GRADE SIX ETHNICITY AND LANGAUGE LEARNING PREFERENCES: TOWARDS DESIGNING LANGUAGE TEACHING PROGRAM

To have an effective learning and teaching English language, the teachers should consider learners' skills and their ethnicity for the reason of language teaching practices needs to be placed on a more secure empirical footing for effective language teaching. Compliant with ethical considerations this descriptive qualitative research was conducted to determine and compare the language learning preferences of grade six pupils and the teaching practices of language teachers. It also determined the pupils' language preference according to their ethnicity. Purposively identified as respondents are the fifty – two (52) English language teachers and seven hundred thirty-three (733) Grade 6 pupils who are identified to be a member of ethnic tribes in Palawan and Puerto Princesa, 13-item questionnaire was adopted to Guia (2018) with computed Cronbach alpha of 0.783. Employing the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software; and, statistical calculations such as frequency count, percentage, Mann – Whitney U test, and Kruskal Wallis. Ethnic groups signified different learning preferences, and significant differences in the preferred learning and teaching practices the responses to the different areas pertaining to English language preferences among ethnic groups are significantly different. The significant differences in the preferred learning and teaching practices exist and almost all of the responses on the different areas pertaining to English language preferences among ethnic groups are significantly different. Ultimately a language teachers training program was developed and will serve as guide for training of language teachers so that their practices match with the pupils' learning preferences.