Reading and Listening Ability Relative to Students’ Level of Performance

The study aimed to determine the second language reading and listening abilities of Grade 11 students and their relationship to grammatical morphemes and lexico-grammatical knowledge by proposing engagement exercises to enhance students’ language performance in public secondary schools. The study used the descriptive research method to determine students’ performance levels in reading, and listening abilities. The respondents were grade 11 students enrolled in the selected secondary schools in the Division of Capiz. Purposive sampling method was used as this study is based upon various criteria, including the capacity and willingness of respondents to participate. The data-gathering instruments utilized in the study were documentary analysis and teacher-made tests. For a meaningful interpretation and analysis of the study, the data were subjected to statistical treatment such as frequency, percentage, ranking, mean, Pearson r product-moment correlation, and T-test. The study’s findings revealed that Grade 11 students’ performance levels are average in grammatical morphemes and lexico-grammatical knowledge, while the levels of students’ reading and listening abilities are generally average. Further, there are relationships between the reading and listening abilities and their socio-demographic attributes. The study recommends language engagement exercises that includes activities that could enhance the listening and reading abilities of Grade 11 students based on the areas needing enhancement.


Introduction
English as a second language plays a significant role in the lives of speakers of other languages most especially now in the age of globalization.Whenever one goes be it in school, offices, homes and other places regardless of situations, communicative competence and performance are of advantage.Sufficient ability or skill in communication of second language (L2) speaker manifests knowledge in using that language in a real and authentic social environment.The importance and need to learn the English language is clearly explained even in the DepEd K to 12 Basic Education Curriculum.As language is central to the people's intellectual, social, and emotional development, it serves as basis for all communication and serves as foundation in all human relationships.Thoughts, values and understanding are developed and expressed through language aside from personal perspectives of the global community.Hence, competency and performance of learners are very significant.
Examinations results in both public elementary and high schools based on the data provided by DepEd for the past five years manifest decline in the performance of learners in English.Learners encountered problems in reading and listening as well as in grammar and lexicon.In reading, learners have difficulty in identifying key or content words, understanding the meaning of the words read, distinguishing between facts and opinion, finding the main idea, important facts and supporting details, sequencing and drawing inferences from the text read.As regards listening, second language learners have a hard time discriminating sounds and words heard.They also have difficulty of comprehending verbal instruction and oral reading; recognizing grammatical word classes and system; as well as recognizing cohesive devices in spoken discourse.Similarly, Oguan and Del Valle (2022) and Honrado and Biray (2022) have common findings on errors committed by students in written and oral communication.
Skills to understand written texts are termed reading abilities.Chitravelu et al. (1995), Kamhi and Catts (2017) and Delgadova (2015) all argue that reading is not a single skill that is use all the time in the same way but it is a multiple skill that is used differently with a kind of test and fulfilling a different purpose.In learning second language reading is very important which explains the great effort exerted to develop reading skills.It is a major avenue of learning (Mariam, 1991;Alcott, 2021;Whitten et al., 2016).It is also equated with writing as it involves complex activity and is one of the crucial skills related to the acquisition of the English language.Second language learners having the ability of reading competency can have access to varied materials like scientific, technical and educational.Adams (1990), Guo et al. (2011) and Tong et al. (2014) pointed out that knowledge of linguistic cues, that is, morphological and syntactical forms, is an important aspect of basic reading ability which contributes to effective reading comprehension.Urquhart et al. (1998) describe reading skill or ability as a cognitive ability which a person is able to use when interacting with texts (Follmer & Sperling, 2018;Wu et al., 2020).
Reading helps readers expand their thinking skills, improve concentration, enrich their vocabulary and master their environment effectively.According to Rayner et al. (2001) learning to read is the acquisition and practice of the skills necessary to understand the meaning behind printed words and the process of learning to read is complex and builds on cognitive, linguistic, and social skills developed from a very early age.All relevant dimensions of reading should be embodied by successful readers like comprehension, fluency, mastery of essential strategies and motivation.
In English language learning, it is important for students to develop their language ability particularly their reading skill.Reading skill is described as a cognitive ability which a person is able to use when interacting with texts.Unnecessary reading time is reduced and readers tend to read more focused and selective manner through improved reading skills.In addition, with improved reading skills readers increase their levels of understanding and concentration.Hughes (1989as cited in Liu, 2010) identified the four levels of reading skills as macro-skills, micro-skills grammatical and lexical abilities, and low-level operations.
Reading skills can be improved by having clear reading goals, choosing the right texts, using the right reading styles, and using note taking techniques.This scenario prompted the researcher to conduct the study along the second language reading and listening abilities of Grade 11 students in the Province of Capiz with the end view of proposing language engagement exercises to enhance students' performance in English.
Through this study, students' performance is determined as to what specific areas in reading and listening they performed the highest, which manifest their strength, and the lowest, which can be improved or enriched through engagement exercises.

