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LIBRARY
MlChla State
University

 

 

 

This is to certify that the

dissertation entitled

CHANGES IN TEACHING ENGLISH
AFTER THE EDUCATIONAL REFORM IN THAILAND

presented by

Lakhana Prapaisit

has been accepted towards fulﬁllment
of the requirements for

 

 

Ph.D. degree in English

JLAQZ'Y. A/M 5&1cm

Major professor

Date August 2, 2002

 

MS U i: an Afﬁrmative Action/Equal Opportunity Institution 0'1277l

 

 

PLACE IN RETURN BOX to remove this checkout from your record.
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6/01 cJClRC/DaleDue.p65-p.15

CHANGES IN TEACHING ENGLISH AFTER THE EDUCATIONAL REFORM
IN THAILAND

By
Lakhana Prapaisit

A DISSERTATION

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulﬁllment of the requirements
for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
Department of English

2003

 

natit
shall
learn.
lﬁenu

has bt

lntem

thrﬁe II

SUDHar
and lea
acntjuc
difl‘cmm

learner-c

roles 1m

ABSTRACT
CHANGES IN TEACHING ENGLISH AFTER THE EDUCATIONAL REFORM IN

THAILAND

By

Lakhana Prapaisit

Learning reform has been proposed in Thailand as it is clearly speciﬁed in the
national educational act of 1999 that the learning and teaching of all subjects at all levels
shall be based on a leamer-centered approach. A leamer-center approach is new to Thai
learners, teachers and educators who have been familiar to rote learning, and
memorization. Therefore, it is important to investigate how a leamer-centered approach
has been deﬁned and implemented in the classrooms teaching English.

This study used four different methods: document analysis, observations,
interviews and stimulated recalls to triangulate the result of the study. The ﬁndings of the
three research questions are following:

It was found that policy makers, policy distributors, supervisors and teachers had
similar deﬁnitions of a leamer-centered approach. All mentioned that the goal of teaching
and learning was to develop learners to their optimal level. Learning and teaching
activities were designed to meet learner’s needs and interests. However, they all had
different concepts of a leamer-centered approach in terms of the implementation of a
learner-centered approach in the classroom. The policy makers emphasized ﬁve major

roles teachers should take in order to meet learners’ differences. On the other hand, the

Mini
inter;

super

on cl.

three

espee
and C
and ti
were 1

Were r

Englisl

low En

appmm
PTOtjdc
admins
Problen

ennmm

Ministry of Education had its own interpretation of a leamer-centered approach. In this
interpretation, teachers’ roles were decreased and learners’ roles were increased. All
supervisors and teachers received knowledge through policy distributors.

How did these three teachers actually teach English in their classrooms? Based
on classroom interaction patterns in the three classrooms, it was found that none of the
three teachers used group work or pair work, which is the most important feature of
communicative language teaching. The three teachers were highly teacher centered,
especially Teacher A who used 99 % of her class time in whole class activity. Teacher B
and C are less teacher centered because of the effort of decreasing whole class activities,
and the use of activities such as Total Physical Response, and singing. However, they
were trained to use only drill activities not communicative activities; as a result, there
were no communicative activities or communicative tasks.

The use of target language in these three classes was not high. None of them used
English more than 50%. The avoidance of using the target language was due to teachers’
low English proﬁciency, teachers’ lack of conﬁdence, and learners’ low proﬁciency.

These teachers reported these problems in implementation of a leamer-centered
approach: standard of teacher education, knowledge of a learner-centered approach
provided, lack of training for teachers, supervisor qualiﬁcations, amount of
administrative support, proﬁciency of learners. These teachers speciﬁed their personal
problems such as heavy teaching load, low qualiﬁcation and unsupportive working

environment.

 

Ti

at

DC

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

To accomplish the goal of getting a doctoral degree, one needs tremendous help,
support, and love from many people in one’s life. I have been very fortunate to be able to
get all needed from many wonderful people in my life.

Thanks ﬁrst go to the Ministry of University Affairs of Thailand and Prince of
Songkla University for their support. Without them, this research would not have taken
place.

Thanks particularly to my academic advisor, Dr. Debra Hardison, and the
committee members, Dr. Charlene Polio, Dr, Geneva Smitherrnan, and Dr. Douglas
Campbell who have guided this research with their knowledge, wisdom and insight.
Thank you very much.

Many thanks to my supportive and loving family who has taken good care of our
father so that I can continue my education. To Arthur & Chery] Walker, for being the
most wonderful host family that one could have. Thank you all.

Special thanks go to Jose, my husband, for his love, support, and suggestions.
Also to friends who have been so supportive during the long period of taking course work
and ﬁnishing this dissertation.

Finally, thanks to the teachers of English and supervisors of English teachers who

offered their time to participate in this study. Thanks to all.

iv

US
US

CH4

CH:\

CHAP

CHAPn

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF TABLES ........................................................ viii--ix
LIST OF FIGURES ....................................................... x
CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1

1.]. Signiﬁcance of the Study 1
1.2. Reform in Learning and Teaching English 2
1.2. Research Questions 8
1.3.Working Deﬁnition of a Learner-Centered Approach 9

CHAPTER 2 REVIEW OF LITERATURE 11
2.1. English Teaching and the Changes in Thailand 11
2.2.The English Curriculum 14
2.3.Teacher Education in Thailand 22
2.4.The Status of English 28
2.5.Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) 29
2.6.Challenges for Teachers in the Implementation of CLT 36
2.7.A Learner Centered Approach 45

CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY 52
3.1. Thai Administrative System 52
3.2. Participants 55

3.2.1. Background of Participants 55
3.2.2. Details of Participants 63
3.3. Data Collection Techniques 67
3.4. Procedure 71
3.5. Data Analysis 74
3.6. Units of Analysis for Observation 76

CHAPTER 4 FINDINGS OF DOCUMENT ANALYSIS 80
4.]. Findings of Document One 82
4.2. Findings of a Half hour Lecture on 85

a Leamer-Centered Approach

4.3. Findings of a One-Day Conference of
a Leamer-Centered Approach

4.4. Findings of the Publication by the Curriculum
and Instruction Development Department,
the Ministry of Education

CHAPTER 5 OBSERVATIONS AND STIMULATED
RECALL OF THREE TEACHERS

5.1. Findings of Observations and

Stimulated recall of Teacher A

5.1.1. Teacher A’s Observation 1

5.1.2. Teacher A’s Observation 2

5.1.3. Teacher A’s Observation 3

5.1.4. Summary of Teacher A’s Observations
5.2. Findings of Observations and

Stimulated recall of Teacher B

5.2.1. Teacher B’s Observation 1

5.2.2. Teacher B’s Observation 2

5.2.3. Teacher B’s Observation 3

5.2.4. Summary of Teacher B’s Observations
5.3. Findings of Observations and

Stimulated recall of Teacher C

5.3.]. Teacher C’s Observation 1

5.3.2. Teacher C’s Observation 2

5.3.3. Teacher C’s Observation 3

5.3.4. Summary of Teacher C’s Observations

CHAPTER 6 INTERVIEWS WITH TEACHERS AND
SUPERVISORS
6.1. Interviews with Three Teachers
6.1.1. Findings from an Interview with Teacher A
6.1.2. Findings from an Interview with Teacher B

6.1.3. Findings from an Interview with Teacher C
6.2. Interviews with Supervisors

88

90

92

92

93
96
98
98
100

101
105
108
112
112

113
114

115
118

119

119
119
124

128
130

6.2.]. Findings from an Interview with Supervisor 1 131

6.2.2. Findings from Interviews with Supervisor 3

vi

133

 

(Ii

'lee

830:

6.2.3. Findings from an Interview with Supervisor 4 137

6.2.4. Findings from an Interview with Supervisor 5 140

CHAPTER 7 FINDINGS OF RESEARCH QUESTION 1 143

CHAPTER 8 FINDINGS OF RESEARCH QUESTIONS 2 AND 3 162

8.1. Research Question 2 162
8.1.1. Participant Organization in Three Classes 163

8.1.la Teacher A’s class 165

8.1.lb Teacher B’s class 171

8.1.1c Teacher C’s class 176

8.1. 2. Target Language Use in the Classrooms 182
of the Three Teachers
8.1.3. Summary of Findings of Research Question 2 187

8.2. Research Question 3 188
CHAPTER 9 DICUSSION AND PROPOSED PLANS 197
9.1. General Discussion 197
9.2. Proposed Plans for Improvement: 205

Modiﬁcations of Master’s Degree,
Adjustment of Pre-Service Program and Entrance

Examinations.
9.3. Conclusion 209
Appendices .......................................................... 2 l 0
Bibliography ....................................................... 216

vii

LIST OF TABLES

Table 2.2. Details of the English Curriculum of 1996
for Introducing Self and Others

Table3. 1. Schedule for Getting Permission Before
the Observations and Interviews with Teachers
and Supervisors

Table 3.2. Teachers’ Demographic Information

Table 3.3. The Observations of Each Teacher

Table 3.4. Schedule for Observation of Three Teachers
and Interviews with Three Teachers and
Five Supervisors

Table 3.5. Table of Data Collection and Analysis

Table 7.1: Deﬁnition of a Leamer-Centered Approach
by Agents

Table 7.2: The Implementation of Concepts of

18-19

211

64

70

212-213

75

144

146

a Learner-Centered Approach by Policy Makers (ONEC)

and Policy Distributors (MOE)
Table 7.3: Concepts of a Learner-Centered Approach
Perceived by Supervisors and Teachers.

Table 8.1. Percentage of Observed Time for Different

157

163

Participation Patterns of the Classes of the Three Teachers

Table 8.2. Activities used in the Three Classes

viii

18]

Table 8.3. Amount of Target Language (English) and 182
Native Language (Thai) Used by Three Teachers

Table 8.4. Speech Acts Used by Three Teachers 184

ix

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1.1. The Model of How a Leamer-Centered
Approach Is Communicated to Teachers

Figure 2.1. Time Frame for Teaching and Learning English
and Educational Changes in Thailand.

Figure 4.1. Model of How a Learner-Centered Approach
Is Communicated to Teachers.

Figure 4.2: “The Play-Book”, lesson plan from the Ministry

of Education

12

81

87

I
research.
about a It
and uhat
describes
in Thailar

Preparation
1.1.Signiﬁ:

and lelt‘COn

[he IICCd IO

the edUCaIio

1999, Th

e s
all Ie‘I’vlS sha

major 3 amt

““3 sl

Q31

ﬁned and In

Chapter One

Introduction

This chapter is dedicated to the signiﬁcance and background information of this
research. This research was conducted to examine what teacher and teacher trainers think
about a learner centered approach, how grade 5-6 English teachers actually teach English,
and what problems they face when they apply a leamer-centered approach. It ﬁrst
describes the signiﬁcance of the study, then the reform in learning and teaching English
in Thailand. It will describe the drive for education reform in the country, and the

preparation of English teachers for the changes. Finally, it states the research questions.

1.1.Signiﬁcance of the Study
Due to the dramatic changes in globalization, technology, communication,
and telecommunication, including the forceful competition in trade, Thailand has realized
the need to prepare its people to cope with the changes and the competition. To do so,
the educational reform put in place as a national agenda the National Education Act of
1999. The guidelines of the act stipulated that the learning and teaching of all subjects at
all levels shall be based on a Ieamer-centered approach. The Ministry of Education is the
major agent responsible for providing teachers and teacher supervisors who have been
familiar with a teacher-centered approach with the knowledge and teaching skills for a
leamer-centered approach.
This study is designed to investigate how a Ieamer-centered approach has been

deﬁned and implemented in the classrooms teaching English. The ﬁndings will be very

valuabl
of prox
meeting
authorii
make b
to in-se
Enghsh
inform-3
OIht‘r tc

Should I

literatur.

SQUare b

1'2 R81“

C
him." c.
“We 1'
C0mmun:
espects 6

55515171. u

valuable for the researcher, who also works as a teacher educator with the responsibility
of providing learning program and training which is more relevant and effective in
meeting English teachers’ needs in Thailand. This information will also be valuable for
authorities in the Ministry of Education of Thailand and in teacher-training institutions to
make better decisions and give more support in terms of teacher training and workshops
to in-service English teachers of grades 5-6. There is no doubt that Thai learners of
English will beneﬁt the most from the positive changes in classrooms. In addition,
information about these teachers’ problems and accomplishments might be useful to
other teachers and researchers and contribute to a better understanding of how changes
should be introduced and successfully implemented.

Throughout this dissertation, there are many quotes taken from Thai research or
literature; the translation from Thai to English by the researcher will be presented in

square brackets.

1.2 Reform in Learning and Teaching English

Globalization where everyone can reach anyone has resulted in interconnected,
highly complex, and rapid changes in the economics, technology and culture of every
country in the world. In the midst of these changes, English is an important medium of
communication. Thailand has to cope with the demands of these complex changes, and
expects education to help the country to cope with the changes. However, the educational
system, which stresses the importance of memorization, cannot equip Thai people to cope
with changes in society. When one looks particularly at English language teaching and

learning in the country, Thai learners lack the ability to communicate in oral or written

linu‘:
diss;
reali
regii

«E

are
To

mm

the

10 It

English after graduation from universities. These unsuccessful Ieamers have led to the
dissatisfaction with the teaching and learning of English. The Thai government has
realized that the lack of active skills in using English has occasionally put Thailand
regionally and internationally in an inferior position, both in politics and in economics

(The Economist, 1998 p. 43- 44). There has been the realization that educational reform

 

is a must in the country. Wasi (2000) explains that education through rote learning or
focusing only on memorization will not enable Thai people to face and cope with
problems, because focusing only on subject matter separates learning from the realities of
life and the complexities of society. All agencies involving education worked closely to
reform and successfully put in place the National Education Act of 1999. The Act
focuses on two major agenda: learning reform, and administration and management
reform.

Learning reform is the key to this educational reform. A teacher-centered
approach is no longer the desirable approach to prepare Thai people for the new century.
To ensure desirable characteristics of future Ieamers, [“child-centered learning has been
promoted by all educational agencies concemed”] (Ofﬁce of the National Education
Commission, Ofﬁce of the Prime Minister, 2000, p. 104). Figure 1.1 shows the model of
the knowledge of a Ieamer-centered approach set by policy makers, and then distributed

to teachers by the Ministry of Education.

Fi

Teachers

( C

TI
agents. 1
a Ieamers
day COnf
COmI—IODEI
Plugram ‘
on theOre
Minis”), c
011 a 168m
centered a

IUD
’g IQrm

Figure 1.1. The Model of How a Learner-Centered Approach Is Communicated to

Teachers

 

Policy-Maker

Ofﬁce of National Education
commission

(ONEC) Ofﬁce of the Prime Minister

 

 

 

 

 

Policy Distributor to Teachers
Ministry of Education

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TV programs Conferences Publications
Sh term = educators Supervisors Educators
Lng term = leading
teachers
Teachers Teachers Teachers

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

( Sh. stands for short; Lng. for long)

The policy makers set the guiding principle of a leamer-centered approach for all
agents. The Ministry of Education has been responsible for delivering the knowledge of
a leamer-centered approach to teachers through three channels: 1) TV programs, 2) a one
day conference, and 3) a publication. The TV programs consisted of two major
components: The short-term program and the long term programs. The short term
program was aired eight times during Julyl7-September15, 2000, consisting of lectures
on theoretical knowledge of the learning reform by eight different scholars from the
Ministry of Education. One of the eight was particularly focused on how to teach based
on a leamer-centered approach. The long-term programs were examples of a leamer-
centered approach implemented in classrooms by teachers on different subjects. These

long term programs were aired on different television channels many times a week.

