USING SVO-BIBO-BACUS TO IMPROVE YEAR 3 PUPILS` SKILL ON SIMPLE

SENTENCE CONSTRUCTION (S-V-O)

Wheynna Mail
Dr. Hj. Jalani Bin Hasan
PISMP SEM 8 TESL
weynnaweyn@rocketmail.com

ABSTRACT

This action research was carried out in order to improve

Year 3 pupils` skills on simple sentence construction
(SVO). The research participants comprised of three
pupils of Year 3 from one of the school in Kuala Nerus
district. To achieve the objective, the researcher came
up with an intervention called SVO-BIBO-BACUS. SVO-
BIBO-BACUS is a tool that helps pupils to see the clear
form and structure of a sentence. Besides that, it also
able to promotes fun learning during the implementation
of the intervention. The data collection of the research
had been done by using tests (Test Before Intervention
and Test After Intervention), observation of pupil`s
behaviour and questionnaire. The data were then
analysed descriptively. The research findings had
shown that pupils were able to construct simple
sentence with correct SVO structure after using the
SVO-BIBO-BACUS.

Keywords: SVO-BIBO-BACUS, fun learning, sentence

structure

ABSTRAK
Kajian tindakan ini dijalankan untuk membantu murid-
murid Tahun 3 dalam membina ayat ringkas (SVO).
Kajian ini telah melibatkan tiga orang murid Tahun 3 di
salah sebuah sekolah dalam daerah Kuala Nerus. Bagi
mencapai objektif kajian, pengkaji telah menghasilkan
satu intervensi yang bernama SVO-BIBO-BACUS.
SVO-BIBO-BACUS merupakan alat yang dapat
membantu murid-murid untuk melihat bentuk ayat
dengan lebih jelas lagi. Di samping itu, ia juga berupaya
mmewujudkan pembelajaran yang menyeronokkan
sepanjang pelaksanaan intervensi dijalankan.
Pengumpulan data bagi kajian ini telah menggunakkan
ujian (Ujian Sebelum Intervensi dan Ujian Selepas
Intervensi), pemerhatian terhadap tingkah laku murid
dan juga soal selidik. Data tersebut kemudiannya telah
 dianalisa secara diskritif. Dapatan kajian menunjukkan
bahawa murid-murid mampu membina ayat ringkas
dengan struktur SVO yang betul setelah menggunakkan
SVO-BIBO-BACUS.

Kata kunci: SVO-BIBO-BACUS, pembelajaran yang

menyeronokkan, bentuk ayat

INTRODUCTION

The framework of the research consist of a brief description of the research site,
chosen settings, targeted participants and importance of the targeted skill as well as
the correlation of the problem arise with the curriculum. Brief explanations on the
framework of the research are described as below:

This research was conducted at Sekolah Kebangsaan Bukit Nanas (SKBN)

as the researcher had taught at the school mentioned during the second phase of
practicum. The school is located in a suburban area at Kuala Nerus District in
Terengganu state. The chosen setting to conduct the intervention session was at the
library of SKBN. The chosen setting was to provide a calm and comfortable
environment. Calm and comfortable settings are essential, as it had improved the
effectiveness of the intervention implemented.

The research was implemented on pupils of Year Three Al Ghazali since the
researcher taught English to them. This is the second class of the year three pupils in
SKBN. It was widely known that English subject is compulsory for the pupils’
education that should be taught since kindergarten which as the earlier level until the
tertiary level of education as it was deemed necessary as stated in the National
Education Philosophy (NEP, 2017). English is one of the important subjects that the
pupils need to learn (MoE, 2013). Therefore, English language mastery is important
for the pupils’ development in a holistic manner to become globally competitive
citizens who have bilingual proficiency.

The skill focussed in this action research is writing skill. As the researcher
taught the Year Three Al Ghazali pupils, the researcher realized that the pupils faced
difficulties in writing sentences. Specifically, some of the pupils were not able to write
even a simple sentence which is SVO sentence structure. As what has been stated
in Primary School Standards-Based Curriculum (DSKP) in the content standard that
“by the end of the six year primary schooling, pupils will be able to write using
appropriate language, form and style for a range of purposes (DSKP, 2011).” Under
the writing skills’ learning standard in 3.2.2 (a) that, “the pupils should be able to write
simple sentences with guidance.” Hence, it is evident that writing simple sentences
such as SVO, with the correct order is significant to be taught to the year three
pupils.