Research Method and Procedure
The study used the descriptive method of research.This was used to determine the second language reading and listening abilities of Grade 11 students.According to Yuen et al. (2009), a descriptive study uses more specific data-gathering techniques, attempts to produce a representative sample, and provides detailed and precise information regarding the problem.
The aim of descriptive research is to describe the present behavior or characteristics of a particular population utilizing collected data to describe persons, settings, organizations, and phenomena.
The study was conducted at the Department of Education -Capiz Division.The respondents were the Grade 11 students enrolled for School year 2017-2018 in selected public secondary schools in the first and second districts of the division.A total of 322 respondents were selected from the total population of 2,011.Purposive sampling was used in this study as this sampling method is a form of non-probability sampling in which decisions concerning the individuals included in the sample were taken based upon a variety of criteria which include capacity and willingness to participate in research (Oliver, 2013).All the questionnaires were answered completely thus; all the 322 responses were included in the analysis.
The study utilized teacher-made test specifically for Grade 11 learners to measure their levels of performance in the areas of reading, listening, grammatical morphemes and lexicogrammatical knowledge.The questionnaire was developed by preparing the first draft which was presented to the research advisor for comment and suggestions.The draft was checked according to its contents and its relevance to the research objectives.The test then was validated by English teachers as well as other experts on the field to check the appropriateness of the test items.Statistician was consulted to determine the validity of the instrument.
Reliability statistic result is 0.9475 which means that the instrument is reliable to generate accurate results and the test items are higly reliable.Item index discrimination was also done to measure if test items are able to distinguish levels of knowlegde of students.
With regard to the verbal description equivalent (Average) of the students' performance ratings, this was determined based on the standard Psychometric Conversion Table .The mean of the raw scores of the students' performance in the different test areas are converted to zscores to be able to determine its descriptive equivalent.A z-score is a simple way of converting a mean of the raw score into a standard score.This process involves expressing the  In the development of the questionnaire, books and other reference materials containing concepts and related literatures, dissertations, theses, journals and online references were utilized.Constructed teacher-made test was submitted to the advisor for comments and suggestions.Final draft of the test was presented to English teachers for comments and the instrument was pilot tested to other Grade 11 students who were not the respondents of the study.Letters of request were then forwarded to the experts on the field as well as to the members of the research examination panel to validate the questionnaires.All suggestions were followed and incorporated in the instrument and the final copies of the validated test were then produced.Then a letter for administration of the questionnaire was made and submitted to the advisor for comments and suggestions.
After the letter was checked and revised, signatures and approvals of the advisor, the dean of the College of Arts and Sciences Graduate Studies, School Principals and the Schools Division Superintendent were sought for the administration of the instrument.The tests were then administered to the respondents with the approved letters of requests.Tests were administered based on prepared schedules.After the administration of the test for students these were retrieved, checked, tallied, and analyzed.
Ethics and the safety of informants have a very special emphasis in any research work.
Accordingly, maximum care was used to ensure anonymity and safety of the respondents.
Respondents in this study expressed their willingness through an informed consent form, where they can withdraw from the study at any time.Similarly, their identity and the names of their schools were kept anonymous all throughout the data gathering and publication.
For a meaningful interpretation and analysis of the study, the data were subjected to the following statistical treatment: frequency, percentage, ranking, mean, Pearson r Product Moment Correlation, and t-test.

