Mastery Learning and Spiral Learning for Linguistic Competence

Much attention has been paid to prove which of the two approaches, Mastery Learning (skill – based approach) or Spiral Learning (concept – based approach), would best help learners to achieve higher level of competency especially in 2010 when K – 12 was actualized in the country. Mastery learning is premised on the concept of teaching students in “knowing how things work”; while the latter believes in teaching students by “understanding why things work”. Hence, the primary purpose of this study is to investigate which of the two would really work best to students in order for them to use English language effectively, and consequently, attain higher level of linguistic competence. This study was conducted at University of San Carlos – North Campus to some selected grade 8 students. To obtain the entry and exit level of the participants’ linguistic competence, a pretest and posttest were administered. The data that were gathered and tabulated revealed that both skill – based approach and concept – based approach could really advance students’ linguistic competence. However, teaching the students with concepts and using these concepts meaningfully in real – life situations resulted an overwhelming interest of the students on their lessons and proved to be more successful in helping them become more effective English language users.

Keywords: Mastery Learning, Spiral Learning, linguistic competence, grammar instruction, k-12 curriculum