4

Tl
provided 1
OIIICC. F:
Departmei

In
encourage
0f age). \I
English te;

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mostly b}-
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EngllSh tre
and had nc
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The second resource was a one-day conference on a learner-centered approach
provided to teachers of all subjects by supervisors at the provincial primary education
ofﬁce. Finally, the third resource was a publication produced by educators from the
Department of Curriculum and Instruction Development, the Ministry of Education.

In addition to the learning reform, since 1995 the Ministry of Education has
encouraged the teaching of English as a foreign language starting from grade 1 (7 years
of age), which had been previously launched and disregarded due to the unqualiﬁed
English teachers.

Before the reform, English language had been taught starting from grade 5,
mostly by teachers who had studied English as a minor or major in college. When
teaching English starting from grade 1 was reinstated, the urgent need was to provide
English training for in-service grade 1-4 teachers who did not have English knowledge,
and had never taught English, and to improve their knowledge of English and their ability
to understand and be able to use a leamer-centered teaching approach.

So far, only grade 1-4 primary English teachers have been provided with the
ofﬁcial training from either the Ofﬁce of Provincial Primary Education or the Ofﬁce of
District Primary Education. English teachers of grades 5-6 have not had the ofﬁcial
training, nor have English teachers in secondary schools. This is in contradiction to the
written policy of the Ministry of Education, which speciﬁcally stated [“all teachers
should have the opportunity to attend an in-service training program at least once every
ﬁve years, ...and in-service curriculum orientation for grades 1 to 6 annually”] (Ofﬁce of
National Primary Education, Ministry of Education, 1997, p. 31-32). An explanation

provided by the supervisors who are in charge of teacher training for English teachers is

 

that [“tht-

 

IXIIIIIIaIIli

10. 2001;

 

sessions c
programs.
education:
to a learns
the result:
satisfactor
towards Ic

Th
had not b
teachers c
had 8“Out
12 The Ii
0f IUD (
EdUCauOr

Si
Edutatmr
learner Ce

leaching

that [“there is no budget left for teacher training for grade 5—6 English teachers”.]
(Nimnamo, L. March 23, 2001; Thammakhawan, K. April 2, 2001; Duangkhan, T. April
10, 2001; Kittiphumchai, Y. April 30, 2001, personal communication)

Although English teachers of grades 5-6 had not been provided with training
sessions on a leamer-centered approach, they were all required to watch the TV
programs, through a distance-leaming project, participate in a one-day conference on
educational reform and the change of learning process from a teacher-centered approach
to a leamer-centered approach. According to the report from the Ministry of Education,
the results of the conference, and the distance learning project through satellite, are
satisfactory. Teachers are more conﬁdent to teach English, and have positive attitudes
towards learning and teaching English (Piandsri, 1998).

The Ofﬁce of National Primary Education realized that grade 5-6 English teachers
had not been ofﬁcially trained after the reform; as a result, in early 1999 all English
teachers of grades 5-6 were required to take an English proﬁciency exam to see if they
had enough knowledge to teach English. The content and level of the exam was of grade
12. The results of the English teachers in the capital area ranged from 35-96 correct out
of 100 (Kittiphumchai, 2001). This result was considered satisfactory (General
Education Department, Ministry of Education, 1997).

Similar to the result of teachers’ English proﬁciency, a report to the Ministry of
Education shows that approximately 74 percent of primary schools report having adopted
learner centeredness (Worawan Na. Ayuthaya, 1996). Moreover, research in the area of

teaching and learning English in the country shows that Thai teachers used a

Commun

1988; Bu

COIIdUCICI
following
Educatior
Provincia?
PPEO we]
in their are
COUIlll'y a
Education.

Th1
(19841 ant

Communicative Language Teaching Approach in their classrooms a great deal (Srisunt,
1988; Buasomboon, 1983; Sudsawad, 1991; Panluck, 1992; Niyamapa, 1995).

On the other hand, the Department of Curriculum and Instruction Development
conducted the national educational quality assessments at primary level (grade 6) on the
following subjects: Thai language, English, Mathematics, Social studies, Work-Oriented
Education, Physical Education, and Management. The standard exam was sent to each
Provincial Primary Education Ofﬁce (PPEO), then the committees appointed by each
PPEO were in charge of the administration of the exam to grade 6 students in each school
in their areas. The results of the exam showed 47.94 percent of all grade 6 students in the
country could not pass the English test (General Education Department, Ministry of
Education, 1997).

The report of this assessment is compatible with Rungnak (1985), Worachaipitak
(1984), and Tirapo (1983), who conﬁrm that grade 6 pupils’ English proﬁciency is poor,
and the number of students who get low grades in English is higher and higher every
year. This should be an indicator that the implementation of leamer—centeredness is not
as effective as reported by Worawan Na. Ayuthaya (1996).

Moreover, the research studies conducted by Srisunt (1988), Sudsawad (1991),
Panluck (1982), Buasomboon (1983), Niyamapa (1995), and Worawan Na. Ayuthaya
(1996), which report that English teachers have used communicative language teaching a
lot, share one common characteristic. The research instruments used were either
questionnaires or interviews. None of these researchers went to English classrooms and

observed how the teachers actually taught in their classrooms.

I'
actually
centered .
passed III
are supp.

i'ocabulai

13 Rese:

Tl

I J

(J)

I _ .

The present study was conducted to investigate how grade 5-6 English teachers
actually teach English, and what teachers and teacher-trainers think about a learner-
centered approach. Grades 5 and 6 were suitable for study because Ieamers had already
passed the preparatory level (grade 1-2) and literacy level (3-4); at grades 5-6, learners
are supposed to be proﬁcient in fundamental English such that they have enough

vocabulary and basic grammar to communicate meaningfully.

1.3 Research Questions
The questions that motivated this study were:
1. What were the conceptions of a leamer-centered approach by policy makers,
teacher training personnel and grades 5-6 English teachers?
0 Were their conceptions of a learner-centered approach similar or
different?
0 What were the similarities or differences?
2. To what degree did grades 5-6 English teachers actually implement a
communicative language teaching approach in their classrooms?
o What were the major characteristics of their teaching?
0 Was it communicative language teaching?
3. What facilitated or hindered teachers in using communicative language
teaching?
There are many types of research methods, and each has different advantages and
disadvantages. This study used four different methods of qualitative inquiry: document

analysis, observations, interviews and stimulated recalls to triangulate the results.

Docume
been de
documer
research
provided
have firs
stimulate
their on
understar

WhICh Iht

1.4.“-0r|

II
a deﬁnlllt
géneral 3
distn'bm0
Olleacher
Slate of C
leameFCe

Th
IeamerTe]
certiﬁed a:

19553L

Document analysis was used to examine how the term “a Ieamer-centered approach” has
been deﬁned by policy-makers and policy-distributors. It particularly focused on
documentary material such as the National Educational Act, the English curriculum,
research studies, reports, books, and video-tapes of short and long distance learning
provided by the Ministry of Education. The observational technique made it possible to
have ﬁrst hand experience of what actually happened in the classrooms. Interviews and
stimulated recall aimed to obtain teachers’ stories from their own unique situations in
their own words and at their own pace. These teachers’ perspectives made an
understanding of the situations clearer, and provided additional information through

which they could voice their opinions.

1.4. Working Deﬁnition of a Learner-Centered Approach

The policy makers, the Ofﬁce of National Education Commission, have provided
a deﬁnition of a leamer-centered approach with speciﬁc requirements of what teachers in
general should and should not do in their teaching. On the other hand, the policy
distributors have their own interpretations of the deﬁnition with different characteristics
of teachers’ and learners’ roles. The concept of a leamer-centered approach has been in a
state of confusion. It is therefore important to provide the working deﬁnition of a
learner-centered approach used in this study.

This study attempted to investigate how English teachers actually implemented a
learner-centered approach in their classrooms; therefore, it used a deﬁnition of a leamer-
centered approach related to communicative language teaching (Nunan, 1985; Savignon,

I983).

 

are prin
commu
compet
tasks. 1
tsorlt.

provide

A learner-centered approach is an approach where leamers’ needs and interests
are primary. Second language Ieamers learn a second language in order to improve their
communicative competence. In a leamer-centered approach, leamers’ communicative
competence is developed through communicative activities or tasks. In these activities or
tasks, Ieamers use English communicatively and meaningfully in pair-work or group-
work. A Ieamer-centered teacher uses English to communicate with learners in order to

provide the most English exposure to them.

10

 

T
the Engli
Thailand
adjustme
English h'
because 0
been Cha
education
elementar}
they have
also PIGSen
the kHOWIe
00mmUm'Ca
Presents t

centerednes

Chapter Two
Review of Literature

This chapter is ﬁrst devoted to an overview of English teaching and changes in
the English curriculum. It will describe the ﬁrst introduction of the teaching of English in
Thailand from 1861 until the present. It illustrates the English curriculum and the
adjustment of the English curriculum over time. However, the teaching and learning of
English has been criticized heavily for its ineffectiveness in producing competent learners
because only the written curriculum, not the teaching behaviors of English instructors had
been changed to cope with social changes. Next, the chapter will describe teacher
education in Thailand which is responsible for producing teachers of English for
elementary and secondary schools. English teachers are expected to change although
they have not been well prepared to do so during their pre-service education. The chapter
also presents the status of English in Thailand where high prestige is given to people with
the knowledge of English, followed by a summary review of the relevant literature of
communicative language teaching and learner-centeredness. Overall, this chapter
presents the recent position of communicative language teaching and leamer-

centeredness in the ﬁeld of teaching and learning a second language.

11

 

2.1

Cha

2.1 English Teaching and the Changes in Thailand

Figure 2.1 Time Frame of Teaching and Learning English and Educational

Changes in Thailand.

~1996 to present Resume English teaching starting from grade 1 in schools
that are ready in terms of English teachers

~1978 English teaching reinstated beginning at grade 5

~1977 Elimination of English teaching in elementary schools

r1962 Primary education including English compulsory for all
children

~1960 English teaching starting from grade 1

~1898 English teaching ﬁrst started in public schools

~1861 English teaching only for the royal family

 

The teaching of English in Thailand started during the reign of King Rama IV
(during 1861-1869), who hired Anna H. Leonowens, an English teacher, and John H.
Chandler, an American teacher, to teach the royal children. The purpose was to
communicate with the imperial troops, maintain the independence of the country, and
pursue higher education abroad with the Kings’ Scholarship (Sawaswadee, 1991). The
teaching method was the Direct Method or Natural Method where the native speakers
used English as the medium of instruction because “[the teacher could not speak Thai
language, the teacher used only English and the text books were all in English]”
(Vachirayanwarorod, 1961). English education was available only to a small group of

people, namely, the royal family.

12

King Ra
conform
tradition
where te
Where na
schools. .
knoxtledg
Speaking

the class

administr.

{Ocused 0

may \t‘ri'
English. 1.
into Thai 2
were addc.
Oiliieramr
Tilt

the people
edUCatiODa
(Dananam
”513011.8in

barely 1mm

The ﬁrst educational reform of Thailand took place in 1892 during the reign of
King Rama V (Danaitamonute, 1999) when the Thai educational system was changed to
conform with the western educational system in which the King had been educated. The
traditional teaching, once performed only in temples and palaces, was moved to schools
where teachers conducted the teaching. The Direct Method was still used in schools
where native speakers taught. In 1898, English was ﬁrst taught by Thai teachers in some
schools, and the Grammar Translation Approach was ﬁrst used as the way to deliver
knowledge. The purpose of learning English was still to get higher education. However,
speaking skills were sufﬁciently emphasized because of the small number of students in
the classrooms (Sawaswadee, 1991). The educational system, once under the
administration of the king, was transferred to the Ministry of Education. The skills
focused on were translation from Thai to English and vice versa, reading, dictation, and
essay writing. Kriangkraipetch (1983) wrote that according to the Act of Testing of
English, Ieamers were tested on the following skills: reading, writing, translating English
into Thai and vice versa, grammar and mathematics. In higher levels, the following skills
were added such as essay writing in English, describing things in English, and knowledge
of literature, commerce and geography.

The second reform took place in 1974, when the ﬁrst constitution was handed to
the people of the country during the reign of King Rama VII. Scholars pleaded for the
educational reform to be compatible with the political and social changes
(Danaitamonute, 1999). The National Education Commission was then formed to take
responsibility for the detailed policy of the reform. However, the written policy was

barely implemented due to the instabilities in the political situation of the country. There

13

“35 F.

inﬁue

used i

ex'ery

l99l).

Act it:

As a re

need It)

was no change in English teaching in schools. The teaching of English was still under the
inﬂuence of the Grammar Translation Approach. In 1952, the Aural-Oral Approach was
used in some schools. Due to the small number of students in a class, it was possible for
every student to practice the language more extensively in classrooms (Sawaswadee,
1991)

In 1962, in accordance with UNESCO’s recommendation, the National Education
Act was launched to have primary education compulsory for all children in the country.
As a result, the number of pupils in each class in the primary level was high, as was the
need for English teachers. Since then, students’ achievement in English has been poor,
especially in listening and speaking skills because of large classes and poorly qualiﬁed

teachers (Sawaswadee, l 991).

2.2. The English Curriculum

In the English curriculum of 1960, English was considered a compulsory subject
in primary education. The major characteristics of English teaching in primary education
were: teacher centeredness, memorizing, passive Ieamers (Sawaswadee, 1991).
Learners’ low proﬁciency in English was the crucial problem in implementing the
English curriculum of 1960. As a result, English was no longer included in the primary
education of 1977 (Phongthongchareon, 1977). However, English was still taught in
higher levels; namely, secondary school level and university level. In 1978, media and
parents who realized the importance of English disagreed with the elimination of English
and protested to have English included in primary education, which led to the English

curriculum of 1978, in which English was taught in the primary education of the country

14

starting
curricula
periods

purposes

(Satt'asu

J

1’.)

 

 

 

starting from grade 5 again (Bonyatirana, 1981; Pongthongchareon, 1982). In the

curriculum of 1978, English classes were increased to 600 periods a year. One hour is 3

periods with 20 minutes for each period (Ministry of Education, 1997). The general

purposes of teaching English were as follows (These purposes were translated from

(Sawaswadee, 1991, p.57):

1.

2.

Learners have knowledge and basic skills of English.

Learners are exposed to language use.

Learners have the basic knowledge to seek further knowledge both inside and
outside schools.

Learners have positive attitudes towards learning English, the international

language.

The speciﬁc purposes of teaching English were that:

1.