Results and Discussion
Reading ability.As a variable of the study, the ability of students in deriving meaning through complex cognitive process of decoding symbols is referred to as reading.Student's reading skill is manifested through the use of cognitive ability in interacting with texts and is viewed as part of reading process unlike comprehension which is the product of a particular text.The four levels of reading skills include macro-skills, micro-skills, grammatical and lexical abilities, and low-level operations.Grade 11 students are expected to have developed advanced reading abilities at this stage of their education.In this study, a set of test questionnaires were designed to evaluate the reading ability of the students.Five items each for identifying key words, understanding words read, distinguishing facts and opinion, finding the main idea, and sequencing and inference were administered to 322 Grade 11 students.
Table 1 shows the performance of Grade 11 students as to reading ability.Findings of the study revealed that the performance of Grade 11 students in reading ability test was generally average although they performed highest in sequencing and inference and lowest in identifying key words.This indicates that this batch of students has developed a certain degree of skill in reading and understands their correct use in English language sentences.This further shows that respondents did not only learn one skill but other skills in reading.This conforms to the idea of Chitravelu et al. (1995), Kamhi and Catts (2017) and Delgadova (2015) which states that reading is not a single skill that is use all the time in the same way, but it is multiple skill that used differently with kind of test and fulfilling different purpose.This is also supported by the explanation of Miriam (1991) that reading is a major avenue of learning and Urquhart et al. (1998) description of reading skill or ability as a cognitive ability which a person is able to use when interacting with texts.
In addition, though respondents got an average description in identifying key words it is still considered low compared to sequencing and inferencing.This might be due to lack of focus in some reading skills that need to be improved.Skills in reading that entails comprehension need also to be developed as this would enrich understanding of texts.This is in line with Grabe's (2009) statement that reading abilities or skills contribute so much in enriching reading comprehension as this is an ability to process text, understand its meaning, and to integrate it with what the reader already knows.This is also supported by the idea of Harris and Hodges (1995) reading comprehension is the constructions of the meaning of a written and spoken communication through a reciprocal, holistic interchange of ideas between the interpreter and the message.The following are the important and required fundamental skills for an effective and efficient reading comprehension: knowing meaning of words, ability to understand meaning of a word from discourse context, ability to follow organization of passage and to identify antecedents and references in it, ability to draw inferences from a passage about its contents, ability to identify the main thought of a passage, ability to answer questions answered in a passage, ability to recognize the literary devices used in a passage and to determine its tone and mood, and finally ability to determine writer's purpose, intent, and point of view, and draw inferences about the writer.
Listening ability.As the most critical communication skill, listening involves complex, affective, cognitive and behavioral processes.It is giving one's attention to sound, and around 65 to 90 percent of the time students are involved in various listening situation.Generally, most of the time students may have little or no listening instruction thereby making it difficult for them to comprehend.
Ability to listen would entail understanding the speaker's accent, pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary and grasping meaning.In dealing with listening, the following components need to be mastered and these include discriminating between sounds, recognizing words, identifying stressed words and grouping of words, identifying functions such as apologizing in conversations, connecting linguistic cues to paralinguistic cues such as intonation and stress and to nonlinguistic cues like gestures and relevant objects in the situation in order to construct meaning, using background knowledge and context to predict and then to confirm meaning, recalling important words, topics and ideas, giving appropriate feed back to the speaker and reformulate what the speaker has said.
Grade 11 students are expected to have developed advanced listening abilities at this stage of their education.In this study, a set of test questionnaires were designed to evaluate the listening ability of the students.Five items each for sound discrimination, vocabulary, comprehension, recognition of grammatical word classes, and recognition of cohesive devices were administered to 322 grade 11 students.Findings of the study revealed that the performance of Grade 11 students in listening ability test was generally average although they performed lowest in vocabulary and highest in recognition of cohesive devices.This indicates that this batch of students has developed a certain degree of skill in listening and understands their correct use in English language sentences.This further means that students have the ability to identify and decipher what the speaker is saying and comprehend the meaning conveyed.This is relative to the explanation of Rost (1994) that listening as an ability to identify and understand what the speaker is saying through understanding his accent, pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary and grasping his meaning, considered the following sub-components of listening that speakers need to master when dealing with this skill: discriminating between sounds , recognizing words, identifying stressed words and grouping of words, identifying functions such as apologizing in conversations , connecting linguistic cues to paralinguistic cues through intonation and stress and to non-linguistic cues in the form of gestures and relevant objects in the situation in order to construct meaning, using background knowledge and context to predict and then to confirm meaning, recalling important words, topics and ideas, giving appropriate feed back to the speaker, and reformulating what the speaker has said.This is further supported by the concept of Ronald and Roskelly (1985) about listening as an active process that requires the same skills of prediction, hypothesizing, checking, revising, and generalizing what writing and reading demand.In addition, respondents performed highest in the skill recognition of cohesive devices under listening ability perhaps due to their prior learning in class regarding the use of correct conjunctions in sentences and the exercises provided to them by their English teachers.Respondents were able to show logical relationship of words in sentences because they understand the need to use connectors to achieve unity in their sentences and thoughts.This conforms to the idea of Abdul (2014) regarding cohesive devices as typically single words or phrases that hold and hang different parts of the text that help achieve unity in text as a semantic whole and unified whole of linguistic items to have meaningful text.Whereas, respondents performed the lowest in vocabulary perhaps due to time devoted for listening.This affect their exposure to words and their meaning as they lack focus and concentration.This is in line with Ahmed (2015) which states that listening is important as it occupies about 45 percent of the time adults spend in communication and is the most challenging of all the skills in English where students and teachers often fail to give listening the attention it needs.Moreover, in listening, vocabulary is very important as this will enrich one's understanding to what the speaker is transmitting.It is the foundation for listening comprehension.
Without vocabulary, there is difficulty of understanding what is heard and has been written.This conforms to the idea of Braze et al. (2007) which states that vocabulary is considered one of the best or strong predictor of listening across the developmental span, even after decoding skills are controlled.This notion finds additional support from Zeeland's (2013) idea regarding the reciprocal importance of listening and vocabulary; that is vocabulary a prerequisite for listening comprehension, and that listening can serve as a useful source for vocabulary acqusition.

