Meanwhile, pupils who came from public elementary schools acquiring weak English

proficiency contribute negatively to secondary schools. Teachers adjust to students’ needs and

thus, students who have weak foundation in English acquire slower development. Students in

public schools have the higher rate of absenteeism and shortages of necessities in life due to their

deprived SES and thus, this affects their learning in school (Houser, 2009). In the research of

Gonzalez (1980), it is found out that pupils from public elementary schools in Manila have not

mastered some of the structures contained in the prescribed syllabus in English even after six

years of formal English instruction in elementary that generally makes them incompetent in

expressing themselves in oral English. In the words of Gonzalez himself:

“The items on nouns and pronouns were mastered quite early (except for the genitive,

which was not mastered till Grade 6); hardest to master in the verbal subsystem were the

third person singular present tense form, the past perfect and present perfect tenses (not

mastered by the girls even in Grade 6), ‘do-does’ questions, not mastered even in Grade 6

by boys and girls. Late in being learnt were “how” (Grade 6) and “why” questions (Grade

5). Relative clauses (except for ‘who’) were not mastered even in Grade 6. Easier were

complements (gerundives were mastered in Grade 4 and infinitival complements in

Grade 5.) (pp.201-202).

Pronunciation is also one problem which Haussamen (n.d) and Herron (n.d) observes

among ELLs whose native language is not English. If students will not be guided with correct

pronunciation of words due to some factors like low quality of education in their school, lack of

materials and facilities and lack of study time that are visible in among low SES students, they

will have low opportunity to learn the proper pronunciation of English words which is a factor of

being a good English speaker. The paper of Haussamen (n.d) and Herron (n.d) further explains
that speakers of language such as Filipino, Spanish, and Vietnamese have more pronunciation

consistency than English. Some languages such as Spanish, Filipino, German, and Hindi are

more phonetic than English where words can be pronounced correctly once basic pronunciation

rules are learned. Thus, Filipino ELLs need more guidance or instruction in English

pronunciation that if will not be given properly, there will be a possibility that they will not be

good speakers of English due to lack of clarity in their English words.

INSERT ABOUT VOCAB

Meanwhile, pupils who came from public elementary schools acquiring weak English
proficiency contribute negatively to secondary schools. Teachers adjust to students’ needs and
thus, students who have weak foundation in English acquire slower development. Students in
public schools have the higher rate of absenteeism and shortages of necessities in life due to their
deprived SES and thus, this affects their learning in school (Houser, 2009).

Pronunciation is also one problem which Haussamen (n.d) and Herron (n.d) observes

among ELLs whose native language is not English. If students will not be guided with correct

pronunciation of words due to some factors like low quality of education in their school, lack of

materials and facilities and lack of study time that are visible in among low SES students, they

will have low opportunity to learn the proper pronunciation of English words which is a factor of

being a good English speaker. The paper of Haussamen (n.d) and Herron (n.d) further explains

that speakers of language such as Filipino, Spanish, and Vietnamese have more pronunciation

consistency than English. Some languages such as Spanish, Filipino, German, and Hindi are

more phonetic than English where words can be pronounced correctly once basic pronunciation

rules are learned. Thus, Filipino ELLs need more guidance or instruction in English

pronunciation that if will not be given properly, there will be a possibility that they will not be

good speakers of English due to lack of clarity in their English words.

INSERT ABOUT VOCAB