2.

5.

Learners have pronunciation skills of English.

Learners understand the relationship between the spelling and pronunciation.
Learners understand and are able to use English structure to listen, speak, read
and write appropriate to their levels.

Learners understand the meaning and are able to use vocabularies appropriate
to their levels.

Learners are able to use dictionaries (Sawaswadee, 1991, p.57).

What was new in the English curriculum of 1978? Communicative Language

Teaching (CLT) was ﬁrst introduced to the English curriculum of Thai education by the

Ministry of Education (Ofﬁce of the National Primary Education Commission, Ministry

of Education, 1997). New materials provided for free to the students were English Is Fun

15

 

 

B 00 l-

Educ

niTh

Buasc
surve)

classrc

the Gra
Changes
teachers
(\aksuk
In
launched
Centered a.
In ”115 CUn

hoursa Vca

The

IOr 6 Year;

ngk I-IV and practice books written in Thai and English published by the Ministry of
Education’s printing house. Teachers were also provided with a teachers’ manual written
in Thai and English with details on how to teach English communicatively.

To what extent has CLT been implemented in the classrooms? Panluck (1982),
Buasomboon (1983), Srisunt (1988), Sudsawat (1991), and Niyamapa (1995) who
surveyed English teachers and principals report that English teachers used CLT in their
classrooms a great deal. These researchers used only a self-report technique; none of
them observed the actual English classrooms reported by those teachers and school
principals.

CLT has been the written goal of teaching English for many years, but in reality,
the Grammar Translation Approach has been widely practiced (Sawadwadee, 1991).
Changes have existed only in the English curriculum. In the classrooms, some English
teachers still teach the way they are familiar with; namely reading and translating
Waksuk, 1984; Namphet, 1986)

In 1996, in preparation for the education reform, the Ministry of Education
launched a new policy to teach English starting from grade 1, and to use a leamer-
centered approach as the principle of teaching and learning all subjects including English.
In this curriculum, grades 1-4 students learn English 80 hours a year, and grades 5-6 200
hours a year.

The English curriculum of 1996 for the primary education, which has been used
for 6 years, was written in a very general fashion claiming that each school could apply it

to suit its own speciﬁc Ieamers. The purposes of teaching English with the new principle

16

of tc.‘

(Tran

Englisl
The on
Principj

CUrn'cul

of teaching English for all primary education level (grades 1-6) are that Ieamers will

(Translated from the Ministry of Education, 1996, p. 9):

l.

2.

5.

6.

Be able to communicate correctly and appropriately,

Have sufﬁcient basic knowledge of English used in higher education or the
workplace,

Be able to communicate in English in simple situations such as role-play or
authentic situations,

Know and understand the English speaker’s culture,

Pursue knowledge of English by reading additional English books, and

Have positive attitudes towards English.

There is not much change in terms of the purpose of teaching English in the

English curriculum of 1996, because it is only a slightly revision of the 1978 version.

The only addition is the use of the phrase “a leamer-centered approach”. The revised

principles of learning and teaching English for primary education speciﬁed in the

curriculum of 1996 are (Translated from the Ministry of Education, 1996, p. 13):

1.

2.

Use a leamer-centered approach,

Provide a variety of authentic and communicative activities, and

Focus on listening and speaking skills at the preparatory level (G.l-2);
listening, speaking, reading, writing and spelling skills at the literacy level
(G.3-4); and communicating in four skills at the beginner fundamental level

(G.5-6).

The activities suggested are games, role-plays and information transfer. The

instructional media recommended are videotapes, tape cassettes. real materials, word-

17

cards. >
Clll‘lltllll'
positiye

l
primary
language
introducn
pCIIIIISSlt"
functions
details of
introducin

Ia?

 

Others

. LCI'CIS

l

l

 

cards, sentence-cards, pictures and models. The content related to pupils’ lives or
environment, and communication in real life situations have been encouraged to create a
positive learning environment among young Ieamers (Ministry of Education, 1996).

The English curriculum of 1996 mentions what language functions learners of
primary education should have after ﬁnishing the 6 years of learning English. These
language functions for all levels of the primary education are: greetings, leave taking,
introducing self and others, thanking, apologizing, interrupting politely and asking
permission. All levels from grades 1-6 are expected to possess the same language
functions. For example, introducing self and other is speciﬁed in the English curriculum
of 1996 as the language functions for all levels of primary students. Table 2.2 shows the
details of language structure and expression, and language activities recommended for
introducing self and others for grades 1-6.

Table 2.2. Details of the English Curriculum of 1996 for Introducing Self and

 

 

 

Others
Levels Language structure and expression Language activities
recommended.

Grades 1-2 I am X -Songs: “Can you tell me what
I’m X your name is?” and “This is a
A: Hello. lam A chair”
B: Hello. Iam B —Puppet
This/ That is X -Pair-work
My name is X

Grades 3-4 I am X -Audio tapes

 

 

 

 

 

18

K

1 Grades :

 

This
elementary
ltachﬁs Vt}
Clcaﬂy‘ IOr

grade 2 Stud

 

I’m X

A: Hello. I am A

B: Hello. I am B

-Videos

—Pictures

-Masks

 

 

 

 

This/ That is X -Song “Hello”, Can you tell me
My name is X what your name is?
-Role-play
-Read, and copy.
Grades 5-6 I am X -Audio tapes
I’m X -Videos
A: Hello. I am A -Pictures
B: Hello. I am B -Reading
This/ That is X -Pair—work
My name is X -Group-work

-Total physical response

activities.

 

 

This curriculum contains a list of skills, structures and vocabularies for
elementary Ieamers. However, the English curriculum of 1996 is not so helpful for
teachers who want to design courses and teaching materials because it doesn’t specify
clearly, for example, what a grade ﬁve student can do with English differently from a

grade 2 student in introducing self and others in English. From Table 2.2, leamers’ skills

 

of intri
letels.
be intrt

places.

repeatly
commit
leyels o
expressic
PIOIICICIII
different ,
FOI exam
different 5
Of leamm
expenenct
llIlOWs" (p
In
Or pmllde
Cenlercd
UlldCrSIand
Meyed 5
the En

Ellsl

Cumcmum

of introducing self are not developed to a higher level as the Ieamers move to higher
levels. If introducing self has been extensively studied since grade 1-4, Ieamers should
be introduced to language skills of a higher level such as introducing interesting persons,
places, stories and etc.

During 6 years of studying English, Ieamers learn seven language ﬁtnctions
repeatly. Repetition is important in language learning because it allows Ieamers to
commit the knowledge to long-term memory. The same language functions recur in all
levels of primary education; however, more complicated language structure and
expression should be developed as learners move to a higher level. Moreover, leamers’
proﬁciency are not developed to the point at which they can use the language freely in
different contexts or integrated with other language skills such as reading, and writing.
For example, Ieamers need to know how to apologize in a variety of situations with
different situations or registers. As Widdowson (1979) argues in his paper, “the process
of learning a foreign language should be presented not as the new knowledge and
experience but as an extension or alternative realization of what the learner already
knows” (p. 71).

In this curriculum of 1996, there have been no speciﬁc textbooks recommended
or provided. Teachers are expected to produce their own materials based on a leamer-
centered approach. Research shows that English teachers have problems in
understanding and using the English curriculum (Limlek, 1998). Panluck (1992)
surveyed school administrators and English teachers about problems they face in using
the English curriculum, and found that teachers’ lack knowledge in interpreting the

curriculum and do not understand the English curriculum. As a result, they cannot

20

prod
adeq‘
to bt
teach
and u
the hi
l99h
wnmi
as the
centerc

Cumcu

Since Ill
anary
Ieddmc.
I'Ocatioi
Schools

“thh n

produce teaching materials to suit their own students. Moreover, schools do not have
adequate resources for teachers to prepare their teaching materials or lesson planning due
to budgetary constraints. As a result, English 1s Fun has been widely used among
teachers of grade 5-6 although it has been criticized negatively for its lack of authentic
and up to date contents, the wrong sequence of difﬁculty of the lessons and activities, and
the inappropriateness of the contents and activities for Ieamers of grades 5-6 (Sudsawat,
1991). It can be concluded that there have been no major changes in the English
curriculum of 1996, only that learner-centeredness has been speciﬁed in the curriculum
as the principle of learning and teaching. The most important feature of leamer-
centeredness is that learners’ needs will be taken into account in every phase of the
curriculum process (Nunan, 1988).

English has not been considered a compulsory course in the primary education
since the English curriculum of 1978 due to the lack of qualiﬁed English teachers. Any
primary school can choose whether to teach English or vocational skills depending on the
readiness of the school. However, most schools choose to teach English rather than
vocational skills because of budget constraints. To teach vocational skills to students,
schools need to hire at least a new vocational teacher, and buy new tools and machines
which most schools can’t afford to do. Teaching English is more cost-effective for these
schools because English class minimally requires only chalk, black board, and a teacher
who may or may not be qualiﬁed to teach. Moreover, as English is not a compulsory
subject, it has not constituted part of the evaluation criteria for passing to the next grade,

and it is no longer a subject for entrance examination to middle and secondary schools,

21

but ll ls

Enghsh;

23.Teat
(3
quahﬁcat

l

 

I¢J

but it is for entrance to a university. Therefore, students must get the knowledge of

English if they want to continue to study in universities.

2.3. Teacher Education in Thailand

Generally, the teacher education system in Thailand is divided into four levels of

qualiﬁcation.

1. The certiﬁcate level is a two-year program, training students beyond grade 10
who intend to teach at primary level grades 1-6. Students are not trained to
teach any speciﬁc subjects.

2. The higher certiﬁcate level (Diploma level) is a two-year program for
certiﬁcate holders. Graduates of this level are qualiﬁed to teach at both the
elementary and lower secondary school levels. (Grade 7-9) Students can
choose their majors such as English, Math, Science and etc.

3. The bachelor’s degree level is a four-year program, offered after completion
of grade 12 or a two-year program after the completion of training for high
certiﬁcate holders. All majors are available, including teaching English as a
foreign language.

4. At the graduate level, there is a Master’s degree program, requiring two years
of graduate study, available in major universities. The graduates of the
Applied Linguistics programs tend not to teach in primary schools, but in
higher education. The doctorate in Applied Linguistics has not been available
in the country.

The following are courses at the bachelor’s degree level:

22

Thai. 1
either ir
Enghsh

leaching
Peleepnc
EffI‘K‘Iiyer
enough It

resehjng '

1. General education: education, psychology, philosophy, and
philosophy of education, educational psychology, general methods
of teaching classroom research. The medium of instruction is
Thai.

2. Major topics: Grammar, reading, composition, conversation,
translation, English literature, language laboratory work, English
western culture, ﬁrst and second language acquisition theories,
methods of foreign language teaching, research on foreign
language teaching and learning. English is not always used as the
medium of instruction. Some instructors use Thai as the medium
of instruction.

3. Related areas: linguistics, psycholinguistic, socio-linguistics,
sociology, arts communication, and non-verbal communication.
English may be used in some subjects.

The language of instruction of most subjects in the teaching English major is
Thai. These teacher education students do not have much chance to interact in English
either inside or outside the classrooms; therefore, English teachers who have majored in
English have been criticized for being poorly qualiﬁed in English proﬁciency and
teaching methodology. Unyakiat (1991) studied Thai secondary school EFL teachers’
perceptions of their preparation to teach English. Participants’ ratings of the
effectiveness of their college preparation revealed that they have not been prepared well
enough to teach a foreign language during their years as student teachers. They report

receiving only minimal preparations in the following courses: in writing research papers,

23

 

oral p
langua
foreigr
mnpha
unninn
langua
cmnmt
foHoui

ﬁlnian

men 11
teacher
behaxie
01insu

queSIIO

oral presentation, idiom/register, foreign language acquisition theories, and second
language acquisition theories. The topic which receives the lowest rating is research in
foreign /second language teaching and learning. The results of teacher self ratings on the
emphasis of topic in the English methods classes reveal four topics which received only
minimal emphasis: designing communicative curricula, identifying students’ foreign
language needs, diagnosing students’ learning problems, and progress in constructing
communicative tests. Teachers report that there is not enough emphasis placed on the
following teaching strategies: discussion, simulation, role-play, and language games, and
ﬁlm and videotapes in foreign language teaching.

Research about teaching behavior in teacher education institutions shows that
even in the teaching method courses in teacher education institutions, instructors in
teacher’s colleges spend most of the time lecturing. Srisan (1979) who studied teaching
behavior of instructors in morals in the Certiﬁcate of Education level, found that the ratio
of instructors and students’ talking were 77.81:l3.51. Mostly instructors used closed
questions 11.28 percent and divergent questions 0.07 percent.

Wongyunoi (1975) studied the lecture behavior of history instructors in a Thai:
university. He found that in lecturing, instructors used the time as follows: giving
information 51.59 percent, giving viewpoints 25.47 percent, asking closed questions 8.44
percent, accepting students’ viewpoint 5.93 percent, stimulating students 2.75 percent,
asking divergent questions 2.63 percent, giving direction 2.55 percent, rejecting students’
opinion 0.64 percent. The researcher proposed that instructors should reduce time for

information giving and increase time for discussion.

24

Thailan.
institute
theoretic
teaching
reported
their trai
teaching
experient

OICUlTic:

for better
made suc
institution
cem’ficatit
Snnakan'n
leachEr C(i
teacher ed
Improye Ii:
to improve
on empiric,-
teacher Gen:

no docUmmi

 

According to the report from the seminar of Problems of Teacher Education in
Thailand during April l9—20 at Pitsanulok in 1982, instructors in the teacher education
institutes do not know how to teach primary and secondary schools. They focus on
theoretical knowledge rather than empirical knowledge, and lecture is the common
teaching method used in all subjects. Most English teachers in elementary schools
reported that they have not acquired sufﬁcient knowledge of teaching methods during
their training as student teachers, nor do they know how to coordinate methods of
teaching with the materials. They do not have chances to actively participate in a teaching
experience or practice teaching under the supervision of subject instructors (Department
of Curriculum and Instruction, Faculty of Education, Srinakarinwirot University, 1976).

There has been a cry for improvement in Thai teacher education programs, and
for better graduates from teacher education programs. So far minor changes have been
made such as the increase both qualitatively and quantitatively in teacher education
institutions. Instructors in teacher education institutions possess higher degrees and
certiﬁcation (Department of Curriculum and Instruction, Faculty of Education,
Srinakarinwirot University, 1976). During July 14-30, 1999, instructors for all eight
teacher colleges and all agents involved in teacher education met in order to improve
teacher education programs in accord with the education reform. Many measures to
improve the teacher education programs have been proposed. Among them are proposals
to improve the teacher curriculum to suit the changes in the society, to put more weight
on empirical knowledge, to reduce some irrelevant required courses, to stop using a
teacher centered approach, and to replace it with a leamer-centered approach. There are

no documents to indicate how many ideas have been put into practice.