Conclusion and Recommendation
The grade 11 students' levels of performance in reading and listening abilities are generally average.Reading and listening make different demands upon the person on the receiving end of the communication.The ability to read and listen is inherent to the respondents and can be developed in many ways, like accumulating vocabulary.
ISSN 2719-0633 (Print) 2719-0641 (Online) | 31 test performance into the number of standard deviation units the mean of the raw score is above or below the population mean.The mean of the 'Z' score is 0 and its standard deviation is 1.The z-score was computed based on the following equation: Z = (X-M)/σ = x/σ, where: X = Mean of raw scores, M = Population mean, σ = Standard deviation of the mean raw scores, x = Deviation of the population mean from the mean of raw scores.The computed z-score value is searched in the standard Psychometric Conversion

was 3 .
29 or 65.90 percent with a verbal equivalent of Average based on the computed z-score of -0.465.For understanding words read, the mean score was 3.47 or 69.37 percent with a verbal equivalent of Average based on the computed z-score of -0.299.For distinguishing facts and opinion, the mean score was 3.59 or 71.98 percent with a verbal equivalent of Average based on the computed z-score of -0.175.For finding the main idea, the mean score was 3.43 ISSN 2719-0633 (Print) 2719-0641 (Online) | 33 or 68.57percent with a verbal equivalent of Average based on the computed z-score of -0.338.Similarly, for sequencing and inference, the mean score was 4.02 or 80.49 percent with a verbal equivalent of Average based on the computed z-score of 0.231.The overall performance in reading ability has a mean score of 3.56 or 71.30 percent with a verbal equivalent of Average based on the computed z-score of -0.209.
percent with a verbal equivalent of Average based on the computed z-score of 0.175.For vocabulary, the mean score was 3.78 or 75.3 percent with a verbal equivalent of Average based on the computed z-score of -0.006.For comprehension, the mean score was 4.09 or 81.74 percent with a verbal equivalent of Average based on the computed z-score of -0.290.For recognition of grammatical word classes, the mean score was 3.86 or 77.27 percent with a verbal equivalent of Average based ISSN 2719-0633 (Print) 2719-0641 (Online) | 35 on the computed z-score of 0.077.Similarly, for recognition of cohesive devices, the mean score was 4.32 or 86.33 percent with a verbal equivalent of Average based on the computed zscore of 0.510.The overall performance in listening ability has a mean score of 4.00 or 80.0 percent with a verbal equivalent of Average based on the computed z-score of 0.209.
Table and the corresponding verbal description equivalent is listed in the table summarizing the results.

Table 1
Performance of Grade 11 Students as to Reading Ability

Table 2
shows the performance of Grade 11 students as to listening ability.As shown in the table, results indicate that for sound discrimination, the mean score was 3.97 or 79.30

Table 2
Performance of Grade 11 Students as to Listening Ability