English Language Teaching (ELT) Appraisal in the Trifocal System of the Philippine Education: Basis for Policy and Advancement Program

ABSTRACT


INTRODUCTION
English Language Teaching (ELT) in the Philippines gets tougher as the burden and challenges for quality standards of instruction get harder.In order to inject ASEAN standards, Philippine education nowadays continues to address the deteriorating usage of a second language as an instructional form of communication.The ELT in the trifocal system of Philippine Education can convey concepts, values, and philosophies toward mastering the English language in a global context (Armea et al., 2022).English Language Teaching as a process of teaching English is tailored to the individual learner's needs.English language educator's quality is directly related to learners' academic achievement.Excellent and effective English Language Teaching is indispensable to upsurge ELT teachers' knowledge, ideals, and competencies so that they may empower all learners of all ages to acquire necessary competencies in the English Language Curriculum at elevated levels (Orejuela et al., 2022).ELT teachers of the Commission on Higher Education (CHED), Department of Education (DepEd) and Technical Education Skills Development Authority (TESDA) will serve as worthy reagents of educational change at the utmost standards.However, the value and quality of language teaching encounter numerous challenges.In fact, from the article of (Sönmez & Köksal, 2022).ELT global challenges and changes are intensified due to some other revealing methodology defects and alterations, scarcity of resources, flaws on instructional management and student disengagement that led to contemporary observation on ELT practitioners' intricacies in the delivery system, and declining professionalism.In the Philippines, despite lack of funding from the National Budget allocated to education, teachers are continuously mandated to undergo series of self-financed continuing professional developments in order to transform lives for the better and to meet the global demands in education.The Philippines is an ideal place in honing second language teachers.The Philippine English Language Education is heightened by the ASEAN Qualification Reference Frameworks (AQRF) which aimed to reinforce utmost excellence and quality standards instruction in ELT and to compare educational qualifications and standards across ASEAN Member States with no other common goals and vision but to invest heavily on people education and the use English as the de facto lingua franca of ASEAN (asean.org).The Philippine ELT's reputation, as a world-known English-speaking country, has been gripped to the brilliant interest to educators, students, and researchers (Knoch & Macqueen, 2019).English as the optimum instructional tool in the three governing bodies strengthened the J. Innov.Res. 1(3) 40-48, 2023 interest among language professionals in the trifocal system of Philippine education connecting to the international dome.The Philippine English Language Education is a product of great endeavors and shared responsibilities of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) and the United Nations Call for Education for All (EFA) in 2015.With the ASEAN Integration of AQRF, the Philippine Education Systems comprise of the DepEd, CHED and eventually reinforced supremacy in English language education.The academic setting plays an essential part in reconstructing educators' professional identity (Ocampo, 2021).Institutionally, ELT teachers suffered from varied apprehensions brought about by their personal and institutional relational attributes across language schools and public universities (Li, 2021).With this, ELT teachers nowadays face post-pandemic challenges in their teaching competence vis-à-vis their credentials set by the reinforced educational level qualifications and national standards of the Philippine Qualifications Framework (PQF) referenced system.Hence, the ascending call for quality English language teachers needs to be identified.This further confirms the evaluation of ELT transition and progression in the post-pandemic situations.Upon DepEd, CHED and TESDA's ELT appraisals, this study is believed to solve and resolve the prevailing imparities in the Philippine English Language Education as it will develop the ELT Policy and Advancement Program.This is expected to be most operative in cultivating educators' training and practice, which can be results-driven, data-oriented, naturally constructive, and job-entrenched.The high-quality standards were required by the CHED, DepEd, and TESDA towards accessible and eminent advancement in English Language Education.It is, therefore, the researcher deemed to explore the ELT appraisal of ELT teachers in the trifocal system of Philippine education in one province of the Bicol Region, the Camarines Sur, a strong reference can be generated that can serve as a baseline in creating a program scheme to make the ELT programs across Philippine setting and overseas a high-quality standard.

Objectives
This study determined the English Language Teaching (ELT) Appraisal in the trifocal system of Philippine Education towards the development of Policy and Advancement Programs in one of the provinces in Region V. Specifically and use the findings as a baseline in developing ELT policy and quality program to uplift professional advancement of ELT teachers in the trifocal system of Philippine education.

