EXPLORING GRADE 7 STUDENTS’ SECOND LANGUAGE DIFFICULTIES: IMPLICATIONS FOR TEACHING AND LEARNING

Abstract

This study investigated the second language difficulties of Grade 7 students in one national high school in Sorsogon province, Philippines, S.Y. 2023-2024. Specifically, it identified the grammatical errors of students in their narrative essays along with subject-verb agreement and verb tenses. It determined the second language difficulties leading to their grammatical errors and their implications for language teaching and learning. Based on the 45 essays analyzed by the 15 students, the results showed that the grammatical errors identified were along the verb tense, which ranked highest (66%), and subject-verb agreement (42%), indicating a high level of students’ writing difficulty. Several linguistic difficulties that contributed to these errors were vocabulary gaps, limited knowledge of grammatical rules, syntactic differences between the students’ local language (L1) and English language (L2), the challenging learning environment, lack of resources, distractions, and insufficient family support. The students’ L2 difficulties may have implications for teaching and learning, particularly in terms of communicative effectiveness, reading comprehension, shift in teaching approach, and balancing formal and communicative activities.  Article visualizations: