Proficiency Levels of Senior High School Students in Prepositional Patterns Usage

Abstract

This study determined the proficiency levels of senior high school students in prepositional patterns usage as basis for a lesson exemplar. It employed a quantitative descriptive research design and involved 391 Grade 11 and Grade 12 students from a diocesan school in Pagadian City, selected through proportionate stratified random sampling. Data were gathered using an adapted Prepositional Pattern Test based on Mueller (2011) and were analyzed through mean, standard deviation, mean percentage score, and ranking. Results showed that the respondents obtained an overall mean percentage score of 75.70, interpreted as Fairly Satisfactory, indicating a developing but uneven level of proficiency in using prepositional patterns. The highest performance was recorded in preposition + clause, followed by preposition + noun/pronoun/gerund and verb + preposition, all interpreted as Satisfactory. The lowest performance was found in preposition + adverb, followed by noun + preposition, adjective + preposition, and verb + object + preposition, all interpreted as Fairly Satisfactory. These findings suggest that students had greater difficulty with collocational and context-sensitive patterns. Based on the results, a lesson exemplar was developed to provide contextualized grammar practice on the lowest-performing patterns. The study concludes that pattern-based and meaningful instruction is needed to strengthen students' grammatical accuracy in prepositional usage.