LITERATURE REVIEW
Teachers are vital to operative language teaching-learning courses.According to Richards (2022), ELT educators should be better educators in order to produce better learners.Their roles are crucial to learners' motivation and engagement in the ESL classroom.Therefore, language proficiency is expected to be attained in communication, conceptualization, and construction.The mandate of the Department of Education for continuous reskilling and upskilling of our teachers to advance educational quality calls for NEAP-accredited professional development.In 2019, with the United States partnership, the "Teaching Grammar Communicatively in the Philippines (TGCIP)" program was initiated under DepEd Order no.11, s. 2019.This move the creation and effectiveness of implementation of the NEAP transformation in the department is crafted to determine its result efficacy.The program aims to reinforce Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) in language acquisition, to master and apply related grammar features and experiences and to integrate them to language lessons.Established requirements and processes for enrolment to programs and courses offered by NEAP is clearly stipulated in DepEd Memorandum No. 082, s. 2020. (deped.gov.org).DepEd teachers and leaders should be eligible and not be taken for granted to connect and rationalize their career intentions and progression under NEAP provisions.The Department of Education continued to exercise their true and utmost potential as language professionals under Republic Act No. 10912, also known as the "Continuing Professional Development (CPD) Act of 2016 in inculcating advancement in ethical values, skills and capabilities and information among high school public school teachers and in assimilating their professional practices, self-directed researching skills and lifelong multidisciplinary learning.ELT teachers in the DepEd believed that CPD generates an opportunity to apply dynamic methodology and to share experience among fellow professionals (Tulo & Lee, 2022).To sustain quality education and continuing professional development after the pandemic, DepEd Order No. Adaptable in Yielding Achievements) is a wake-up call which purposively enhances teachers' language skills and intervention through enriching technical writing competencies, showcasing teamwork in the quality assurance team and on teaching how to teach reading, and developing content-based learning resources (Tsalis et al., 2020).The teachers in Camarines Sur Division are required to go through 15 Day-Regional Mass Training of Teachers in Academic Track after the hiring process.The Regional Memo No. 61, s. 2016 stated that SHS English teachers should be trained to master teaching the English subjects.To sharpen the learning competencies that students should develop among themselves, the DepEd Camarines Sur Division backed-up the Regional SHS English Teachers Trainings, thus, called for the J. Innov.Res.1(3) 40-48, 2023 3-Day Division Writeshop that involved selected Senior High School English Teachers by virtue of several Unnumbered Division Memorandum to provide the SHS English Teachers with the enhanced and contextualized and quality-assured English Modules.The teachers also need to assess whether the students are developing their language proficiency out of teachers' styles and techniques.INSET improves the professional growth of teaching force abreast of current trends and knowledge in English Language Teaching with intensive integration of Information and Communication Technology (Dlamini & Nkambule, 2020).For DepEd, it is a vital activity organized vital to improve teaching and learning.In times of pandemic, Virtual In-Service Trainings (INSET) assisted by Information and Communications Technology Service -Educational Technology was implemented to gears trends on Industrial Revolution or IR 4.0.to expand the content and pedagogy that are essentials delivering quality instruction in teaching the language using online modality with ICT integration and modular approach.(DepEd Order No. 012 s. 2021).To accommodate current trends and issues and perennial problems about national and regional programs in the whole system, DepEd Order No. 007 s. 2019, five-day annual and semestral break training invited bridges the gap in the in the basic curriculum through caliber speakers.The required disputes such as allowing low-level teachers to attend training, receiving assistance from the higher-ups and financial budget allocations (Raffler, 2022).Darling-Hammond (2021) resolved issues on the scope of in-service trainings in terms of content and pedagogy, context, diversity, curriculum assessment evaluation, community extensions and career engagement and programs; professionalism dimensions and pedagogical components.Likewise, addressing appropriate INSET provision, DepEd teachers had significant improvements on their content and pedagogy within and across curriculum areas.They eventually learn to strategize teaching-learning materials, promoting literacy-numeracy and developing higher-order thinking skills and exhibiting language and ICT competencies.These literature and studies provide a rich background to support the aim of the current study in understanding the appraisal of ELT teachers in the trifocal system of the Philippine Education, particularly, in enhancing communicative competence, professional and work responsibility, and quality delivery system in achieving quality global standards in language teaching and in building the country through developing global learners.and serve a theoretical reference in attaining English Language Education-ASEAN standard, in general.

