Pedagogical struggles and gaps in language literacy enhancement: the case of indigenous peoples’ education teachers in the Philippines : Teachers of indigenous people in the Philippines

Enhancing language literacy is one of the most prioritized learning targets of the K-12 curriculum in the Philippines. Several language acquisition, learning, teaching and assessing principles to which the present Language Arts and Multiliteracies Curriculum (LAMC) is anchored on, are consistently improved to forward maximum and effective instructional efforts in enhancing learners’ communicative competence and multiliteracies. At the elementary level, teachers apply innovative pedagogical strategies to develop learners’ macro skills which are relevant to have a meaningful interaction with others in a multicultural society.  However, this language literacy enhancement is considered as a challenging task for the Indigenous Peoples Education (IPEd) teachers due to several constraints that may have influenced the indigenous learners’ language learning competence.    Using the qualitative-case study research design, the responses of the selected IPEd teachers from the semi-structured interviews were examined. The thematic analysis was utilized to determine the challenges encountered in teaching language literacy among indigenous learners in Agusan Del Sur, Philippines. On the other hand, the Provus Discrepancy model was used to determine the gaps between the current language literacy performance and outcomes and the language teaching standards enshrined in LAMC. The results showed that IPEd teachers commonly struggled with enhancing learners’ viewing skills and digital literacy, developing reading comprehension, improving writing skills, contextualizing lessons, following spiral progression in language, and teaching orthography and grammar. Moreover, the results showed that these encountered struggles became more complicated due to the gaps in language learning standards, instructional learning support, learners’ literacy and readiness level, and teachers’ competence and strategies used