Lived experiences of english teachers in teaching literature under new normal

Abstract

This study deeply examined the lived experiences of English teachers in teaching literature under the new normal education. It aimed to unveil and identify common responses from the participants’ experiences, coping mechanisms, and insights on the aforementioned phenomenon. The participants of the study were Senior High School English teachers who came from both public and private institutions in the province of Davao de Oro who were able to teach literature subjects during the phenomenon irrespective of the major of specialization. This qualitative study used a phenomenological design with seven (7) participants from in-depth interviews and another seven (7) participants from focus group discussions. During the pandemic, English teachers were confronted with different challenges in teaching the subject such as difficulty in instructing literary interpretation, unresponsive students in accomplishing literary tasks, and the inability of the students to contextualize literary interpretation, however, the participants also considered the pandemic period helpful towards the discovery of teaching strategies such as utilization of media in facilitating literary assessment whether it is authentic, collaborative, or written-based activities. The result of the study reveals that physical separation has brought a gap in interaction yet helps broaden the opportunity for English teachers to discover the advantage of technology in reaching out to students amidst the pandemic.