Research Design
The study used a descriptive-comparative-associational method of research.The descriptive method was used to answer research questions on personal profile and appraisals along professional responsibility, communicative competence and delivery system while the comparative method was used to investigate significant differences of ELT appraisals across different governing bodies (CHED, DepEd and TESDA).Moreover, the associational method was used to determine if there exist between ELT profile vis-à-vis their appraisals to investigate the ELT profile in DepEd, CHED and TESDA along age, gender, civil status, educational attainment, professional affiliation, trainings attended, teaching experiences and position or ranks and professional profile as well.

Research Locale and Respondents
The study was composed of 129 ELT respondents who are professionally qualified as English Language Teachers in the Commission on Higher Education, Department of Education and Technical Education and Skills and Development Authority identified through purposively sampling technique for CHED and TESDA samples (selected ELT teachers in the state universities and regional training centers) and clustering method for DepEd samples (selected ELT teachers for represented congressional districts).The three data sources (CHED, DepEd, TESDA) were triangulated making the result of the study much stronger and data driven.

Research Instrument
This study used descriptive survey instrument through a five-point Likert scale questionnaire contained data needed for personal profile of ELT teacher-respondents, and their professional appraisal along delivery system, communicative competence and professional and work responsibilities in the trifocal system of the current educational system in the Philippines.The questionnaire passed through psychometric properties of the items to specific aspects on English Language.This went through validity and reliability testing using the Cronbach's alpha which measured central consistency with arrived results of 0.78 for professional and work responsibility and 0.77 for delivery system, both tested as acceptable, and 0.89 for communicative competence, reliability tested as good.

Treatment of the Data
Statistical treatment of data includes frequency count and percentage technique for profiling, weighted mean for identifying appraisal, ANOVA analysis of variance for identifying significant differences of appraisal across agencies and Chi Square for identifying association between profile and appraisal.Accordingly, this study followed ethical considerations and systematic procedure of investigation (e.g.questionnaire preparation and content validation, dry-run administration, reliability testing, seeking permit to conduct study, questionnaire administration, data gathering, analysis and interpretation and research reporting).Along trainings attended, 30.77% attended both international and national trainings related to communicative competencies; 30.76% attended trainings related on content and pedagogy in the institutional level; and, 19.23% attended trainings as trainer in the regional/ provincial level.There are also teachers attending trainings on professional practices with 15.38% in the national level and 11.54% in the regional level.Along trainings related on the information and communication technology, 23.07% of teachers attended on both national and institutional respectively.This further explained that teachers are continuously updating themselves with necessary trainings on ELT practices, pedagogy, ICT, and communicative competencies.Along trainings of professional practices, 69.79% of teachers attended related international trainings and 63.54% related school/district level trainings.Along trainings on information and communication technology, 52 or 54.17% attended similar trainings in the regional level with 44.79% in both national and international related ICT trainings.This further explained that DepEd ELT teachers in times of pandemic, attended numerous trainings online and offline which they thought could help them in becoming better language teachers.However, among the level of trainings most attended by DepEd ELT teachers are school/district and international-based.It further implies that the trainings provided by DepEd are school-based professional development, but they still invested in international trainings because of timely online modality.

Profile of ELT Teachers
Along number of years in teaching, the table showed that out of seven ELT respondents, four (57.14%) of them served the agency for 4-7 years, and three (42.86%)served the agency in between 1-3 years.
Along educational attainment, four (57.14%) are under Baccalaureate Program, and three (42.86%)are still taking up Masters' Degree programs.Most of them served as instructor position, and the rest are simply trainers.Further, along trainings attended, most regional training center samples, except for sample B attended trainings related on communicative competencies.Samples A B only attended trainings as trainers in international, national and regional level, with 14.29%, and trainings of content and pedagogy, with 28.57% attendance.This explained that ELT teachers in TESDA are new in language teaching jobs as reflected on their ELT years of service and academic ranks, and Master's degree starters.
This further means that they need more trainings in the language teaching profession and practices, and ICT integration.Despite their record on ELT and linguistics field of specialization, no trainings have been attended on communicative competencies.