25

 

one-
deal
toin
teacl
comi

IESL‘CI

many
knou.

inthe

gradue
leachir
ellgllie
alllact
quahﬁc
knoulc
Cum’Cul
educallc
IOI' [edcj

medIUm

Unyakiat (1991) proposed a ﬁve-year program for training Thai EFL teachers. A
one-year period of practical training is added in order to help each prospective teacher
deal with real problems which exist in classrooms, and they will also have an opportunity
to implement their own solutions with constructive criticism while they are developing
teaching skills. A one-year period is for preparation of knowledge and linguistic and
communicative skills in English and related teaching disciplines, conducting classroom
research and maximizing communicative and meaningful teaching experience.

Onkokesoong (1990) interviewed 201 undergraduate students after ﬁnishing their
teaching practicum and workshop. The results show that teacher education students face
many problems during their practicum. For example, they cannot put their theoretical
knowledge into practice. They do not have teaching skills. They think that some courses
in the teacher program do not help them.

In my opinion, a ﬁve-year program for EFL teachers is not cost-effective if these
graduates are going to work and get salaries equal to the four-year graduates. Now,
teaching professionals are already being paid less than other professionals such as
engineers and doctors. As a result, there is the potential that the EFL programs will not
attract highly qualiﬁed teacher students. A four year program could prepare well
qualiﬁed EFL teachers who are proﬁcient in the target language and target culture
knowledge and who possess professional skills required of every EFL teacher if the EFL
curriculum and programs are revised. The problem is that instruction in the teacher
education institutes does not a) emphasize pragmatism over theory, b) allow more time
for teacher students to actively participate in teaching experience, c) use English as the

medium of instruction, (1) make adjustments on courses, e) reduce the numbers of

26

 

overlap
educaut
professr

develop

institute
1997).
Ministry
and duri:
in prima
There is
institute,
Thereforc
and they
Including
Th
IIOWeVeL I
Olthe lord
Education.
in‘Seﬁ’lce 1
Droyide Ital

Improve the

overlapping subjects such as psychology, philosophy, philosophy of education, and
educational psychology, f) reduce the number of general subjects, and g) increase more
professional courses such as teaching listening and speaking skills, task design and task
development, and communicative language testing.

The Ministry of Education has about 531,072 teachers in all public education
institutes of which 355,298 are teachers at the primary level (Ministry of Education,
1997). A report shows that the number of retired teachers (at the age of 60) in the
Ministry of Education is low. During 1985-1989 about 4,001 teachers retired each year,
and during 1990-1994 about 3,354 teachers each year. A majority of in-service teachers
in primary school are at the age of 40+ and have been teaching more than 15 years.
There is a huge number of new graduates from teacher colleges and teacher education
institute, but only 5 percent of them can get teaching jobs per year (Jampathong, 1987).
Therefore, a great number of in-service teachers have graduated more than 20 years ago,
and they desperately need improvement and training in new teaching approaches,
including communicative language teaching.

The Ministry of Education does provide training programs for in-service teachers;
however, the personnel development training programs cater to approximately 11 percent
of the total number of in-service teachers annually (about 40,000 teachers) (Ministry of
Education, 1997). Teacher education institutes should take a new major step in helping
in-service teachers who are currently in the education system. These institutes can
provide training programs or more ﬂexible and practical courses for in-service teachers to

improve their knowledge of teaching English and qualiﬁcations.

27

 

 

 

2.4. Tht

oﬂhaal
hudgn
301111)" It
lt'llOltletl
understa:
Educatio
the unit e

In
100] 10 g;
etaminati

Children

 

lleananmI
children C:

II.
aliter schm

can affOId

bit? A

e \llleg‘ E
316nm SCI
om,

millage of

2.4. The Status of English

Thailand is a monolingual country where standard Thai is the sole national and
ofﬁcial language. English has been recognized as the most important and most popular
foreign language. According to the Educational Development Plan 8 (1997-2001), the
ability to communicate in English is a necessary qualiﬁcation of Thai people because this
knowledge helps Thai people to communicate with the world and build a better
understanding in the age of globalization (General Education Department, Ministry of
Education, 1997). Due to this realization, English has been taught starting from grade 1 to
the university since 1996.

In the Thai society, English has been the prestige language, and considered as a
tool to get higher education and a better job. It is required knowledge for the entrance
examination to universities. Many parents are willing to work hard to educate their
children in expensive schools where English is taught starting in kindergarten
(Jearranaipreparame, 1999). Parents want their children to learn English so that their
children can get good future careers, and higher education (Boonthum, 1995).

There are many private English language schools which provide English courses
after school starting from beginning to advanced levels for any children whose parents
can afford it. Recently, a few private bilingual schools have started their business in all
big cities, and the response from the parents is very impressive. Many wealthy children
are now sent to bilingual schools to learn English.

Outside the classroom, although English is the prestige language, it is not the

language of communication among Thai people. It is not part of daily life in Thailand. It

28

 

 

into

mos

is the most popular foreign language used only by certain groups of people who have to
communicate with foreigners in major cities. There are three English newspapers (The
Nation, The Bangkok Post and The Business Day) and a few English magazines
(Reader’s Digest, Asia Week, and etc). English radio programs mostly are available in
big cities or tourist locations. Recently, due to satellite technology, there have been some
English television channels airing famous television programs from American networks
such as CNN, NBC, ABC and MTV. However, they are available only to certain groups
of people who can understand English, and can afford the high cable fees. All these
English language media, such as newspapers, television and radio, target foreigners and
the elite who graduate from schools abroad.

In general, foreign movies such as American and European movies are translated
into the Thai language. Only in big cities and tourist locations are English-speaking

movies with Thai subtitles available.

2.5 Communicative Language Teaching (CLT)

Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) is an approach which emphasizes that
the goal of language learning is communicative competence, that is, the ability to
communicate in social contexts appropriately (Richards, Platt and Weber, 1985; Nunan,
1988; Yalden, 1981; Savignon, 1983). However, CLT has been interpreted differently in
language learning situations due to the difﬁcult relationship between two elements:
namely, grammar and communication. When CLT was ﬁrst introduced during the 19705,

it focused on ﬂuent conversation. During the 19803, it expanded to include the social

29

 

 

aspect .

C II.

in CII

ability ..

 

while II_
llIlpOIltt‘

commu:

classrot'i;
social {13
Interactit
langUagC

Thailand

 

Heeling.
been Spec
the classn

II
WhOSe III}
at the 1th

Ihleaiemn

SIIUaUOn.

aspect of communication, and during the 19905, the grammatical aspect was included in
CLT.

Howatt (1984) suggests that it is possible to consider a ‘strong’ and a ‘weak’ line
in CLT. The strong version of communicative language teaching focuses on language
ability as being developed through activities which actually simulate target performance,
while the weak version includes teaching grammatical knowledge, and stresses the
importance of providing Ieamers with opportunities to use their English for
communicative purposes.

One of the advocates of the strong version is Paulston (1974), who argues that
classroom activities to improve communicative competence should emphasize more the
social aspect of language use. The goal of language teaching is to provide successful
interaction in the target culture with a focus on meaning. The social aspect is important to
language acquisition, and the English cuniculum of 1996 for primary education in
Thailand realized this importance by including skills such as addressing persons,
greeting, taking leave, introducing self and other, thanking and etc. However, what has
been speciﬁed in the curriculum is not guarantee that it will actually be implemented in
the classrooms.

The earliest prominent advocate of the strong version of CLT is Krashen (1985)
whose Input Hypothesis states that acquisition takes place when Ieamers understand input
at the level which is slightly beyond the leamers’ present linguistic competence in a non
threatening learning environment. Learners understand the input by using cues in the

situation. Eventually, Ieamers are able to produce the target language naturally. This

30

 

 

 

hypoth

(see M.

teachin 1.
learners
did not
classes.
somethi:

learners

 

 

classrooi
has beer
linou'led
Situation
result m
det'eIOpc

I
With the
been Cal]

COmlli‘ter

hypothesis has been criticized widely for its lack of speciﬁcity and theoretical foundation
(see McLaughlin, 1987; White, 1988).

In my experience as a teacher, the strong version of communicative language
teaching was adapted in some advanced listening and speaking courses in Thailand. Thai
Ieamers complained of having nothing to cling to after English class. They felt that they
did not learn anything because they could not remember what they had practiced in
classes. For example, there were more than ten ways to request someone to do
something, and they all used different syntactic rules. It was quite impossible for EFL
Ieamers to remember them all after class with the limited use of English outside the
classrooms. These learners need some language structure to help them to remember what
has been practiced in the classrooms, and this structure helps them to retrieve the
knowledge, and to communicate it later when it is needed. On the other hand, in an ESL
situation, communicative language teaching with the emphasis on communication may
result in “terminal 2+” syndrome, i.e., a learner whose communicative ability is highly
developed, but whose grammatical development is retarded (Hi ggs & Clifford, 1982).

During the last decade, there has been a signiﬁcant shift due to the dissatisfaction
with the results of the strong version of communicative language teaching. There have
been calls for changes to include grammatical knowledge in developing communicative
competence (Canale & Swain, 1980, Celce-Murcia, 1991; Celce-Murcia et a1, 1997;
Rutherford, 1987; Savignon, 1983, 1990; Scarcella & Oxford, 1992; Schmidt, 1993).
Grammar helps language learning (Gass, 1997).

Canale and Swain (1980) take a broader view of communicative competence.

Communicative competence is the ability not only to apply the grammatical rules of a

31

language in order to form grammatically correct sentences but also to know when and
where to use these sentences appropriately and with whom. Canale and Swain’s notion
of communicative competence includes:

a. Grammatical competence: the use of appropriate grammar,
vocabulary and pronunciation;

b. Sociolinguistic competence: the use of style, register, and
intonation in appropriate contexts and settings;

c. Discourse competence: the ability to maintain cohesion in form
and coherence of thought in a given context such as knowing
how to use and respond to different types of speech acts, such
as requests, apologies, expressions of gratitude, and invitation;

(1. Strategic competence: the use of verbal and non-verbal
communication strategies to compensate for imperfect
knowledge of rules.

Savignon (1972) takes an interactive view of language learning. She describes
communicative competence as the ability of language Ieamers to interact with other
speakers, to make meaning. She argues that the ability to convey meaning is to
successfully combine knowledge of linguistic and sociolinguistic rules in communicative
interaction (1971). Similarly to Canale and Swaine (1980), she states that
“communicative competence requires not only grammatical, but discourse, socio-
linguistic, and strategic competence” (Savignon, 1990, p. 207). Communicative
competence also includes “functional language proﬁciency; the expression,

interpretation, and negotiation of meaning involving interaction between two or more

32

per SCI

and a

semar
incorp
becon

gramr

(I971

persons belongs to the same (or different) speech community..., or between one person
and a written or oral text” (Savignon, 1997, p. 272).

Savignon (1983) calls it language analysis where language rules are presented in
semantic and sociolinguistic contexts. In recent years, the weak version that also
incorporates elements of structural practice and grammar teaching into their classes has
become more or less accepted practice because it successfully synthesizes both
grammatical knowledge and communicative principles.

What are teachers expected to do when they implement CLT? Based on Savignon
(1971, 1990), I interpret that teachers should do the following four:

1. Focus both on function and form.

Research and experience have shown that either overemphasis or ignoring the
teaching of grammatical rules does not produce satisfactory communicative competence.
Therefore, grammar should not be excluded in communicative language classrooms.
However, how should grammar be taught? Clearly, the goal of language learning in the
communicative classroom is to facilitate Ieamers to understand and make meaning. They
should be allowed to use language forms in social contexts where the functions of
language such as giving commands, asking questions, and giving information can be
practiced. In order to incorporate both the form and function of language, teachers can
use either deductive or inductive approaches to present the language rules. Littlewood
(1981) suggests an interesting idea that drill and controlled practice still have a valid
place in the language class as pre-communicative activities which provide Ieamers with
the warm up skills for more communicative language tasks. Ellis (1995) suggests that

interpreting input is necessary for Ieamers because this helps them to notice grammatical

33

feature
input‘
grantni
(19931
(contei
unneg
focuse
aduhlt
I'IOWci
becaus
anahz
eﬁkje

m0\‘er_

langu3

th t
ame;
panic.
Oppon

”On-tit.

dreSSln

features in the input, comprehend their meanings, and compare the forms present in the
input with those occurring in learner output. He believes that explicit teaching of
grammar is helpful because explicit knowledge helps Ieamers obtain intake. VanPatten
(1993) suggests two instructions : word order strategy and learner’s attention to meaning
(content words) and elements of high communicative value. In his argument, these two
strategies should be introduced during input by using processing mechanisms, and
focused practice. Instructions introduced by Ellis and VanPatten are more relevant to
adult Ieamers who tend to learn better if deductive grammar teaching is provided to them.
However, for younger Ieamers, the inductive approach is more often recommended
because through the problem solving approach to rule generations, learners develop by
analyzing language data on their own. This will help them to communicate more
efﬁciently. Exercises beyond the sentence level, language games involving physical
movement, and group interaction are also highly recommended for young learners.

2. Provide communicative tasks or communicative activities for meaningful
language use.

Savignon (1990) suggests that task-based programs and content-based programs
with the use of role-plays, games, and other communicative activities are ideally
appropriate to the attainment of communicative competence. This is enhanced through
participating in communicative tasks and activities because they give learners
opportunities for language use, interpretation, expression and negotiation of meaning in a
non-threatening atmosphere which helps language acquisition.

Long and Crookes (1992) deﬁne a task as functions such as “ painting a fence,

dressing a child, ﬁlling out a form, buying a pair of shoes, making an airline

34

reservation...ln other words, a task is meant to be the hundred and one things people do
in every day life at work, at play, and in between. Tasks are the things people will tell
you they do if you ask them and they are not applied linguists” (p.89). Long and
Crookes’ deﬁnition is suitable for beginning levels of Thai Ieamers because it emphasizes
the authentic day-to-day activities when people use the language. In this sense,
pedagogic tasks for beginning level in Thailand, such as grades 5 and 6, should include
authentic everyday activities such as doing things around the home, school, and
community, shopping, traveling, running errands, leisure time and hobbies. These
activities can deal with people and their immediate environment such as self, friends,
families, others, home, everyday tasks, and chores, food, and eating, parts of the body,
health, illness, hobbies and so on.

3. Use English as the medium of instruction and communication.

In order to provide more opportunities for purposeful English use, the routine
instruction and communication in classes should be in English; therefore, immediate
needs for using English exist. However, when teachers and students share the same
native language as in Thailand, covering the material in English is considered more
cumbersome than in the native language. The beginning Ieamers in a second language
deﬁnitely do not speak or understand the second language. Therefore, code mixing and
code switching are normal phenomena in English classrooms in monolingual situations.
However, as Ieamers are moving along their zone of proximal development, the distance
between leamers’ actual development level, representing what Ieamers can do, and the
potential development level, representing what Ieamers should be able to do in the future

(Vygotsky, 1978), the amount of code mixing and code switching should be reduced.

