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Abstract
ABSTRACT: This study validated the effectiveness of Reflective Journal Log as a strategy to address students writing proficiency to their writing skill problem. It determined the writing performance of the students in terms of supporting evidence, organizations, language mechanics, drawing inferences and conclusions. The participants were the 34 grade 10 students of Del Pilar National High School. This study used a quasi-experimental one-shot method. A pre-test post-test was conducted and conducting the Reflective Journal Log in between. The data was analyzed using Mean, Standard deviation, Paired Sample t-test and Wilcoxon test. Results showed that writing performance in the four writing skills before the instruction needs improvement and after the interventionist increased to good. There was a significant difference between students performance before and after the implantation to the Reflective Journal Log. The results show that the Reflective Journal Log Strategy led to moderate improvements in all areas of students writing skills, with the greatest gains in drawing inferences and conclusion, followed by language mechanics, organization, and supporting evidence. Overall, students showed a 23% average increase in performance, confirming the strategys positive impact on their writing development. It is recommended to use Reflective Log Journal to improve the students writing skills. Keywords: Reflective Journal Log, supporting evidence, Organizations, draw inference and conclusion, Language Mechanics, writing process, writing strategy, quasi-experimental, qualitative study, one-shot method.I.IntroductionWriting is a fundamental skill that serves as a key tool for learning, self-expression, and communication. It enables the students to organize their thoughts and engage critically with the world around them. Writing is a productive skill which comprehends cognitive processes (Jebriel et.al 2015) such as expressing intentions, ideas, problem-solving and critical thinking (Farred et.al 2016). For students to develop their writing competence, they are expected to produce well-structured writing (Cuylan 2019). Recognizing the importance of writing as a foundation for higher-order thinking skills and effective communication, the Philippine education system has integrated the development of this productive skill across grade levels. In the Philippines, the Department of Education introduced the productive skill-writing at the elementary level. Grade level 4, 5, and 6 highlighted the competencies in spelling, grammar, sentence clarity and coherence. In the Key stage 3 of Language Curricula in MATATAG intended for Grade 7-10, students should be able to compose and publish a range of multimedia text. Therefore, when the student reaches Junior High School, it is expected that they are equipped with writing skills. However, this is not reflected in the real setting including students in Del Pilar National High School. Since there is an expected outcome from the Key stage 3 of the MATATAG Curriculum among Junior High schools, English teachers include different writing activities in their lesson such as essays, journal, poem, and song. During these activities, it is observed that students still have problems in their outputs which among these are spelling, grammar, coherence and many more. Teachers dont have the ample time to correct these thoroughly during classes. This problem has similarities with the study of Saavedra, Labastilla and Barred (2022) where Senior High Schools have satisfactory writing proficiency yet the content and structure are lower than other components. One factor seen is that writing is often considered as merely part of the teaching and learning grammar and syntax (Fareed and Ashraf 2016) thus writing itself is not the primary goal (Ofte and Solli 2024). Despite the effort of the teachers, the problems taken does not deny Barredo (2020) findings that elementary students did not meet the expected standard. This occurrence opted the researcher to design an intervention program that focuses on writing skills, specifically the Grade 10 students because they are at the stage where they can think critically and express deeper reflection. This Reflective Journal Log also prepares the students for the demands of Senior High School, where higher order thinking and structured writing is essential. This study will validate its effectiveness towards students writing proficiency in response to their problems in their writing skills.
Copyright
Copyright © 2025 Amabeth B. Felominos. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License.
