LEARNING IN AN ENGLISH CONTENT-BASED CURRICULUM OF THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION: ISSUES AND CHALLENGES FROM A 21ST CENTURY PERSPECTIVE

The purpose of this paper was to analyze the Philippine K to 12 English Curriculum from 21st century learning perspective. The first section briefly described the current English curriculum in the Philippines. The subsequent section describes 21st century learning in both general and ELT-related terms. The discussion then reviews the specificity and coherence (i.e., sensible connection or coordination between and among different components (Newmann, et al., 2021; Schmidt, et al., 2019) of the new English curriculum, how it is consistent with the principles espoused by 21st century learning, and how it is aligned to established language teaching and learning principles. The study is conducted through qualitative phenomenological methods. All of the participants are public elementary school teachers who experienced using the content-based curriculum for grade one. These participants are currently teaching with more than two years of teaching experience. A total of 10 participants are considered in this study who will join the in-depth interview and focused group discussion respectively. The first theme “teachers’ competence” has four sub-themes namely; significance of trainings among teachers, content knowledge of the teacher, cognitive demand and proper understanding of the curriculum. Furthermore, the second theme immersed based on the interview was “application of multiple strategies with four sub-themes, to wit: integrate culture in lesson planning, teach language skills across the curriculum, proficiency in English language and proper lesson planning. Finally, the third theme immersed was “significance of teaching pedagogy” with the sub-themes; attract students’ attention, foster motivation and confidence, use English as medium of communication and acquire more knowledge on the subject matter.