35

4. Respect and support learners.

It is important that in language classrooms, teachers recognize that Ieamers are in
the process of their development. They have the capacity and potential to develop their
English proﬁciency if teachers provide them a learning atmosphere which is suitable for
language acquisition. Second language Ieamers always experience anxiety and loss of
self-esteem when they are not able to communicate adequately in a second language
(Schumann, 1975). Therefore, teachers should provide a learning environment where
Ieamers are conﬁdent to use the second language, and feel encouraged rather than
inhibited to express themselves in the second language. Learners should feel that they
have teachers as their supporters in their Zone of Proximal Development. Verbal rewards
and other supportive expression and gestures such as smiling should be given to Ieamers

frequently. Class environment should be relaxed, not tense.

2.6. Challenges for Teachers in the Implementation of CLT

What problems did Thai teachers have when implementing CLT? The word CLT
was ﬁrst used in the English curriculum of 1978; however, the actual implementation of
CLT has not been highly successful. CLT has been partially adopted in very few leading
schools in urban areas where teachers have been trained abroad. Most teachers still use
the Grammar Translation Approach, with which they are familiar. At the same time, the
Grammar Translation Approach seems to satisfy most Ieamers whose needs are to pass
the exam or to meet the requirements of the program in which English is compulsory
(Burnaby & Sun, 1989; Li, 1999; Vacharaskunee, 2000). This reason may be because

there is no immediate need for Ieamers to use English to communicate outside the

36

classroom in EFL situations such as in Thailand, where Thai is the national language and
the language of wider communication.

On the other hand, even with the realization that there is no immediate need for
Ieamers to use English outside the classrooms, the need for learning English for
elementary pupils stated by the Ministry of Education is still to be able to communicate
in English (Ministry of Education, 1996, p. 15). There is a mismatch between leamers’
need, and the needs set for Ieamers by the Ministry of Education. Although English is
not part of testing in entrance examinations to middle and secondary schools, all students
who pass the entrance examination to secondary schools are required to take placement
tests in English.

English is part of the entrance examination to both private and state universities in
Thailand. There is an attempt to provide the immediate communicative needs for
Ieamers studying English by designing exams to be more communicative. However,
from my experience as a teacher of English in a university, this attempt may be truly
practiced only in the entrance examination to universities. It is a written exam designed
by Thai instructors of English in advanced universities of the country. These instructors
were trained in TESOL or Applied Linguistics at major universities in the US, Europe,
Australia and New Zealand. They know how to write more communicative English
exams. However, Thai teachers of English at elementary and secondary schools may not
have the knowledge or skill to write communicative tests. As a result, many tests still
assess leamers’ ability to remember discrete points. As a result, elementary students still
study English in order to get high scores on the exam which in turn causes another

obstacle to the implementation of CLT in the country.

37

The most profound problem of teaching English in Thailand is the lack of well-
qualiﬁed teachers (British Council, 1977; Choradol, 1986; Kan-in, 1982; Naksuk, 1984).
They are not able to cope with the CLT demands of using English as the medium of
instruction in order to provide language exposure for Ieamers. This problem is common
among EFL teachers. Burnaby and Sun (1989) report that Chinese teachers of English
have difﬁculties in applying CLT in their classrooms. One of the reasons cited is English
teachers’ deﬁciencies in oral English, and sociolinguistic and strategic competence. This
ﬁnding corresponds with Li (1999). In Li’s (1999) study, South Korean teachers report
that deﬁciency in spoken English is a major difﬁculty in applying CLT.

Studies conducted to evaluate communicative competence show that
communicative competence of senior students majoring in teaching English is low
(Pomwiboon, 1993; Wongsothon, 1989; Wongrukmitre 1986). These students are going
to graduate and become English teachers in schools. In Pomwiboon’s study on English
teaching senior students in major universities in Thailand, the raw scores on

communicative competence of the best students are just a little higher than the median,
and the most distinguishing aspect is that scores on sociolinguistic knowledge are lower
than other knowledge such as propositional knowledge and functional knowledge.
Therefore, these students majoring in teaching English are not able to communicate in
English well enough to be models in language classrooms.
The qualiﬁcation of teachers of English in the EFL situation seems to be an
important issue in the implementation of CLT. As a learner and a teacher of English in an
EFL situation, I assume that these teachers are the products of the grammar translation

approach where learning English meant being able to read rather than to communicate in

38

English. At the same time, the linguistic environment of EFL situations like that in
Thailand does not offer teachers many opportunities to be able to advance their English
proﬁciency. Teachers have few chances to be exposed to authentic English.

However, teachers’ low qualiﬁcations are not the only reason that they do not use
the target language in their classrooms. In Vacharaskunee’s (2000) study, Thai teachers
of English report that they avoid using English in their classes because of their low
English proﬁciency and leamers’ low English proﬁciency. Other major reasons for their
avoidance of using English in their classrooms include teachers’ language anxiety,
students’ objectives for studying English to pass the exam, the exams, the curriculum
focus on grammar, and pre-service teacher training. Most teachers report that their pre-
service teacher training did not encourage the use of English as the medium of
instruction.

Teachers’ low proﬁciency in the target language seems to be the major cause of
teachers’ avoiding the use of the target language in their classrooms. However, research

Shows that their perception also plays a very important role in using the target language.
Research in quantiﬁed teachers’ use of the target language in language classroom shows
that even in the foreign language classrooms at university level in the US, where teachers
are native speakers of the foreign language, the amount of target language used by
tea(:hers ranged from 10 to 100 percent. Over half of the teachers use the target language
leSS than ninety percent of the time. Only one out of thirteen teachers never used English
in his foreign language because of his department’s policy not emphasizing the use of the
tar get language in teaching (Duff & Polio, 1990). These native speaker teachers of the

tat‘get languages avoid using them because they think that students can’t understand

39

4

enoug‘

gramn:

perceit
use Er.
teacher
proficit
languat
as studt

focus (

 

 

 

 

proficie
languag
POOI mt

When llt

knowlm
Wong“,
Ené’lish.
kind of
the non-0
[mercicllr

enough of it, especially in teaching target language grammar, and students want to learn
grammar for the exam (Polio & Duff, 1994).

Many teachers in Thailand avoid the use of target languages due to their real and
perceived low English proﬁciency. It is true that many Thai teachers of English do not
use English in their classrooms due to their real low English proﬁciency. Therefore,
teachers need intensive language improvement sessions to help them improve their
proﬁciency. However, teachers’ beliefs play a very important role in the use of the target
language (Duff & Polio, 1990; Polio & Duff, 1994; Vacharaskunee, 2000). Factors such
as students’ objectives for studying English to pass the exam, the exams, the curriculum
focus on grammar, pre-service teacher training, department policy, leamers’ low
proﬁciency, teachers’ beliefs of their language proﬁciency and leamers’ proﬁciency,
language anxiety, lack of self-conﬁdence in the target language, and fear of providing a
poor model as reported by those studies mentioned above, should be taken into account
when help is given to teachers to improve their language proﬁciency.

Another factor limiting the implementation of CLT is the teachers’ lack of

knowledge of teaching methodology (Choradol, 1986; Kan-in, 1982; Naksuk, 1984;
Wongwatjana, 1985). These teachers might think that as long as their learners speak
English, or group work and pair work are used, it is communication, and through this
kind of communication, their language competence improves. Long (1980) introduced
the notion of the interaction hypothesis which holds that interaction promotes acquisition.
Interaction allows Ieamers to receive comprehensible input at the same time provide an

Inter-personal phenomenon which occurs during face to face communication, and intra-

40

personal phenomenon in which mental process interacts to construct an understanding of
or a response to some phenomenon (Ellis, 1999).

During interactions, speakers negotiate meaning with each other. Negotiation or
what Long (1980) has called “interactional modiﬁcation” has been characterized as an
“exchange between Ieamers and their interlocuters as they attempt to resolve
communication breakdown and to work toward mutual comprehension” (Pica, Holliday,
Lewis, & Morgenthaler, 1989, p. 65). During the negotiation in the classroom, teachers
and Ieamers or Ieamers and Ieamers participate in seeking information, checking
comprehension, and requesting conﬁrmation that they understand the same thing.

Research shows that small group work in the language classrooms provides the
optimum environment for negotiation. Varonis and Gass (1983) demonstrated that
arranging pair work between Ieamers of different level of proﬁciency is advantageous
because it produces more negotiation of meaning. However, research shows that
language competence is improved through the negotiation of meaning and creative
language use in interactions (Long & Robinson, 1998; Polio & Gass, 1998). Negotiation

0f meaning in authentic conversation is a central factor in second language acquisition
(Pica & Doughty 1985; Varonis & Gass, 1985) because “...negotiation is one means by
Which input can become comprehensible and manageable” (Gass, 1997, p.132). In this
Sense, conversation in role-play, group work and pair work involving memorizing may
not help language learning because Ieamers do not engage in negotiation which will help
them to focus attention on what they are working on. Similarly, language in drills is not
communicative because Ieamers do not have the control of the language and the utterance

is Predictable by the interlocutor. Drill language does not have a meaningful and

41

immediate context (Allwright, 1988). Researchers in the area of interaction all agree that
interaction facilitates acquisition. Pica (1996) points out a strong claim that meaning
negotiation is not the only type of interaction which fosters language acquisition. She
concedes that uninterrupted communication also contributes to acquisition. Negotiation
may not be needed if interlocutors can understand each other. Teachers must realize the
positive relation between interaction, negotiation, and uninterrupted communication and
language development, and allow them to take place in their classrooms.

The last factor limiting the implementation of CLT is overemphasis on grammar
because of the long rooted Grammar Translation Approach (Angwatanakul, 1975; Boon—
Long, 1978; Klayanonda, 1976; Lee, 1974; Rungsaken, 1976; Wattanakul, 1977). In a
common English class in Thailand, language rules are explicitly taught, and Ieamers
practice those rules in drills and grammatical exercises. Learners know language rules,
and can apply these rules in analyzing English sentences very well, but they cannot speak
or write very well. Another common picture of the English classroom is a teacher
reading English sentence by sentence with the translation for each sentence. Learners are
sometimes called to give the translation of the sentence the teacher has just read.
Learners of the Grammar-Translation Approach cannot use language rules to express
themselves. The Grammar Translation Approach has been rejected so long because it
cannot develop leamers’ communicative competence. However, it is still widely
practiced in Thailand. Part of the reason may be because it is an easy way to teach
English, and may be because it is the only teaching method teachers know.

A new approach to grammar instruction, called focus on form, has been

introduced where formal instruction of rules and communicative language use are

42

combined. This approach emphasizes both grammar forms and meaning with focused
use of form in such a way that Ieamers must notice then process the target grammar
structure in purely communicative input (Fotos & Hinkel, 2001). The traditional way of
teaching grammar where forms (with an s) are taught explicitly, and learning the
language rules is emphasized, is called form-focused instruction. Doughty and William
(1999) stress that focus on form instruction and form-focused instruction are not
opposites. The fundamental assumption of focus on form instruction is that meaning and
use must already be evident to the learner at the time that attention is drawn to the
linguistic items needed to get the meaning across. Focus on form means that class time
should not be spent only on discrete points such as in the grammar translation approach
(Doughty & Williams, 1998; Gass, 1997; Long, 1991; Long & Robinson, 1998). The goal
of focus on form instruction is to teach form in meaningful activities where leamers’
attention is brieﬂy shifted to grammar in context (Long, 1991, 1998). Meaning and use
are provided to Ieamers while their attention is drawn to the linguistic points (Doughty &
Williams, 1998). DeKeyser and Lightbown (1999) stress that focus on form for
communicative purposes is helpful because Ieamers can hold them in mental
representation in memory for further processing. However, this cognitive ability is
limited in the sense that, if no timely opportunity for use arises, the forms will no longer
remain in memory. They suggest that a focus on form should focus on these issues: a.
timing for focus on form; b. forms to focus on; and c. classroom context for focus. In this
sense, focus on form instruction is language instruction in which meaning is the emphasis
while leamers’ attention is consciously drawn to the form of the language. Grammar

consists of forms that have meaning and use (Larsen-Freeman, 2001). Therefore,

43

leans:
I
a char

‘uiHT

they \t

langua
Ionnil
l998t
learner
educau

ofEngl

Comnui
Enghsh
languag
Enghsh
hnenng
Illiruhd
l989)_ l
III to
Centered

”’31 the:

 

 

Ieamers learn the form of the language at the same time they learn the meaning, and have
a chance to use it correctly in social context. For example, when they learn the form
‘will’, they should understand that ‘will’ is used to describe future events, and ﬁnally
they write or speak about their future lives with their peers.

It has been accepted that focus on form instruction should not be dismissed from
language classrooms, but the issue is when and how form should be taught. Focus on
form is essential, but should not interrupt communicative interaction (Doughty & Varela,
1998). Teachers should be more sensitive when focusing on form. Especially, for young
Ieamers in grades 5 and 6 (about 10-11 years of age) at the beginning level, with low
educational background, the form-focused instruction as practiced by many Thai teachers
of English is certainly not appropriate.

Due to the problems teachers have, English language teachers do not implement
communicative language teaching in their classrooms; as a result, Thai Ieamers have low
English proﬁciency. They are not provided with chances to be exposed to English
language inside or outside the classrooms. High school students who have studied
English for more than 10 years cannot communicate successfully because they lack
listening skills (Hiangrath, 1984); speaking skills (Pataranon, 1988); reading skills
(Wiruhayan, 1987); writing skills (Puapan, 1988); and communicative skills (Panichanok,
1989). It is important that these factors contributing to the impossibility of implementing
CLT to date should be taken into account when successful implementation of a leamer-
centered approach is the goal. All English teachers should be prepared well enough so

that they have the ability, knowledge, and the will to change. Teachers should be

44

 

Ct’

int
cla

lea:

this
the

lm'd
and ‘

classr

provided with chances to practice teaching in the same way they are going to teach in real

life situations with constructive feedback for improvement.

2.7. Learner Centered Approach.

What is a leamer-centered approach? Page and Thomas (1980) deﬁne a leamer-
centered approach as “teaching in which the needs and developmental level of the
individual are given more consideration than the content of the curriculum or the wishes
of society” (p. 279). Based on Page and Thomas’s deﬁnition, Altman (1980) deﬁnes a
leamer-centered approach to foreign language classrooms as follows:

A leamer-centered language program is one in which the structure of the program,

i.e. the presentation and composition of the content to be learned, the role

deﬁnition and behaviors of teacher and Ieamers, and the system of evaluating

learner performance—has been adapted to meet individual differences in an effort
to accommodate, to the extent possible, the interests, needs, and abilities of each

learner. (p. 20)

In both views, Ieamers are important. While Page and Thomas (1980) pay more
attention to individual leamers’ developmental level, Altman (1980) focuses more on
individual differences, and what is happening in the learning and teaching process in the
classroom which should serve those individual differences. Nunan (1988) deﬁnes a
leamer-centered approach based on adult theory that in a leamer-centered approach, there
is “a collaborative effort between teachers and learners” (p. 2). The important element of
this approach is that “information by and from Ieamers will be built into every phase of
the curriculum process” (Nunan 1989, p. 19). In Nunan’s deﬁnition, Ieamers are
involved by participating in decision making on content selection, teaching methodology

and gradation because these are skills and experiences that can be shared in the

classrooms. He pays more attention to the collaboration between Ieamers and teachers in

45

planning and teaching. Moreover, he seems to suggest the notion of negotiation between
teachers and Ieamers in planning and teaching. However, all (Page & Thomas; Altman,
and Nunan) share the same idea that a learner-centered approach is characterized by the
attempt to meet individual leamers’ needs.

