Teaching is in my blood. But the sparks of passion for teaching was ignited by the approaches, teaching strategies and techniques taught by the Foundation for Upgrading the Standard of Education (FUSE). The FUSE techniques integrated in the Telecourse for Teachers of English aims to upgrade the teaching competence of teachers.

I am deeply moved and very grateful to the FUSE, the Department of Education, Culture and Sports (DECS now DepED), the Philippine Normal University, the University of the Philippines College of Education, De La Salle University, to Mr. Lucio Tan, to former senator Edgardo J. Angara, the People’s Television Network and the writers of the different segments that I have availed of this training. They have truly inspired me to ignite my passion to teach effectively and competently.

Through FUSE training, I have discovered that in teaching Grammar, English should be taught as a second language. Years ago, before FUSE training was conceived, I just focused in teaching grammar and how to construct the structures correctly. It was very plain, simple and usual teaching for the sake of teaching grammar. But I found out it was unproductive. I later learned in FUSE that when teaching grammar structures, I should be getting my students to learn a large number of different bits of knowledge and skills such as how to recognize the examples of the structure when spoken, how to identify its written form, how to understand its meaning in context and produce meaningful sentences using it.

I have concentrated in the structure and neglected other skills which the students should learn from me. I spend a lot of time in getting the grammar right and forgot to give practice in using the structures to convey the oral aspect satisfactorily. The Telecourse in English presented ways on how grammar can be used meaningfully for successful communication.

As I went on viewing the telelessons and using the Teacher Support Materials, I have learned many ideas on how to teach grammar lessons correctly using the different strategies.

I have learned from FUSE that I have to teach grammar meaningfully, functionally and appropriately using the Pyramidal Approach. Before, I just teach grammar simply by presenting the grammar rules, discuss how it will be used then give evaluation to test if my students learned from the lessons I have taken up. Presto! This was the overt way of teaching grammar.

Another failure on my part before the FUSE training was that I rarely teach specific lessons and skills in listening. My students are not trained to listen critically. They are not taught how to adapt a listening cycle suited to the oral stimulus and to their purpose for listening. I have assumed and taken for granted that listening skills will just develop as a matter of course.

After viewing the Listening Telelessons, I realized that listening skills must be developed and different types of listening must be taught to enable my students to comprehend, analyze, respond to, assess and benefit from what they hear and listen to.

My students don’t know how to listen effectively because they got difficulty in understanding or deciphering the listening text they have listened to, hence, they got low scores in the Listening Comprehension. It was a great frustration on my part, seeing the low results in the Listening lessons. This means, I am not an effective teacher at that time.

The FUSE fire keeps on burning in me. It inspired me not to stop there and give up. It taught me that I have to teach my students the different listening styles such as Marginal, Attentive, Critical and Appreciative Listening and on what styles the students have to use in different listening situations. They should also learn the Listening Process so that they can understand, remember, evaluate the listening text and respond correctly to the said texts.

I use the FUSE’s Whole Text Repeated Approach in Attentive Listening, thus, my students achieved high performance in Aural Comprehension. I have learned that the listening texts are repeated several times to the students to accomplish a specific listening task each time I read the text while my students listen. It is a very effective technique. I use the sample materials given in the Teacher Support Materials. I am using the different texts and speech events which require students’ attentive listening to speeches, instructions, directions, and newscasts.

Finally, I also hope for a FUSE Training for the second time for other teachers in English who have never attended FUSE training and also in other subject areas such as Filipino, Mathematics, Social Studies, Values Education and Technology and Home Economics (TLE) so that, they too, can share the FUSE training benefits personally and professionally for students high performance and can feel the passion burning in me.

A million thanks… Keep the FUSE passions burning!

Founded by Dr. Lucio C. Tan on December 1, 1994, FUSE seeks to improve the skills in English, Science and Mathematics teachers. Its programs include regular teacher training workshops; a post-graduate scholarship program for Science and Engineering teachers; production and distribution of telecourses in English, Elementary Science, Chemistry, Physics and Math; and a host of other educational programs in partnership with government and private learning institutions.