted as the reason for their poor writing, making it easier to identify actual technical
weaknesses in their essay.

The pre-test scripts were marked according to the SPM marking as practiced. This would
mean, the students would be given 50 marks for the essay they produced. Findings from
the pre-test are presented in the visuals which also indicate the bands where the students
were categorised: Reference: C band (green), D band (purple), E band (blue), U(i) band
(red). Based on the marking, the students were found to be within the range of the C to U(i)
bands.

Figure 1.
Total Marks for the Pre-Test

35 32 26 24 23 22 23 20 24 28
MARKS OF THE PRE-TEST
Student A30 24 24 24
25 21 21 Student B 20
Student C
Student D
Student E
Student F
Student G
Students H
Student I
Student J
Student K
Student L
Student M
Student N
Student O
Student P
Student Q
20 16 16

15

10

5

0

5 JAYA STUDENTS

Based on the types and frequency of errors noted during the pre-test, there were 4 top errors
that were committed by most of the students. The two main grammatical errors noted were
errors pertaining to tense and the use of adjectives while the two main non-grammatical
errors noted pertained to spelling and the use of connectors and linkers. The four-week
intervention plan was designed to close the gaps in the students’ knowledge, which led to
the occurrence of these errors, all of which severely impair their ability to write quality
descriptive essays.

In terms of frequency, every student’s essay mainly had errors in tense, particularly verb
tense. Hence, when narrating actions or events in their essays, their writing lacked clarity in

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terms of the timeframe being described. Secondly, every student’s essay had spelling
mistakes. Mostly, the students seemed to write certain words according to how they
sounded as opposed to how they were meant to be spelled.
Thirdly, most of the students made errors pertaining to connectors and linkers. In many of
the essays, the students would use the wrong connector or linker to string their sentences
together. Overall, they exhibited a poor understanding of the range of connectors and linkers
available to them as well as how to use them accurately. This affected their ability to vary
their sentence structures, with many of them struggling to form proper compound or complex
sentences.

Lastly, most of the students committed errors pertaining to the use of adjectives, particularly
comparative and superlative adjectives. This made it difficult for them to creatively and
effectively express and expand their ideas through their writing.

Level 2

The four-week intervention plan was designed to close the main gaps in the students’
knowledge of grammar as identified from the pre-test. The gaps identified pertained to
tenses, spelling, use of comparative and superlative adjectives as well as the use of
connectors and linkers in sentences. In general, the interventions carried out each week
were conducted in two parts. First, the students were given worksheets in order to familiarize
and drill them in the correct use of the targeted grammatical aspect. After that, games and
fun exercises were used to reinforce this knowledge in an interesting way to keep students
engaged and to promote active learning in the classroom.

Intervention Week 1 – Tenses

The gap in knowledge which I would like to address was on tenses; students would be able
to understand the difference between the past, present and future tense as well as use verb
tense accurately. I prepared 3 activities, namely:

a) Activity 1: Correct the errors
b) Activity 2: Find the mistake!
c) Activity 3: Fix the essays!

For Activity 1, students were given a worksheet with 10 sentences, all of which had errors
in tense. They were asked to identify the errors in the sentences. The answers were then
discussed with the class to ensure the students could correctly identify the mistakes in the
sentences as well as understand why the tenses used originally were inaccurate.

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For Activity 2, once again the students were given a worksheet with 10 sentences, all of
which had errors in tense. They were asked to identify the errors in the sentences. However,
this time, additionally, they were asked to rewrite the sentences using the correct tenses.
The answers were then discussed to ensure the students could not only accurately spot the
errors, but also fix the sentences correctly based on their understanding of tenses.
For Activity 3, the students were given 2 sample essays. Both of these sample essays had
been previously altered to contain errors in tense. The students were asked to identify all of
the errors in each of the essays. The answers were discussed to ensure the students could
identify errors as well as to understand how such errors could negatively impact the flow
and clarity of an essay.

Intervention Week 2 – Spelling

The target of this week would be filling in the gap in knowledge of the non-grammar item,
which was: Spelling – Homophones. The students were hoped to be able to successfully
accurately identify the homophones required for different circumstances. Besides, I hoped,
my students would be able to spell homophones accurately according to their meaning. I
listed 3 activities which would be the means for them to overcome the issues of spelling and
the activities were: 1) Underline the correct word; 2) Fix the errors and 3) Match the pictures!

For Activity 1, students were given a worksheet containing 10 sentences. To complete each
sentence, the students are asked to underline the correct homophone from the two or three
options provided. The answers are discussed with the class to gauge if they understand how
the spelling of a word changes its meaning and if they can correctly identify the accurate
homophone to complete each sentence.

In the second activity, students were given a worksheet containing 3 long sentences, each
of which contained multiple homophone errors. They were asked to underline the errors and
to then rewrite each sentence using the correct homophones. The answers were then
discussed with the class to ascertain if the students could identify the correct homophones
required without being given hints or options.

Match the pictures would be the last tasks given to the students. For Activity 3, students
were given papers with multiple pictures on them. The students were then asked to match
each picture with the picture depicting its homophone. Students were also required to write
the homophone being represented beneath each picture. The answers were discussed to
see if students were able to infer the homophones being shown without having any words
as prompts. This also served to widen their vocabulary in addition to improving their spelling
ability.

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Intervention Week 3 – Adjectives

For Activity 1, the students were given a worksheet containing 3 columns, each of which
contained a list of root adjectives, comparative adjectives, and superlative adjectives
respectively. Students are asked to match each root adjective with its respective
comparative and superlative adjectives. The answers were discussed to see if students
could correctly identify the matching adjectives.

For Activity 2, the students were given a worksheet containing 10 sentences, each of which
had blanks. Students were asked to complete the sentences by filling in the blanks with the
appropriate comparative or superlative adjective based on the given root adjective. The
answers were discussed in order to see if the students understood how to use comparative
or superlative adjectives within the context of a sentence.

For Activity 3, the students were given 3 different pictures. They were asked to think of 3
adjectives to describe each of these pictures. They were then asked to write the comparative
and superlative adjectives of their chosen root adjectives. After this, the students were asked
to write sentences using each of these adjectives in order to test their understanding.

Intervention Week 4 – Connectors and Linkers

For Activity 1, the students were given a worksheet with 10 sentences. Each sentence had
blanks. Students were tasked with completing the sentences by circling the correct
connectors/linkers from the options provided. The answers were then discussed to ensure
that the students understood how to use each connector/linker accurately.

For Activity 2, the students were given a worksheet with a topic, such as, ‘Cooking my
favourite food’. Students were asked to write a short paragraph based on this topic using
connectors/linkers. This was done to see if students could accurately and effectively use
connectors/linkers to expand upon a basic premise with flow and clarity as well as to vary
their sentence structures to maintain interest in their writing.

THE RESPONSE

A post-test was carried out to determine if a significant portion of the gaps in the students’
knowledge that were identified during the pre-test have been reduced after the four-week
intervention. The skills required for the students to answer the post-test are the same as the
skills required to answer the pre-test. I expected my students to have the ability to use tenses
accurately, solid spelling skill, the skill to correctly use a wide range of comparative and
superlative adjectives as well as the ability to utilize different connectors/linkers to vary

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