Theoretically, leamer-centeredness is an offspring of communicative language
teaching approach (CLT) and adult learning theory (Nunan, 1988). It is an approach
based on an adult learning theory, which maintains that learners have their own
experiences which are important and helpful for language learning. Nunan (1988) claims
that due to different experiences, Ieamers are distinct, and this distinction must be
respected and taken into account in the educational environment. He also argues that
learner-centered teachers also need to assume the role of curriculum developers.

A learner-centered approach is also related to communicative language teaching,
in the sense that communicative language teaching focuses on Ieamers, and Ieamers are
primary (Savingon, 1991). Learners’ needs are used as a framework for elaborating
program goals in terms of functional competence. In this sense, Savingon (1991) implies
that the learner need is to communicate, and to develop his or her communicative
competence.

Certainly, the centralized education system in Thailand was a mitigating factor in
the success of a learner-centered approach based on adult learning principles. In the past,
the centralized curriculum was designed for all students in the country. Traditional
elementary and secondary education was ﬁxed in terms of content and grammar points
for each level. However, after the reform, the revised English curriculum of 1996

determined by the Ministry of Education was written in a more general fashion. Teachers

46

3f

01’

de

It"

int:
thei

resea

Wee/72.
their lea
Plattical
"Utilities
tel/hp R,
Internal

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4.1

and schools are now expected to design and develop their own English curriculum by
taking the needs of Ieamers and the community into account. The question is whether or
not teachers are able to design and develop their own English curriculum. Is it too
demanding for Thai teachers of English?

Thai Ieamers at grades 5 and 6 (10-11 years of age) may not have enough
resources to participate in decision-making or in the process of planning, teaching and
learning, but teachers can assume the responsibility of understanding individual
differences and take them into account when activities or tasks are assigned. On the other
hand, Nunan (1996) introduces the idea that learner centeredness is a continuum as
follows. Level 1 is awareness where Ieamers identify the strategy implications of
pedagogical tasks and identify their own preferred learning styles and strategies. Level 2
is involvement where they make choices among a range of options. Level 3 is
intervention where Ieamers modify and adapt tasks. Level 4 is creation where they create
their own tasks. And level 5 is transcendence where Ieamers become teachers and
researchers.

How far are Thai teachers at grade 5 and 6 able to move along in the continuum?
If learners at grades 5 and 6 are trained to be aware of their objectives, their needs, and
their learning styles, the ﬁrst two levels of the continuum seem to be realistic and
practical for EFL situations in Thailand. Tudor (1996) suggests the use of learner
training. It is important because young Ieamers at grades 5 and 6 are not accustomed to
taking responsibility for their own language learning. Learner training will help them to

understand themselves better as language Ieamers.

47

According to Rubin and Thompson (1994), Ieamers are the most important factor
in their language learning process; success or failure in learning a language can be traced
back to how best Ieamers manage the learning process. Learners should be aware and
understand their objectives and learning styles, and communicate this information to their
teachers. Teachers should accommodate leamers’ objectives and learning styles in their
teaching which is believed to enhance language learning. This means that teacher training
should provide knowledge and information about what and how to provide learner
training to their students which is essential in a learner-centered approach. Young
Ieamers after being trained can make good choices to suit their preferences when they are
provided with options. For example, in class, teachers can ask Ieamers if they want to
work by themselves, or in pairs, or Ieamers can be allowed to choose stories or books
they like to read.

Tudor’s (1993) idea about teachers’ roles is very realistic when he argues that the
two main roles in traditional modes of teaching still remain in a learner centered
approach. These roles are 1) knower of the target language and the chooser of
methodology, and 2) activity organizer setting up and steering learning activities in the
right direction, motivating and encouraging students, and providing feedback on students’
performance. However, teachers in a leamer-centered approach need to assume an
additional role, that of learning counselor. In this new role, teachers need to 1) get to
know students well enough to be able to understand both their intentions and their
resources, 2) help students clarify their intentions and develop their resources and their
awareness, and 3) channel student participation in a pedagogically useful direction. The

additional role as learning counselor is very important for leamer-centered teachers.

48

In a Ieamer-centered approach, teachers are asked to add more roles when they
teach. Can Thai teachers adjust their roles which have been rooted for so long? The
major problem is that the roles these teachers play in traditional pedagogy are attached to
relatively high social status, respect, and leamers’ expectations. Conﬂict can take place
when Thai teachers try to change their roles to a less dominant position, but not their
expectations of Ieamers, or views of their status. The teachers’ role as facilitator may
conﬂict with leamers’ expectations that teachers are the knowers who provide them
answers.

A good example of this conﬂict is reported by Thein (1994), a graduate of English
Language Teaching (ELT) of the University of Warwick in Britain, and an English
instructor at university level in Myanmar. She was a traditional teacher centered teacher
for 29 years, teaching reading in both graduate and undergraduate courses in her country.
She believed that the more difﬁcult the text, the more she explained, the better the
learning. Learners’ comprehension was checked through reading comprehension
exercises and grammar exercises. Although she was introduced to new theories while
working on a master’s degree in ELT at the University of Warwick in Britain in 1984,
she did not apply her new knowledge of teaching methodology. She resumed her
traditional way of teaching.

In 1991, Thein observed a leamer-centered approach in a pre-master’s program
for 35 science students representing 9 countries, an eight-week workshop in language and
technology at the language center, the Asian Institute of Technology, Bangkok, Thailand.
She started her observation from the beginning of the program with doubt and frustration,

and with delight at the end of the program. It took her eight weeks to understand how

49

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l0 bf’t’tl‘
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Ieamers learn through carrying out tasks, active investigation, developing concepts and
skills, and gaining conﬁdence to express themselves in English.

Changes in teaching practice involve many factors, and involve a gradual and
meaningful process of changes. Teachers can be well prepared to implement new
teaching methodology, but they may not want to change. Hayes (1995) observed English
teachers in the Rural Primary English Program (RuREP) in Sabah, Malaysia and the
Project for the Improvement of Secondary English Teaching (PISET) in Thailand. He
ﬁnds that although teachers are teaching the content of the new curriculum, they are
doing so in the old style; lessons are teacher-centered and with heavy emphasis on choral
repetition and formal grammatical exercises. Research shows that teachers have not
changed their teaching behavior. Most teachers still use a teacher-centered approach.
(Ministry of Education, 1985; Wongwajana, 1985; Education Department,
Chulalongkom University, 1987; Ofﬁce of the National Education Commission, Ofﬁce
of the Prime Minister 1987). Yusamran (1992) studies the relationships of the
psychosocial characteristics and the adoption of learner-centered teaching techniques of
social studies teachers in secondary schools of the educational region I under the General
Education Department. The result reveals that teachers’ attitudes toward the adoption of
the teaching innovation are best in predicting the adoption of teaching innovation.

It is apparent that teachers in a leamer-centered approach need to be well prepared
for the range of new skills and roles to take if the ideal of a leamer-centered approach is
to become a reality. Teachers seem to get all the blame if they do not change their
practice even though they are told to change. However, on the ﬂip side of the coin, it

would be fairer if we look at how well teachers have been assisted to change.

50

If the goal of the learning reform is to change teachers from teacher-centered
teachers to learner-centered teachers, they should have enough chances to be trained and
to observe an actual learner-centered class at the elementary level in real life situations.
This will allow teachers to see how innovative theories are applied in a real situation and
if they really work. In addition, the process of change in education needs time and sincere

support.

51

 

Ed

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ister
113111 it
With

101th

Chapter Three

Methodology

This chapter outlined the methodology of the research. It will ﬁrst describe the
Thai administrative system because it has a unique hierarchical system different from
other countries. Then it presents the details of participants. Finally, it describes the data

collection of the research: Non-participant observations, interviews and stimulated recall.

3.1. Thai Administrative System

Thailand is divided into 75 provinces. Each province, which is administered by
an appointed governor, is subdivided into districts, sub-districts and villages. The
Ministry of Education (MOE) is in charge of education of both primary and secondary
schools. The Ofﬁce of the National Primary Education Commission (ONPEC) is
primarily responsible for the management and administration of state primary schools
throughout the country. ONPEC has 403,947 personnel, of which 355,298 are teachers,
12,040 administrators and ofﬁcials at the headquarters, provincial and district ofﬁces, and
3,886 supervisors (Ofﬁce of the National Primary Education Commission, Ministry of

Education, 1997).

The ONPEC is the major government agency responsible for the provision of six
years of compulsory primary education (grades 1-6) for children between the ages of
seven and ﬁfteen years. ONPEC’s administrative structure is divided into four levels:
national, provincial, district, and school cluster levels, each of which is managed by a
committee. ONPEC is responsible for the formulation of the national primary education

policies and plans; deﬁning educational strategies; approval of budget proposals and

52

budget allocations; setting standards for academic requirements and speciﬁcations;
appointment of directors and the nomination of ONPEC’s secretary-general (Ofﬁce of the

National Primary Education Commission, Ministry of Education, 1997).

The Provincial Primary Education Committees (PPEC) are responsible for the
formulation of operational plans and policies in line with the national education
development policies and local needs, preparation of budget proposals, recruitment of
teacher, data collection and evaluation of academic performance. There are 76 Provincial
Primary Education Ofﬁces (The Ofﬁce of The National Primary Education Commission,

Ministry of Education, 1997).

At the district level, the major responsibility of the Primary Education
Committees (DPEC) is co-ordination between the ofﬁce of the Provincial Primary

Education and the schools. There are 851 District Primary Education Ofﬁces.

The School-Cluster Committees (SCC), where 7-10 schools in the same vicinity
are grouped together geographically, are responsible for approval of projects for staff
development and monitoring teachers’ performance in their clusters. There are 4,249
SCCs. Each SCE consist of all school principals in the school-cluster and local elected
teachers. They are the front line of the education battle. Although the Ministry of
Education has claimed to decentralize power to the local authorities as the result of the
administrative reform of the National Education Act 1999, all major decisions concerning
budget proposals, recruitment of teachers, proposals for teachers’ annual promotions, and

appointment of the directors and nomination at district and provincial levels are still

53

approved by the national level. Especially at the school cluster-level, decision-making

power in terms of policy or budget is not available.

Based on the Thai hierarchical administrative system, it was important to get
information about the policy implementation and operational plan at the Ministry of
Education. Data collection for this project was initiated by going to the Supervision and
Educational Standards Development Ofﬁce (SESDO), the Ofﬁce of National Primary
Education Commission (ONPEC), and the Ministry of Education in Bangkok on the
assumption that the supervisor who was in charge of providing English training to
English teachers in the country had information about schools and English teachers who
had been trained to use a leamer-centered approach. This information would provide a
guide to the relevant teachers for this research. Supervisor 1 of English training at
ONPEC could not provide the needed information about the primary English teachers
although this ofﬁce is in charge of English training for all primary English teachers in the
Thailand. The reason given was that he had just taken over the position 2 —3 years ago,
and all information was there, but he had not had a chance to organize it. When I asked
him for the educational policy that ONPEC had on English teaching in the country, I was
advised to go to the Policy and Planning Division (PPD). I could not get a copy of the
education policy at PPD either, and was told to go back to SESDO again. I did, and told
Supervisor 1 that 1 could not get a copy of the policy, so he ﬁnally allowed me to
interview him about the policy.

Talking to Supervisor 1 at SESDO, I realized that SESDO did not give the
training directly to English teachers, but to the English supervisors of the Provincial

Primary Education Committees (PPEC) and the District Primary Education Committees

54

(DPEC) who are the responsible agencies of English training for English teachers at the
provincial and district levels. These provincial supervisors are required to give training
to their local primary English teachers. The training takes 2-5 days, depending on each
province’s ﬁnancial situation. Supervisor 1 recommended an English teacher (Teacher A)
in the capital who has attended most of the training sessions for the supervisor of the
country, and she was included in the study. I was then told to go to PPEC and DPEC if I

wanted more information about teachers and teacher training.

3.2. Participants
3.2.1 Background of Participants

I visited Supervisors 2 and 3 at the Ofﬁce of Provincial Primary Education in
provinces A and B, two major provincial areas of the country. Then I went to two
District Primary Education Committees (DPEC) to meet Supervisor 4 and Supervisor 5
who are in charge of teacher training in their areas. Talking to these supervisors, I
learned that English training was provided only to grades 1-4 English teachers who had
not taught English before, and did not have knowledge of English. Most of these teachers
were forced to teach English because the policy of teaching English starting from grade
one had been implemented, and the most urgent work was to train and educate grade 1-4
teachers to be able to teach English. “[About 10 percent of our English teachers in
primary schools majored in English]” (Supervisor 1, Interview, April 27, 2001, p.2).
The training provided for grade 1-4 teachers basically focused on techniques for teaching
English to young Ieamers and improving teachers’ English proﬁciency such as writing

the English alphabet and pronunciation.

55

 

 

When I approached ﬁve English teachers of grades 1-4 to participate in the study,
four of ﬁve declined to participate. Two of them confessed that they did not teach English
in English classes. They taught other subjects during English class time. When asked why
they did not teach English, these teachers said they did not know English, and they were
not comfortable teaching what they did not know. All of them said that they were not
comfortable teaching English and they did not want anyone to observe them teaching
something with which they were not comfortable. A teacher trainer said that from her
experience, some English teachers stopped their teaching when other teachers walked
pass their class because they were embarrassed. “[Some schools did not teach English,
but they reported to the higher authorities in the center that they did...When we worked
together in our school cluster, we asked them why they haven’t sent the paper work of
teaching English in grades 1-2. They didn’t say a word, but laughed]” (Teacher B,
interview transcription, February 20, 2001, p.13). Due to their unwillingness and
discomfort regarding participation in the study, they could not be included.

On the other hand, grades 5-6 have taught English for a minimum of 10 years, and
the teachers have been trained with communicative language teaching. Supervisor 1
stated that: (Quotes are taken from audio taped interviews of participants. They have
been transcribed and translated into English by the researcher, and this will be done for
all subsequent quotations)

Grades 5-6 teachers have a better foundation in English more than grade 1-4

teachers. They either majored or minored in English. Actually they have been

trained (in communicative language teaching), and I have never been worried
about grades 5-6 English teachers. They are older teachers, and they are the best

English teachers in each school (Supervisor 1, interview transcription, April 27,
2001).

56

I received a lot of cooperation and participation from grades 5-6 English teachers
because they were conﬁdent in their knowledge and skill in teaching English.

Three criteria were set to choose teachers for this study: class size, location and
teacher training within the last 3 years. First, the English class taught by these teachers
needed to have at least 30 students because this is the most common English class size in
Thailand. Supervisor 2 and 3 recommended many English teachers they believed had
adopted the learner-centered approach. However, they were not included in this study
because the common characteristics of these English classes were small classes
consisting of about 8-15 students, which is not a good representation of general English
classes in Thailand.

