Integration of Memes in Instructional aid for the Enhancement of Writing competencies John Juluis Kim T. Bellido

Thesis Master of Arts in Teaching major in English University of Rizal System Pililla

This study dealt with the development of the instructional aid integrated with memes and the experts' evaluation on the said material. This is an innovation on the teaching-learning process that can be used as a learning material not only in this time of COVID-19 pandemic, but also for future use. The instructional aid is designed to assist the learners to acquire the following competencies: use patterns and techniques of developing an argumentative claim, identify parts and features of argumentative essays, formulate a statement of opinion or assertion, and formulate claims of fact, policy and value. These are commonly pre-writing and critical thinking skills needed for argumentative writing. These competencies were anchored on the Most Essential Learning Competencies (MELCs) in English 10 for Quarter 2 as a response of the Department of Education to the needs of the learners in this new learning situation. These competencies are essential to the 21st century era where information seem to be limitless due to the different sources online. In this regard, such information are commonly shared through various online platforms like in social media where most people, as well as the learners, are so fond of. Sadly, some of these information may be misleading. Therefore, it needs fact- checking and logical argumentation to be proven and accepted as truthful, hence, the abovementioned competencies would prepare the learners for it. In addition, the memes, are also one of the common contents shared and spread by the learners through social media. Usually, these memes are shared just for their past time and entertainment. Unconsciously, they could present their arguments and spread valid information through these memes too. Therefore, the researcher took this phenomenon as an opportunity and maximize it by enabling the learners to construct their own knowledge from these memes through an instructional aid integrated with memes making their learning experiences more fun and relatable. Meanwhile, this study utilized the descriptive method of research to determine the respondents' evaluation on the instructional aid through an expert- validated Google Form questionnaire. The respondents involved in the study were the twenty-six English 10 Teachers in the secondary schools of Tanay, Pililla, and Jala-Jala Rizal who were believed to be experts on the subject matter. They were described in terms of their educational background, affiliation, and their years of teaching English 10. The aspects of evaluation included clarity of instructions, design and layout characteristics, learning tasks, enhancement of writing competencies, and integration of memes. Upon the statistical treatment of the gathered data, the findings revealed that the respondents strongly agreed with all the indicators in the cited aspects of evaluation. Therefore, the Instructional aid is ready for future use once its effectiveness is tested. Furthermore, it was also found out that the respondents' evaluation on the instructional aid had shown no significant difference with respect to the cited aspects in terms of their profile. This suggests that regardless of the respondents' educational background, their affiliation, and their years of teaching English 10, their evaluation on the instructional aid were quite similar.