Appraisal of ELT Teachers in CHED, DEPED & TESDA Appraisal on Professional and Work Responsibility
This part involved appraisal of ELT teacher-respondents on CHED, DepEd and TESDA along professional and work responsibility, delivery system and communicative competencies.ELT Teachers in the trifocal system (CHED, DepEd and TESDA) evidently assess their value and worth on professional and work responsibility.were mandated by international standard quality of technology and skills education.This study is highlighted by Padillo et al. (2021) regarding the Philippine education system pursuit of international standard of TESDA ELT teachers in the delivery of instruction with issued with National certification I-IV.To make ELT effective in the Philippines today, one has to consider teacher, methods, techniques, materials and learners, and therefore, ICT literacy should be incorporated in language teaching as Ocampo ( 2021) highlighted on the study.Thus, Christofi et al. (2019) claimed that productivity of teaching English and social change is guided by technology.

Appraisal on Delivery System
Table 4 displayed data on professional appraisal of ELT trifocal teachers along delivery system which comprises of theoretical knowledge and pedagogical knowledge.
Along delivery system shown on Table 2.2, ELT teachers The findings showed that teachers were theoretically equipped with language principles, knowledge on communicative competencies and preparation of instructional materials in language teaching and practically integrate those things on instruction without providing pedagogic decision as to what contemporary or conventional approaches and methodologies be used during the instructional process.This further revealed that the appraisal of ELT teacher-Table 5 disclosed that ELT teachers appraised themselves TESDA had similar assessment of their worth and value professional and work responsibility, delivery system and communicative competencies.Thus, they have parallel weight of their appraisals on their pedagogical and theoretical knowledge, and their advancement and expertise of their communicative competence in the actual ELT delivery.This further implied that the current English Language Education in the Philippine trifocal system depicts similar faculty orientations, because ELT teachers have related appraisals and judgments on their mastery and application of communicative competence.

CONCLUSION
This study concluded that CHED, DepEd and TESDA ELT teachers' personal profile are predominantly females and of young at age in the profession, with an almost equal distributive picture on civil status.Professionally, trifocal ELT teachers are continuously pursuing degree in both Masters' and Doctorate Program despite the recorded few number years of service in the agency and first-level academic rank.They are rich in training attended and other professional development for the past three years.ELT trifocal teachers showed a very evident professional practice of language profession, at the same time diligently adhering to the observance of Information and Communication Technology integration to ELT teaching and learning process and conveyed to the mastery and application of theoretical and pedagogical knowledge anchored on agencies' policies and standards of producing learners.ELT trifocal teachers appraised themselves as an expert on their communicative competencies as they were demanded by the mandates of ASEAN Qualification Reference Frameworks on excellence and quality in English Language Education for Language Teachers to master and apply their linguistic, sociolinguistic, strategic and discourse competencies to language classes and supported by vast and varied trainings and utmost hiring qualifications.The Philippine education has maintained an undeviating quality of ELT teachers on the ground depicting similar perceptions and appraisals of teachers in the English Language Teaching, despite differences in modalities, urgencies, strengths and weaknesses in the implementation of the policies, standards and guidelines, circulars, memorandums and order towards the attainment of quality education.Finally, the trifocal agencies in the Philippine education reflect no variations of ELT competencies approach in DepEd, CHED and TESDA in manifesting utmost quality language education.From this study, it is highly recommended that CHED and DepEd and TESDA should sustain ELT teachers with necessary technological resources to amplify ELT technology-enhanced instruction and with essential motivational scheme to pursue post-graduate education.Finally, English Language Education in the country is highly recommended for crafting a parallel, unified, extensive, and amplified advancement program across the three trifocal agencies, CHED, DepEd and TESDA to elevate their knowledge and skills in English Language Teaching along professional and work responsibility, delivery system and communicative competence.
024 s. 2022, titled Adoption of the Basic Education Development Plan 2030 with the banner RAISE-R5 Learning Recovery Plan and DM No. 291 s. 2022 under Training -Workshop on the Development of Content-Based Reading Resources through Project HIRAYA (Harmonizing Instructions and Resources that are

