Abstract Coming-Out from the Comfort Zone: A Qualitative Study on the Lived Experiences of Public Elementary School Teacher-Broadcasters in the New Normal Esther L. Digal, Exelsis Deo A. Deloy estherdigal040394@gmail.com, exelsisdeoastillodeloy@gmail.com Teacher 1, Department of Education, Davao del Norte, Philippines, 8100 Master Teacher II, Department of Education, Davao del Norte, Philippines, 8100 This qualitative-phenomenological study described the lived experiences of Teacher-Broadcasters in Radio and Television- Based Instruction in the New Normal. This study was gleaned on Albert Bandura’s Social Learning Theory, Abraham Maslow’s Humanistic Theory in Psychology, and John Dewey’s Theory of Progressive Education in 1938. The participants of this study were the public elementary school teacher-broadcasters in radio and television-based instruction. Fourteen (14) teachers participated in the in-depth interview and focus group discussion. They were selected using the purposive sampling method. There were challenges emerged namely: struggles for being inexperienced in broadcasting; challenges in facility and technical application; stress, hesitations, and pressures due to overloaded tasks and roles; time constraints and sacrifices along the process; happiness and sense of fulfillment on the experience; and discontentment on the finish product or recording. To address those challenges, they mentioned their ways of coping: doing necessary preparations; having positive disposition; allocating time properly; having cooperation and support among the team; exploring different means to improve quality output; and being open for corrections and improvements. They also cited insights they could share to others: passion towards the task given; provision of resources; provision of trainings and seminars; call for support from members of the academe; and provision of rewards for being broadcasters. With the results, it was revealed that teacher-broadcasters need sufficient training and resources to be able to function effectively on the different roles they portray in broadcasting. They also asked for support from their fellow broadcasters, colleagues, and school heads not just on the material resources but also moral support for the attainment of the purpose of radio and television-based instruction in the new normal. Furthermore, the results emphasized that teachers should be passionate to their profession and tasks given to them so that learners may receive the quality content material that may help them in acquiring the competencies to learn meaningfully. Keywords: lived experiences, teacher-broadcaster, radio and television-based instruction, qualitative-phenomenological study, Tagum City Division INTRODUCTION Teachers provide basic knowledge that students need to survive and to live in society. They teach learners with the utmost care and quality education. In this new normal education, the Department of Education utilizes distance learning modalities such as radio and television-based instruction. It is realized to reach learners with no internet connection and who are from marginalized sectors. With this, some teachers chose to do the broadcasting in response to the need. Teachers found broadcasting a challenge in preparing the content material from broadcasting to video editing due to time constraints, resources, proper venue, support from administration, and teacher's competence and skills. In Jakarta, Indonesia, elementary school teachers use state radio broadcasts by RRI to reach students in their homes during the COVID-19 pandemic. Titis Kartikawati, a teacher, said that not all areas have an internet connection. Therefore, their school utilizes radio to reach students with no television, internet connection, and electricity. She also said that teachers are taking turns making content materials through the broadcast (The Jakarta Post, 2020). Moreover, in the United States, educators look at radio as a possible inexpensive means of redressing educational problems worldwide, such as few trained teachers and too few resources to adapt to the current teaching trend (United States Agency for International Development, 2020). Whereas, in Korea, they utilized television broadcasts to provide students with educational content because they had difficulty using online learning platforms. However, most teachers face challenges in adapting to the new modes of teaching because they are untrained in this new modality (Schleicher, 2020). In the Philippines, particularly in Mandaue City, their division implements radio and television-based instruction to supplement the students' learning resources. Teachers confessed that they find it difficult since it is new, and they do not have any production experience yet. They searched for materials on YouTube to learn about lighting parts to gain insights about the craft. Furthermore, they said they lack training and expressed a need for more workshops to create quality content material (Sagarino, 2020). In the Division of Tagum City, a division memorandum amends the list of the division team in each school to do radio and television-based instruction as stipulated in DM461-09-28-2020. Teachers accepted the challenge; however, there were challenges that they encountered in terms of the preparation, resources, and the allotted time given to create a material. Additionally, they did not undergo intensive screening for qualifications and proper orientations and training regarding the broadcasting, which also added to their anxiety in presenting the material. Studies mentioned above focused on the utilization of broadcasting to teach the learners in coping with the new normal mode of teaching. While the studies concerned particularly on the students' learning during the pandemic, this study concentrated on the experiences of teacher-broadcasters. This study also differs from other studies because of its locality, where most of them were from other localities and countries. In addition, this study is relevant to society's present situation because radio and television- based instruction is one of the modalities offered during this pandemic. This study would give an idea to the higher positions to understand the situations of the teachers who would share their sentiments and to gain insights for improvement. Thus, it urged me to conduct this study in order to understand the lived experiences of the public elementary school teachers on being teacher-broadcasters. This study is timely and needs to be addressed right away to provide proper actions and 276 www.ijrp.org IJRP 2022, 110(1), 276-309; doi:.10.47119/IJRP10011011020223975