E-Journal

From April 2 to April 23, 2025, I carried out the implementation phase of my instructional design project with the ALS learners of CMSES. Each week focused on a different booklet, and the sessions revealed both learner progress and challenges.

During Booklet 1, the learners were eager and enthusiastic. They responded positively to the introductory activities, gaining confidence as they worked through simple comprehension tasks. In Booklet 2, however, I observed noticeable difficulty. Learners struggled with longer and more complex sentence structures, particularly in applying skimming and scanning strategies, which were new to many of them. This confirmed the need for explicit modeling and guided practice before learners could attempt independent application.

By the time we reached Booklet 3, learners began to engage more actively. They asked questions, attempted to guess word meanings through contextual clues, and became more comfortable interpreting everyday texts. This shift demonstrated the effectiveness of scaffolding—starting with teacher-led instruction and gradually building toward learner autonomy.

Booklet 4 revealed another challenge: distinguishing between facts and opinions. For elementary-level ALS learners, especially in English, this was a demanding skill. However, the use of real-life scenarios in the booklet—such as simple news items and community-based examples—proved helpful in making the concept more concrete and relatable.

Finally, Booklet 5 was perhaps the most engaging for the learners. It featured Filipino cultural folktales such as “Why the Pineapple Has Many Eyes” (adapted from Alamat ng Pinya) and “The Tale of Mariang Makiling.” These familiar stories created a strong connection, allowing learners to relate more deeply, participate with confidence, and see the value of reading in their own cultural context. This reinforced the importance of culturally relevant pedagogy (Ladson-Billings, 1995), which links literacy skills to learners’ lived experiences and heritage.

Across all weeks, I observed that learners gradually gained confidence in answering comprehension questions, even with unfamiliar text types such as flyers, barangay announcements, emergency posters, and school notices—materials that are not commonly included in their standard ALS modules but are highly practical for everyday life.

Despite these gains, the inconsistent attendance of ALS learners remained the most significant challenge. Some learners who attended in the first week missed subsequent sessions, while others who were absent early on joined later weeks. This irregularity made it difficult to sustain cumulative learning and posed questions about how best to design interventions for a fluid, non-linear learning environment.

Another difficulty was aligning with the DepEd ALS calendar and the learners’ end-of-school-year activities. Because of schedule constraints, not all students were present in every session, and the implementation had to be carried out at a faster pace than originally planned. 

Reflection

This phase of implementation taught me that instructional design in ALS requires adaptability above all. Learners are capable and eager when given meaningful, scaffolded tasks, but attendance and time constraints demand that materials be both flexible and independent-friendly.

The learners’ success with contextual clues and cultural stories affirmed that strategies grounded in constructivism and culturally responsive teaching are effective for ALS. However, their struggles with advanced comprehension skills raised a broader question: How can ALS better support continuous, sustained literacy development when learner attendance is irregular?

This experience also emphasized the role of formative assessment—observing not only scores but also learner participation, questions, and strategies—to refine future interventions. It made me realize that while structured modules provide consistency, ALS learners benefit most when materials reflect both curriculum standards and real-world relevance.