Table 1 :
Table 1 showed the profile of ELT teachers in four selected J. Innov.Res.1(3) 40-48, 2023 state university samples in CHED along age, sex and civil status.It shows that out of 26 ELT -teacher-respondents, ten of them fall in the mid-30's and six belong to 46 years age groups and above.Along table on sex, there are higher percentage of female teachers (73.07%) than male (26.92%).Record of civil status shows that one of 26 declares widower; 12 married; and 13 single.This further explained that ELT teachers are predominantly females and young at age in the profession, with an almost equal distributive picture on civil status.The table also showed data on age, sex and civil status of 96 respondents from five congressional districts.Along age, DepEd ELT teachers age between 26-29 years (22.92%), and between 30-35 years (20.83%).In contrary to the young age groups, 17.71% or 17 out of 96 teachers fall under ages 46 years and above.Along sex, 80.21% are female, and 19.79% are males.Along civil status, 64.58% are married, and 35.42 % are single.This further explained that in DepEd, teachers are dominantly females and mostly married.Their ages are extremely distributed to young at 20's and mid-40's age groups.Personal Profile of ELT Teachers in the Trifocal System of the Philippine Education Data

Table 2 :
Professional Profile of ELT Teachers in the Trifocal System of the Philippine Education Data

Trifocal System of the Philippine Education
This further means that CHED ELT teachers were continuously pursuing degree in both Master's and Doctorate Program despite the recorded few number years of service in the agency and first-level academic rank.The table further showed the professional profile of CHED teachers on their categorized trainings attended.

Table 2
Alongeducational attainment, 46 out of 96 or 47.92% are with Master's units, 22 (22.92%) are already graduated in the Master's DegreeProgram, and 13 (13.54%)arenot yet enrolled in any Master's Degree program.However, there are ELT teachers in samples A, C, D and E who already gain Doctorate units and already finished Doctorate Degree, with 9.38% 6.25% respectively.Most of them falls in the category of teacher I-III.Number of Master Teachers on this agency is very limited.Two out of 96 ELT teachers took leadership position, but still handling the language teaching jobs.The table further explained that Deped ELT teachers are pursuing post graduate education regardless of their teacher-academic ranks and years of service.It only means that they pursue higher degree program because they have the bottom academic rank.Along trainings attended, the table revealed that 67 ELT respondents or 69.79% attended trainings on Among five congressional districts, schools in sample C have no recorded new teachers in the service, compared to other samples (A, B D & E) that contains a total of 12 out of 96 or 12.50% new teachers in the agency.communicative competencies in the school/district level only; 35 or 36.46% in the regional level; 29 or 30.21% in the national level; and, 30 or 31.25% in the international level.With regards to professional development as trainer, there is 68 or 78.83% respondents attend similar trainings as trainer in the school/institutional level.41 of them or 42.71% attended international trainings as trainers.Along trainings on content and pedagogy, 78 or 81.25% the national level, and 77 or 80. 21 % in the school/district level only.

Table 3 :
Appraisal of ELT Teachers of CHED, DepEd & TESDA along Professional and Work Responsibility

Table 4 :
Appraisal of ELT Teachers of CHED, DepEd & TESD along Delivery System

Table 5 :
Appraisal of ELT Teachers of CHED, DepEd & TESDA along Communicative Competence

Significance Difference of ELT Appraisal in the Trifocal System of the Philippine Education
As shown on the table, the computed F -value of 2.71 is lesser than the tabular value of 3.35 at 5% level of significance.The hypothesis is rejected.Therefore, there is no significant difference among ELT teachers' appraisal in the trifocal system of the Philippine education.This study infers that ELT teachers in CHED, DepEd and J. Innov.Res.1(3) 40-48, 2023

Table 6 :
Significant Difference among ELT Teachers' Appraisalin the Trifocal System of the Philippine Education