RESEARCH FOCUS

Based to the researcher experience in the second practicum, pupils are having
problems to construct simple sentences. The pupils were unable to construct even a
simple sentence with correct SVO structure. The Year Three English DSKP learning
standard stated that, pupils should be able to write using appropriate language, form,
and style for a range of purposes. From this experience, the researcher made a
decision to improve Year Three Al Ghazali pupils writing skill by focusing on SVO
sentence structure (simple sentence). Hence, Year Three Al Ghazali pupils should be
able to write simple sentences with guidance (MoE, 2010).

RESEARCH OBJECTIVE AND QUESTION

The research objective of the study was to help the Year Three Al Ghazali pupils in
constructing simple sentence with correct SVO structure by using the SVO-BIBO-
BACUS Significantly, the research question of the study was, “Does the SVO-BIBO-
BACUS help pupils to construct simple sentence with correct SVO structure?”

RESEARCH PARTICIPANT

Research participants are human subject about whom a researcher will be

conducting the research on, in order to obtain the data through intervention or
collaboration with the individual or identifiable private information (Barnes, 2012). The
researcher’s participants were from Year Three Al Ghazali pupils of SKBN. The
pupils were nine years old and they have low proficiency in English such that they
have limited range of vocabulary, lack of exposure to English and also lack of
knowledge of grammar rules that caused them to not able to construct sentence
appropriately. Based on observation, the researcher had selected three pupils as the
participants. The chosen participants consisted of three females pupils. The
researcher discovered that Tananie, Nisha, and Azwanie were weak in sentence
construction. The participants were chosen based on their past examination results
as well as their low score in the diagnostic test conducted by the researcher.
Therefore, it was proven that the research participants were not able to write simple
sentence with correct SVO structure.

IMPLEMENTATION OF ACTION

The action research was carried out based Kemmis and McTaggart action research
model which was established in 1988 (Goh, 2016). Kemmis and McTaggart’s
research model consists of four stages; reflect, plan, action and observe.

i) Reflect
Against reflection, in the context of this research the focused problem is
the pupils’ inability to construct SVO sentence structure in the correct
order.

ii) Plan
The next step was the planning of action. In the planning of action it
involves the implementation of the intervention. At this stage, the
researcher had developed the ‘SVO-BIBO-BACUS’.

iii) Action
In action stage, the intervention ‘SVO-BIBO-BACUS’ was implemented to
the selected research participants. During this stage, the data was
collected for evaluation purpose in the next stage.
 iv) Observe
Finally the cycle ended with the evaluation process to identify the
effectiveness, strengths, as well as the weaknesses of the intervention. In
this stage, the effectiveness of the tool was evaluated and if the
intervention had not achieved the stated objective then the cycle will be
started again with a modified version of the intervention.

DATA COLLECTION

Qualitative data analysis (QDA) is defined as the range of procedures and measures
whereby we move from the qualitative data that have been collected into some form
of explanation, understanding, or interpretation of the people and situations we are
investigating (Lewins, Taylor and Gibbs, 2010). Hence, the data collection method
listed be were used to gather the data in this research. The data collection methods
are as follows:

I) DOCUMENT ANALYSIS

Documents such as students work can provide details associated with the
practices observed in the classroom (Goh, 2016). In this research the document
analysis collected and analysed were the participants Test Before Intervention (TBI)
and Test After Intervention (TAI). This method was the primary source of the data
analysis.

II) OBSERVATION

Observation allows one to discover complex interactions in natural social

settings (Marshall and Rossman, 2006). Therefore, throughout the implementation of
the intervention, the researcher had closely observed the participants. This method of
data collection supported the document analysis data whereby the researcher used
an observation checklist to record the participant’s behaviours.
 III) INTERVIEW

Researchers use interviews as a primary data to collect information from

individuals about their own practices, beliefs, or opinions (Harrell and Bradley, 2009).
The researcher chose not to use interview as the primary source but instead used
this data collection method to gather additional information based on the participants
thought upon the implementation of the SVO-BIBO-BACUS.