Second, schools included in this study were from two major metropolitan areas of
Thailand. Metropolitan areas were selected because teachers here were more likely to
have changed compared to those in the rural areas. In metropolitan areas, teachers had
access to more information and often witnessed the demands for English usage.
Moreover, they had been more active in changing because they were physically closer to
educational sources and educational authorities such as the ofﬁce of provincial and
district primary education. Socially, they were pressured by the high competition among
major famous schools in the metropolitan areas and the community to use the latest and
most effective techniques. Parents and communities in metropolitan areas particularly
realized how important it was to change the learning process from the teacher-centered to
the learner-centered approach through all kinds of media such as pamphlets, brochures,
books, newspaper, television, and radio which were available intensively in the

metropolitan areas.

57

Third, grades 5-6 teachers participating in this study had attended teacher training
for communicative language teaching within the last three years, the conference and the
lecture of a leamer-centered approach. All teachers in this study participated in all
training, a conference, and a lecture. Some of them participated at their own expense in
teacher training provided by other organizations such as universities, language schools or
private training by Supervisor 3. The Communicative Language Teaching Approach has
been the main theme in teacher training for English teachers since 1978. Moreover, a
learner-centered approach has been promoted as the principle of learning and teaching all
subjects at all levels of education in Thailand since 1996. All agents involved in
education promoted this approach both in terms of articles or training sessions.
According to the supervisors, almost all English teachers have been trained and have
experience in Communicative Language Teaching Approach or a learner-centered
approach.

When these three criteria were set, I ﬁrst asked for permission from both PPECs
by appearing in person with a letter introducing myself and describing the purpose of the
study. Each PPEC gave permission to collect data after a discussion of the purpose of the
study, the method of data collecting and the report phase of the study. Permissions were
granted more easily when participants understood this research was a part of my personal
study and not a report to the Ministry of Education.

Following the accepted practice based on Thai tradition, after receiving
permission and recommendation from the gatekeepers, I had to meet the principal or the
director of each school to ask for permission to meet the English teachers. I ﬁrst went to

School A, and the principal allowed me to meet Teacher A after discussing the purpose of

58

the study. Teacher A was called through the school microphone to come to the
principal’s ofﬁce. When she arrived, the principal introduced me to her, and explained
that I would like to interview her and observe her teaching English as a part of my study.
Teacher A discussed the study with me for a while at the principal’s ofﬁce. I felt less
comfortable in such a formal environment, so I asked to talk with Teacher A in private. I
preferred that she makes her decision to participate without any inﬂuence from the
principal. Teacher A and I left the principal’s ofﬁce to further our discussion in Teacher
A’s ofﬁce.

Without the presence of the principal, Teacher A confessed that she didn’t want
to participate in the study because she sometimes taught other subjects such as
Mathematic, or Science in English class because those subjects were behind schedule.
However, Teacher A felt she had to let me observe her since the principal knew about my
visit. She didn’t want to get in trouble for not letting me observe her, and I also didn’t
want to cause her any trouble. To not include her in the study would cause her trouble,
and she did not want to contradict the principal’s orders. To help her feel more
comfortable, I showed her the consent form, and repeatedly assured her that no one could
get access to the information collected from her classes. The report would show only
“Teacher A”; therefore, there was no way that she could be recognized. She felt more
relieved; as a result, she agreed to be observed for three classes, and I set three
consecutive dates to observe her.

This experience provided a good lesson on how to approach the next teachers
although it contradicts “Thai tradition”. Instead of going to ask for permission from the

principal or the director ﬁrst, I personally talked with the teacher. I discussed details

59

about the consent form, and her rights. This teacher didn’t show any hesitation to
participate in the study. She made her decision without any pressure to please anyone.
Then she set three consecutive English classes I could observe, and two hours of her time
for the interview. After I got her consent to participate in the study, and set the times for
observations and interviews, she kindly introduced me to the principals. Unfortunately,
this teacher is not included in this ﬁnal report because of a technical problem with the
recording machine which resulted in a loss of data. However, collecting data with her
provided extensive experience which would make data collection with other teachers
more effective, both in terms of approach and data gathering.

I sometimes approached teachers by ﬁrst calling them on the phone. I introduced
myself and explained the purposes of my study, the methods of data collecting, and the
ways the data would be handled and reported. I asked them if they would like to
participate in the study. Without any hesitation, teachers agreed to participate in the
study without seeing me in person. Some teachers asked to have only two observations,
and I negotiated to have three. Finally, they set three consecutive English classes for me
to observe, and another two hours for an interview. Teachers were very willing and
helpful when I approached them in this manner. I appreciate the level of support and
cooperation I received from them. The schedule for getting permission before the
observations and interviews with teachers and supervisors is presented in Table 3.1 (See
Appendix 1).

I observed and interviewed 9 English teachers of grades 5 and 6 from different
schools from two major metropolitan areas. However, only three out of nine are reported

in this study. Six of them are excluded due to the following reasons.

60

The ﬁrst teacher can’t be included because of the incompleteness of the data
caused by the technical problems in the recorders. The second of six teachers was
excluded because her classes were not communicative. She used a lot of substitution
drills where students spoke in chorus without meanings, and copied the substitution drills
in their notebooks.

The third teacher was excluded because she had not majored or minored in
English. She could not pronounce simple English words correctly, nor could she
understand the process of learning a second language. She had participated in the teacher
training for communicative language teaching techniques. She had a teacher’s manual.
She may never have taught communicatively before the observations; her students
appeared to be confused with her new way of teaching. They could not understand her
simple English statements. The activities also were too difﬁcult for the students. The
students were not prepared step by step to produce the target language; as a result, the
students could not follow or make sense of what was taught. They started talking to each
other. She was frustrated and angry. She scolded and caned a few students although
caning has been banned for many years.

The fourth teacher excluded had majored in Thai, but she was interested in
teaching English. She had been teaching English for more than 10 years. She was an
example of the one who could teach English well if one was interested in teaching and
tried hard to improve her teaching. She represented English teachers in her province to
participate in teacher training sessions provided by the ONPEC’s headquarters. She is
one of the major teacher trainers providing training to English teachers in her province.

She was excluded because she was not just an English teacher, but she was a teacher

61

trainer as well. Her class was communicative, and her students enjoyed communicating
in English. She told me that she could not teach communicatively everyday due to her
workload as an English teacher and a trainer.

The ﬁfth and sixth teachers excluded imitated what they saw without clearly
understanding the idea of leamer-centered approach or communicative language teaching
approach. The ﬁfth teacher imitated the science teacher who got a national award by
using science projects with her students. In her science class, students worked together in
small groups to set up a problem and ﬁnd scientiﬁc solutions to solve it. The ﬁfth teacher
imitated what the science teacher did in the science class. Instead of a science project,
students were asked to produce small picture dictionaries. The students were divided into
ﬁve groups of nine each and decided on a theme for the dictionaries and when they
wanted to ﬁnish that project. The project of producing small picture dictionaries had
been adopted and used for a few months. While the students worked on their projects, she
was at the library showing me her students’ picture dictionaries on different themes. All
of the pictures produced by her students were similar. Each page of the dictionaries
showed a picture with the word. Only one to two dictionaries contained some English
sentences. The ﬁfth teacher insisted on having the interview during her teaching time;
however, I requested to see how students worked on their projects. What I found was
that students copied pictures and words from commercial picture dictionaries they had
bought. The theme they worked on that day was “The human body”. When I asked if
they liked to learn English this way, the students told me that they enjoyed English class
because they could do what they wanted to. Some said that they liked English because

they did not need to get involved in the project.

62

The sixth teacher excluded participated in the training session for grade 1 English
teachers. In the ﬁrst observation, he used grade 1 communicative activities in grade 6
classrooms. The students were asked to bring fruits to the classroom and the teacher
asked them one by one to say the names of those fruits in English, and show the fruits to
the class. Then they were asked to draw and paint those fruits, write the name of the fruit
under its picture, and ﬁnally one by one, to read the names of the fruits aloud and show
their pictures to the class. This class was too easy for Grade 6 students, and they could
not further develop their knowledge of English. Teacher Six changed his teaching
approach in the second observation to the Grammar Translation Approach, and cancelled
the third appointment.

In sum, only three teachers are reported in this study because from observations,
they used teaching techniques which had some features of Communicative Language
Teaching Approach in their classrooms. They include: Teacher A from school A,
Teacher B from school B and Teacher C from school C. Teacher A and Teacher B

taught grade 6, and Teacher C taught grade 5.

3.2.2. Details of Participants

These three teachers reported that they obtained their own teacher training from
other educational institutions in the country such as universities, language centers and
private teacher training sessions run by Supervisor 4 who personally offered two teacher
training sessions for grade 5-6 teachers interested in improving themselves at their own
expense. They each had participated in 2-3 teacher-training sessions on different

occasions and with different organizations.

63

One of the teachers participated in a training session provided by the British
Council, a private language center, and a training session provided by the Education
Ministry. These three teachers had a strong interest in teaching skills. They all understood
the need to change their teaching of English to be more communicative and more leamer-
centered. Table 3.2 shows the demographic information on these three teachers. All
three English teachers reported in this study had bachelor’s degrees. Teachers A and B
majored in teaching English, and Teacher C minored in teaching English, and majored in
primary education. All of them have been teaching English for more than 20 years.

Table 3.2. Teachers’ Demographic Information

 

 

 

 

Teacher Age Degree Major Years of
S Teaching
Teacher 45 Bachelor Teaching English 24

A

Teacher 50 Bachelor Teaching English 31

B

Teacher 41 Bachelor Primary education and minor in 21

C teaching English

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Teacher A is 45 years old and has a bachelor’s degree in teaching English, from
the Education Department. She graduated in 1977 from a famous university in the
country. She had been teaching English at the primary level for 24 years. She taught
English to grades 3-6. She participated in the training sessions for grade 3 and 4 English

teachers. Based on Supervisor 1 at the ofﬁce of national primary education, Teacher A

64

was the only teacher who was fortunate enough to have attended many training sessions
provided for the core leading English teachers or the supervisors of the country. She
attended almost ﬁve training sessions within three years. Therefore, there is no doubt
that she understood clearly about a leamer-centered approach and a communicative
language teaching approach. From her interview, it was apparent that she understood the
educational reform and the learning process better than any other English teachers or
supervisors in this study. During the time of the research, she taught many subjects in
grade 6 including English, Thai, Social Science, Singing, Art, Home Economics, and
Ethics, totaling 25 hours a week. She had many duties other than teaching such as being
the treasurer of the Lunch Project for Kids, the head of the English teacher group, and the
caretaker of the sound lab. She said that she had been working hard. After observing nine
teachers teaching English in their classes, I believe that she had the best English
proﬁciency. She could explain the grammatical points correctly. She pronounced English
words clearly when she read English sentence by sentence, and the students repeated after
her. Teacher A was not very willing to participate in the study at the beginning. However,
after the ﬁrst observation, and some small talk with her a couple of times, she became
more relaxed, and was comfortable with me observing her classes. She was comfortable
enough to ask me to help when she had problems with English questions or
pronunciation. The observation and interview became more natural and relaxed when
she felt that this study would not in any way risk the security of her position or her
retirement!

Teacher B is 50 years old. She graduated from a teacher’s college in 1969,

majoring in teaching English, with a minor in Biology. She is also the head of the

65

English teacher’s group. She has taught English in the primary level, especially grade 6
for about 31 years. She teaches two subjects: English and Boy Scouts. She teaches
grade 1, and grade 6, totaling 25 hours a week. She participated in a teacher training
session based on a leamer-centered approach provided by the Provincial Primary
Education Committee because she also teaches English to grade 1 students. She also
participated in other sessions provided by a private language center. Moreover, in 2000
she participated in a private training session for grades 5 and 6 English teachers provided
by one of the supervisors. She taught English in the sound lab where her personal desk
was located at the back of the lab. Students of grades 5 and 6 would come to the sound
lab to study English although the sound instruments were out of order. Basically, she read
the English sentences herself, and used chalk and blackboard occasionally. She actively
pursued information to improve her understanding and prepare for the next year’s
assessment. She was a famous English teacher whom many teachers admired because of
the way she taught English. Her class was lively, and full of laughter. She was awarded
the Golden Needle because she had taught English communicatively.

Teacher C is 41 years old. She graduated from a teacher’s college in 1979. She
had a bachelor’s degree, majoring in primary education, and minoring in teaching
English. She has been teaching English at the primary level, mostly grades 5 and 6 for 21
years. She has taught English to grades 5 and 6 in school C for more than 6 years. She
was active in teaching, and worked hard to provide the best teaching approaches for her
students. She planned to prepare herself for the assessment next year when the Ministry

of Education is going to evaluate teachers for promotion.

66

E. -:_._oli_a

 

 

 

Both Teachers B and C were active teachers who were ready to change to leamer-
centered teachers. They were very happy to have an external educator in their classrooms
to reﬂect on and discuss what they were doing. At the beginning, I didn’t plan to share
the field notes and my ideas with teachers. However, Teachers B and C wanted feedback

from me so that they could improve themselves, and get ready for the assessment in the
year 2002. I was happy to provide this information for them as requested. I shared with
them parts of the ﬁeld notes from the observations and the interviews. I discussed with
them what were, and what were not the characteristics of a leamer-centered approach,
and gave a copy of my feedback to each of them. For teachers, my feedback beneﬁted
them the most when a copy of the feedback was included in the teachers’ individual

portfolios showing that they were new open-minded teachers who were ready for the

changes by having another teacher or lecturer observe them. I was glad that the

observation and interview beneﬁted the teachers participating in the study. In my

opinion, students would get the most beneﬁts from the feedback when these two teachers

improved their teaching based on this input.

3.3. Data Collection Techniques.

Four different data collection techniques were used in this study to permit the

validation of ﬁndings: document analysis, non-participant observations, stimulated

recalls, and interviews.

The ﬁrst method was document analysis. Document materials were the most
important resource to understand what had happened before and alter data collection.

Document materials were produced contemporaneously with what happened, and thus

67

 

 

 

they were highly reliable. Materials used for analysis included the written policy,
publications and videotapes of a learner-centered approach, newspapers, English
curriculum, English textbooks, teachers’ manuals, teaching materials, teacher training
materials and research studies.

The second method was non-participant observations with audiotape recording
and ﬁeld-notes. The purposes of recording was to have as much information as possible
which eventually served as a rich primary data source. Recording made it possible to
record every single word teachers spoke. Deﬁnitely, this rich data source helped to
provide an in depth view of how they taught English in their classrooms. It also allowed
me to have opportunities to review what was going on in the classrooms. This enabled me
to ask the right questions about each component of their teaching in the stimulated
recalls. This way 1 could ensure the validity of my observation. One small microphone
(Aiwa small Microphone) was attached to the teacher’s collar, and a small tape recorder
(Aiwa stereo radio cassette recorder super bass 18135) was on her waist. Two other
small tape recorders were placed with students. These two recorders were used both for
small group and classroom situations. There was no video camera which might have
threatened both teachers and students who had never been videotaped before, and which
might have affected teaching and learning behaviors in the classrooms.

