English Major Teachers Teaching MAPEH in a Junior High School: A Phenomenological Study

Abstract

This study aims to capture the lived experiences of some English Teachers teaching a non-English subject, specifically MAPEH ( Music, Arts, Physical Education, Health ), in a public junior high school in Cebu Province. The study used a phenomenological qualitative research design. Anchored on Dewey’s Theory of Learning by doing, semi-structured interviews were conducted by the researchers with eight teachers who were English majors but teaching MAPEH, during the school year 2019-2020. This arrangement was adopted by the school administrators since there were more English major teachers than needed and a scarcity of MAPEH major teachers. The results of the interviews were condensed in the following themes: (1)difficult and challenging: need to self-study the content and prepare class activities (2) need for teacher resourcefulness to watch videos, youtube, and multimedia as a crash course (3) "Sariling - Sikap at Kayod" since no formal training and seminars were provided (4) growth in resilience to face odds (5) opportunity to learn new things and finding new horizons in one's capacity to excel in other endeavors. The researchers recommend that school administrators and subject master teachers provide orientation, seminars, coaching, mentoring, and training to these "displaced teachers" to equip them with the new insights and accompany them, especially in the first month of the school year to be able to embrace the challenge with confidence.