TRAINGULATION

The pupils` skill regarding simple sentence construction had been improved
based on the data collected from the document analysis. It can be proven by the
marks that they scored for AIT during Cycle One and the sentence that they
constructed in AIT during Cycle Two. Based on the questionnaire that distributed at
the end of Cycle Two, it could be concluded that the participants felt that the SVO-
BIBO-BACUS is interesting and easy to be used. Besides that, the SVO-BIBO-
BACUS helped them to differentiate subject, verb and object and also in constructing
simple sentence with correct SVO structure. They also felt comfortable to learn by
using the tools and became more confident to answer the given worksheets. Lastly,
data from the observation made showed that the used of SVO-BIBO-BACUS was
able to improve the participants` behaviours throughout the implementation of
intervention. Based on the data collected from the three instruments, it showed that
the participants` skill in constructing simple sentence has been improved by using the
SVO-BIBO-BACUS.
DATA INTEPRETATION

Cycle 1 Cycle 2

BIT score AIT score BIT score AIT score

Participant 1 5/15 13/15 2/10 8/10

Participant 2 6/15 13/15 0/10 9/10

Participant 3 4/15 10/15 1/10 8/10

In addition, based on the data analysis of the observation checklist, the used
of SVO-BIBO-BACUS managed to improve the participants` behaviour throughout
the implementation of the intervention. Even though during Cycle 1 all the
participants were unable to fulfil the criteria listed on the observation checklist, but
they managed to show a positive changes during Cycle 2.

Lastly, based on the data analysis of participants` questionnaire, it showed all

of them agreed that the SVO-BIBO-BACUS helped them to understanding subject,
verb and object in a more easy way. Besides that, they also agreed that the used of
SVO-BIBO-BACUS also allowed them to improve their skill on constructing simple
sentence with correct SVO structure. It can be proven by their score on AIT for both
cycles.

FINDINGS

Firstly, the researcher found out that by using pictures as a stimulus helped
the participants to learn better during the intervention implementation. According to
Leny (2006), pictures can help to prevent and correct disconcertion of words. For
instance, in this research, the pictures used helped the participants to acquire new
vocabulary through the pictures. Besides that, the participants also were able to
identify the meaning of the words with the help of the pictures.

Another significant finding found was that the participants had gained positive
impacts from the SVO-BIBO-BACUS which allowed them to improve their vocabulary
and skills on constructing simple sentence with correct SVO pattern in a fun and non-
threatening way. Such learning environment helped the participants to construct
sentence with less stress and pressure which contributes to the success of achieving
the research objective. As what have been stated by Prensky (2001), it was
important to integrate fun learning environment in teaching so the students will be
able to learn effectively. Fun learning environment also increased the participants`
motivation to learn English.

REFLECTION

In this section, the researcher reflects on what had appeared throughout the
research. The researcher was able to see some strengths and weakness of the
usage of the SVO-BIBO-BACUS towards the 3 Al Ghazali`s SVO sentence writing in
the correct order.

The researcher realized that the pupils’ were a low achiever and they have
really poor knowledge on English. Therefore, the ‘Chalk and Talk’ method was less
effective to be used on them to learn SVO sentence word order. Hence, the
researcher developed the ‘SVO-BIBO-BACUS’ as a teaching intervention to improve
the pupils’ writing skill of SVO sentences in the correct order. As a result, it was seen
that the usage of the teaching intervention helped the pupils to improve the pupil`
knowledge.

Other than that, the researcher also learnt that the intervention provided
opportunity for the teachers to be creative by using their own ideas to the presented
contents in the SVO-BIBO-BACUS. Teachers may change either the words or the
sentence structure to suit the needs of their pupils by modifying them through
extending, subtracting and so on. Therefore, the researcher was able to learn that
teaching SVO sentence word order will be more effective if teachers were to reflect
before selecting and adapting their lesson content which suits with their pupils’
interests, maturity of thoughts and proficiency level.

SUGGESTION

Suggestion for further research of this study is to integrate the ‘SVO-BIBO-

BACUS’ with ICT. The next researcher can converts the SVO-BIBO-BACUS into
software game. By using ICT, the presentation of intervention can be more attractive
since item such as GIF that represent the verbs in a more realistic way can be used.
Other than that, audio on how to pronounce the subject, verb and object also can be
used to help the pupils on their pronunciation as well.

Next suggestion to let the pupils choose and write a sentence from their own
ideas instead of depending to the picture and word cards that provided during the
intervention session. By doing this, the pupils` high-order thinking skills can be polish
since they have to think by their own using the previous knowledge.

Lastly, more exercises with variety of question also can be provided during
the intervention session. By doing lots of exercises, it can help to strengthen the
pupils` skill in sentence construction. It also allows the researcher to identify whether
the pupils have mastered the skill in a more effective way, lots of exercises can
prepare the pupils to apply their knowledge in the future.
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