General View of Araling Panlipunan

Araling Panlipunan as one of the Makabayan learning area aims for learners
having a healthy personal and national identity can be mostly attributes to the goals of
Social Studies yet, the discipline is diluted in the reforms of the new curriculum. With the
educational reforms are often undertaken by national agencies to update and adapt to
the various social, cultural, political, and technological contexts of the global world.
The Philippines is not an exemption to educational reforms such that in 2002, the
national government, through the Department of Education (DepEd), undertook a grand
reform effort to change the curriculum. This reform effort resulted to the 2002 Basic
Education Curriculum (BEC) and was implemented through DepEd order No. 25 on the
school year 2002-2003. One of the highlight reforms in BEC is the introduction of a new
learning area called Makabayan. Makabayan aims to cultivate Filipino learners to have
a healthy personal and national self-concept.

Significant Features of Grade 7 Araling Panlipunan

Teaching Araling Panlipunan allow students be able to personally process and

synthesize a wide range of skills and values (cultural, aesthetic, athletic, vocational,
politico-economic, and ethical). Moreover, schools are given the freedom to design and
contextualize its implementation, but DepEd accepted that fact that this integration can
neither be perfect nor total especially from Grade 4 to Grade 6, and First Year High
School to Fourth Year High School (DepEd, 2002 BEC).
One of the disciplines under the Makabayan learning area is Social Studies. The
rationale for subsuming Social Studies under this learning area, rather than being
separate like Science or English, is the aim of Makabayan to have learners who can
demonstrate deeper appreciation of Filipino culture and patriotism (DO No. 43, s. 2022).
With Social Studies as an integrated study of social sciences and humanities drawing
from various disciplines such as anthropology, archaeology, economics, geography,
history, law, philosophy, political science, psychology, religion, and sociology (NCSS,
1994), DepEd deemed the discipline befitting to be included in Makabayan.
Local Observations about the Learning Abilities of the Grade 7 Students in
Araling Panlipunan

In the first school year of implementation of the K-12 Program the Grade 7 Social
Studies (G7SS) focused on Philippine History and Government. The module for
students of G7SS was not available. Only the Teacher’s Manual was provided by the
DepEd. As a remedy to the absence of the module, Grade 7 teachers used the old
Philippine History textbook. For those that are not in the textbook, teachers utilized the
internet-based information. Another thing during the first school year of implementation
was that materials used by the students, particularly the “sipi” (excerpt from a primary
source) for G7SS, were written in English, whereas the language used in delivering
lecture and instruction is Filipino. The translation of “sipi” from English to Filipino is an
added workload to teachers.
Two years after, 2014, the K-12 Curriculum for Social Studies changed. Since
then, the G7SS focused on Asian Nations and its Government, which was previously
under G8SS. The study of Philippine History was transferred to elementary level (Grade
6 and below). However, as a result of change, in June 2014 the Grade 7 and Grade 8
Social Studies students studied the same subject--Asian Nations and its Government.
Still, module for Social Studies was not available. Teachers once again used the old
textbooks and added internet-based information as remedy to the situation. Module for
G7SS became available, two months later, August 2014, but the teachers found out that
module lacked contents.

Why You Conduct the Study

Because of the continuous use of the G7SS Module, the researcher was
challenged to make a research-based assessment for the benefit of the students
studying Asian History, considering that the researcher is teaching Asian History in
DepEd, the researcher opted to conduct research in Enhancing Learning Abilities
among Grade 7 Araling Panlipunan in San Miguel 1 District to answer the following
information’s reflected in the Schematic Diagram of the study below.
I. Components of
Grade 7 Araling
Panlipunan as to:

•Lesson Objectives Abilities of Grade 7

▪general Students for the
▪specific Second Quarter as to:

•Contents of the • Class Participation Enhanced Learning

Lesson Activities Among
• Co-curricular Grade 7 Araling
•Teaching Activities Panlipunan
Strategies
• Community
•Instructional Involvement
Materials Activities

II. Administrative
Support