Philippine E-Journals

Esteeming the Teaching-Learning in the DepEd Special Program in Foreign Language – Nihongo: Facilitative Instructional Materials

Maria Cristina A. Sandal

Discipline: Teacher Training

 

Abstract:

This study assessed the status of implementation of Special Program in Foreign Language – Japanese (Nihongo) in the identified public high school implementers in the Division of Cebu Province as basis for an enhanced instructional materials. Findings of this study reveal that the respondent groups belong to the age group of 25-30 years old, female, married, obtained units in their Master’s Degree, have been linked with the institution for less than a year, have been into regional training, seminars, and workshops, and attained an N5 Japanese language proficiency. In terms of the level of implementation of special program in foreign language, the data indicates that respondents generally agree on the effective implementation of the program across several key areas: objectives, teaching-learning facilities, resources, learning competencies, and contact hours. In terms of the level of performance of the students, most of them attained mastery on recognizing Hiragana characters and identifying Katakana characters. Meanwhile, majority of them have no mastery in competencies such as vocabulary knowledge and informational retrieval. In terms of testing the relationship between the level of implementation of special program in foreign language and level of performance in reading comprehension, the result implies that the manner in which teachers implement the foreign language program has a significant impact on students' reading comprehension performance. In terms of the best practices in teaching Nihongo, the data reveals various practices that contribute to an effective language learning environment, with a focus on immersion, authentic materials, communicative approaches, and feedback mechanisms. In conclusion, the analysis demonstrates a significant correlation between the level of implementation of the special program in foreign language and students' performance in reading comprehension. The data highlights that the effectiveness of foreign language instruction is closely linked to how well teachers implement the program, reinforcing the crucial role of structured and consistent program execution in enhancing students' reading abilities.