The observations were originally planned to focus on how the leamer-centered
approach was actually implemented in the classroom; for example, language used during
communicative activities, the use of communicative tasks or communicative activities, a
non-threatening atmosphere for Ieamers to communicate, focus on form teaching, the use

of L1 and L2, teachers’ and leamers’ roles, and the patterns of interaction between

68

w:d-_..-—.‘s—. .... . —

I}

 

 

 

teacher and Ieamers and between Ieamers and Ieamers. I ﬁrst thought that teachers
would use a variety of communicative activities and classroom interaction patterns such
as pair work, group work, individual work, and whole class activities. However, what
actually happened was that all three teachers used only whole class activities. This fact
resulted in the changes in the analysis of observations as presented in section 3.5 Unit of
Analysis for Observation.

Observations were used before interviews to ensure that teachers taught as they
usually did. Questions in the interviews would have indicated the focus of the research,
which might have affected not only their way of teaching but also their ideas in the
interview. It was initially planned that each teacher be observed ﬁve times, with the ﬁrst
two times, having the observation made with the presence of audiotape, but not actually
recording. The purpose had been to make teachers comfortable, and familiar with the
presence of the researcher and the audiotapes in their classrooms. However, since these
teachers had never been observed before, they were not very comfortable with the
proposed ﬁve consecutive observations. Recall that Teacher A was initially not very
willing to be observed at all. Finally, she allowed three consecutive classes to be
observed. I needed to make her comfortable and willing to participate in the study so I
agreed with her. Teachers B and C were somewhat reluctant with the proposed ﬁve
consecutive classes. When observations were reduced to three consecutive observations,
more cooperation was received from all the teachers. I understood their stress in being
observed ﬁve times; therefore, when teachers compromised to be observed only three
times with audiotape recordings, I agreed. Since there were only three observations for

each teacher, observations without recording were canceled.

69

 

 

 

Table 3.3. The Observations for Each Teacher

 

 

 

 

 

Days Observations with Remarks

audiotape
Day 1 With recording F ield-notes, and notes for stimulated recall
Day 2 With recording Field-notes, and notes for stimulated recall
Day 3 With recording Field-notes, and notes for stimulated recall

 

 

 

The third procedure was semi-informal interviews. Three teachers and three
teacher supervisors were interviewed about their opinions about a learner-centered
approach, and how they used it in the classroom. It was important for me that teachers
and teacher supervisors willingly participated in the study. They had the right to specify
the date, and time of the interviews. I realized and supported their rights. Apparently,
teachers were at ease and happy to participate when I was in favor of their opinions.
They realized their importance and power when they could voice their opinions, and were
more co-operative. They were willing to participate, and expressed their candid opinions.

The fourth method was stimulated recall. This is an introspective research method
which is used to encourage participants to “recall thoughts they had while performing a
task” (Gass & Mackey, 2000, p. 17). In this study, teachers were asked to recall their
own thoughts during their teaching performance which had just occurred. It was
designed to allow teachers to clarify in more detail why they chose to teach in that
particular way or to use a particular exercise or activity during the observational phase.

In this manner, misinterpretation of teachers’ teaching performance was diminished.

70

 

 

 

 

 

3.4. Procedure

I usually arrived at the school about 20-30 minutes before class-time. I waited
outside the class I was to observe until the teacher gave me the signal to come into the
classroom. I then asked her to come out of the classroom so that I could attach the small
microphone to her collar, and a small tape recorder on her waist. I told her that students
would pay too much attention to the microphone and the tape recorder if we did this in
front of them. Teachers understood and agreed to do so for the next observations as well.
After that I entered the class by the back door, and sat at the back of the class. For each
teacher, I observed and took notes which were later used to stimulate recall, and
interviews. For the ﬁrst observations, teachers were somewhat nervous and excited.
Their hands were moist and cold when they were helping me to attach the microphone
and the tape-recorders. However, after the ﬁrst observation and a short but ﬁiendly talk
with them, they were more conﬁdent and relaxed. They even asked me when they had
problems with English. They did not hesitate to ask me even during their class time when
they were teaching their students in front of the class.

The observations for each teacher were done during early February, six to seven
weeks before the end of the semester. (The normal school year for all primary schools is
divided into two semesters. The ﬁrst semester starts in early May, and ﬁnishes early
October. The second semester starts in early November, and ﬁnishes early April.) It was
the right time for observation because by this time in the semester, teachers and students
were acquainted with each other, and students were familiar with the teacher’s teaching

methods. If students had learned English more passively during the ﬁrst semester and the

71

toss-A
‘

 

ﬁrst part of the second semester, we should predict that they would ﬁnd it difﬁcult to
change to become active learners in a communicative language teaching environment.
Moreover, if teachers had never used English with their students at all, it would be
difﬁcult for them to understand simple English sentences. If teachers tried to change
teaching practices just for the observation we would predict students would ﬁnd it
difﬁcult to follow. In fact, this is what I observed from Teachers B and C.

Following the observations, an interview was ﬁrst conducted with each teacher,
then followed by the stimulated recall. First, a 45-60 minute semi-formal interview had
been planned with each of the participants with a 15 minute stimulated recall. However,
the actual interview and the stimulated recall took about one and a half to two hours
because there were so many topics teachers wanted to share and discuss. The interviews
were audiotaped and transcribed. Teachers determined the time and place of the
interviews so that they felt more comfortable and relaxed. The Thai language was used

because interviewees would feel more comfortable using their native language with the

researcher who used the same native language. Moreover, using Thai allowed teachers to
communicate their ideas precisely and clearly. Since the topic of the interview was their
opinions on teacher training and the teaching of English, teachers felt at ease talking and
sharing their ideas openly. Rapport was developed very easily after we had met many
times during the observations and with some small talk afterwards.

Once the interview and the stimulated recall were complete, Teachers B and C

asked for a few special meetings with me so that I could help them to better understand

I never denied any

 

”I

 

the learner-centered approach. This was very important for me.

requests from the teachers. I was willing and happy to help because they were my

72

 

professional colleagues who worked hard to help their pupils in this time of conﬁrsing
educational reforms. I did my best to give them some helpful knowledge to improve
their work. The teachers and I built a special relationship while we shared our knowledge
to help improve the learning and teaching of English in the country. I was very happy
that I could help them and shared with them what I knew from my studies in an English
speaking country. We learned to understand each other very well. Teachers told me
frankly what they thought, and what problems they had. I have met these teachers again
since the study and we continue to maintain our good relationship. They introduced me
to their family, ﬁiends, and asked me to join in their activities. They asked me to visit
them, and work with them after I graduate.

I had many impressive experiences during data collection for this study, not only
from teachers but also from students. Before I went into each class for the ﬁrst time, the
teacher introduced me to her class. The students looked at me with interest when they
knew that I was a Ph.D. student from Michigan State University. Studying in the US is
exciting for Thai students. They were good students, and paid attention to the lessons.
Sometimes I noticed that they glanced at me while I sat at the back of the class. They
smiled if I got them to look at me. They also greeted me by putting both of their palms
on their chests and bowing to me when I met them outside the classes. Teachers told me
that pupils were very interested in me, and asked when I would come to their classes
again. I received special gifts from these students such as roses, candies, cookies, juice,
books, a music box, friendship, and smiles.

About one to two hour semi-formal interviews were also conducted with

supervisors who are in charge of in-service teacher training to investigate what they

73

 

 

 

 

 

 

thought about a Learner-Centered Approach, and what help they had provided to
teachers. Follow-up interviews were arranged with some supervisors, especially
Supervisors 3 and 5 who clearly showed high involvement in teacher training and
understanding of the new way of teaching, a learner-centered approach. Supervisor 3
personally provided training sessions for grades 5 and 6 English teachers in her area.

Table 3.4 presents the schedule for the observations of the three teachers and interviews

with three teachers and ﬁve supervisors. (See Appendix 2)

3.5. Data Analysis

The ﬁrst step in data analysis was to transfer data from audiotapes to CDs with
Easy CD Creator 4. This software made it more convenient to transcribe and at the same
it allowed me to keep track of sentences spoken by the participants more efﬁciently. I
ﬁrst planned to transcribe only the relevant excerpts of the interviews and observations
after I got the overall picture and saw patterns of ideas and behaviors of the informants.
However, listening and re-listening to the rich data of the interviews and observations, it
was more effective to produce the whole transcription of the observations and the
interviews so that every important detail would not be missed. Moreover, during the
transcription of the audiotapes of the observations and interviews, the vivid pictures of
going into the ﬁeld came back to me. This enabled me to have a better understanding of
the information and details I got from those participants. After the full transcription was
produced, I analyzed related documents, then read and reread the observation notes, and

the transcriptions of the observations and the interviews in order to understand the data in

74

It... ' .

 

 

 

context. I looked for relationships and patterns among documents, the observation notes,
the transcriptions of the observations, the stimulated recall, and the interviews.

Table 3.5 shows the overall design of the study: research questions, methods of
data collection, and data analysis.

Table 3.5. Table of Data Collection and Analysis

 

 

Research questions Methods of Data Data Analysis
Collection
1. What is the -lnterviews with -Read and re-read the transcription of the

conception of a learner teachers, teacher interview from teachers, teacher training

centered approach by training personnel.

policy makers, teacher personnel -Read documents written by policy
training personnel and -Analysis of makers.

English teachers? documents -Looked for patterns of behaviors.

-Are their conceptions -Compared/contrasted information from
of a leamer-centered teachers, teacher training personnel and
approach similar or policy makers.

different?

-What are the

similarities or

 

 

differences?
2.To what degree do -Stimulated -Read and re-read the transcription of the
teachers actually recall stimulated recall and looked for patterns

 

 

 

 

75

 

 

 

 

implement a leamer-
centered approach?

- What are the major
characteristics of their
teaching?

-Is it a leamer-centered

approach or CLT?

 

-Non-participant

Observation

of behavior.

-Read and re-read ﬁeld notes of
observation, the transcription of
observation, and looked for the patterns
of behavior.

-Compared/contrasted information from
stimulated recall and interviews with

teachers and teacher training personnel.

 

3. What hinders or
facilitates teachers
implementing a
learner-centered

approach?

 

Interviews with

teachers.

-Read and re-read the transcription of the

interviews with teachers, and looked for

the patterns.

 

 

 

 

3. 6 Units of Analysis for Observation

 

Observations of three teachers will be analyzed based on the following two major
features: Class Interaction Pattern and the Use of Target Language by Teacher.

Classroom Interaction Patterns They are divided into three major groups: 1)
Whole-class, 2) Individual work, 3) group work and pair work. Group work or pair work
interaction is considered a key feature of a communicative or leamer-centered

orientation. The higher the frequency of group-work, the more communicative

opportunities Ieamers have.

1. Whole class participation It is further divided into:

76

 

1. Grammar. Teachers focus on grammar rules, learners listen

or answer teachers’ questions on grammar rules.

2. Translation. Teachers provide translations of words or

sentences into native language.

3. Reading aloud: Teachers read the passages, learners listen

without repetition.

4.

5.

6.

10.

Pronunciation: Teachers teach pronunciation.

TPR: Teachers use Total Physical Response with the students.
Repeating after teachers: Class repeats a phrase or a sentence
after the teacher in unison.

Reading one by one: Learners read a phrase or a sentence
aloud one by one.

Learners answer teacher’s question one by one

Choral. The whole class is choral in reading, singing and
singing with acting

Learners working as a group without verbal interaction or
with limited number (3-4) of phases they had been taught for

example, in a Total Physical Response (TPR).

1]. Individual work

Individual work: Learners individually copy sentences from the

blackboard, write or do exercises.

III. Group work or pair work

77

Group work or pair work. Learners work in pairs or groups

independently from teachers. They are involved in negotiation and

interaction. They use language freely and meaningfully as in a

natural setting. Target language used during the interaction is not

predictable. Information flows two ways from Ieamers to Ieamers.

The Use of Target Language in the Classroom by Teachers. It will

particularly look at two features: I) The quantity of teacher talk in target language and 11)
Functions of teacher talk.

I. The quantity of teacher talk in the target language. The more the
use of the target language by teachers, the more Ieamers get exposure to it which is
believed to promote communicative competence. English used here did not include the
reading aloud of the reading passages, the lyrics of a song or the pronunciation drill by
teachers. The criteria for differentiating sentences or phrases for analysis were based on
Polio and Duff (1994). English phrases or sentences containing only a word or a phrase
of the native language were considered target language sentences if the native language
mix is not more than one word in a phrase or a phrase in a sentence. Sentences
containing the mix of target language and native language in equal proportions were
considered a mix and not included in the calculation. Thai sentences containing only a
word or phrase in English were considered native language. If the sentence or phrase was
repeated, it was counted only once. Each sentence or phrase produced by the three

teachers was tallied.

78

II. The functions of the target language. All target language produced
by teachers was coded according to its function; such as giving commands, giving

information, giving conﬁrmation, giving compliments, greeting and leave taking.

79

Chapter Four

Findings from Documents

Chapters four, ﬁve and six will focus on the ﬁndings of four procedures:
document analysis, observations, stimulated recalls, and interviews. The ﬁndings will be
presented as follows. Chapter four is the ﬁndings of document analysis of how policy
makers, policy distributors, supervisors, and teachers perceived a learner-centered
approach. The ﬁndings of document analysis presented ﬁrst because they gives
background knowledge of how a leamer-centered approach has been deﬁned differently
by different agents and how these deﬁnitions have been distributed to teachers. Chapter
ﬁve is the ﬁndings from the observations and stimulated recalls. It is important to present
stimulated recalls from teachers with the ﬁndings of observations because in stimulated
recalls, teachers have chances to clarify what they did and why in the classrooms during
the observations. This crucial information from teachers moderates any misinterpretation
that might take place. Chapter six is the ﬁndings of interviews. The ﬁndings from
interviews are presented last in order to see if what teachers think they do and what they
actually implemented during observation are compatible. Excerpts from documents,
observations, stimulated recalls and interviews are used to illustrate the comments of
participants and content of each document.

The education reform of 1996 is one of the most important events in Thailand
because in this reform, the process of teaching and learning was shifted from a teacher-
centered approach to a leamer-centered approach. Most Thai educators and teachers call
it a child-centered approach. Due to a lack of knowledge and understanding, many

teachers still do not understand what a leamer-centered approach is, and many have

80

misinterpreted it. For example, teachers misinterpret it as an approach in which learners
are shifted to sit in the center of the room, rather than sitting in rows as in the traditional
case. To address the misinterpretation to some extent, a learner-centered approach has
been substituted and the term has been used more often among Thai educators. In order
to avoid confusion in this report, only the term a learner-centered approach is used.
Before moving to the ﬁndings in each document, it is important to look at how the
knowledge of a leamer-centered approach has been delivered to teachers again. Figure
4.1 shows the diagram of how knowledge of a leamer-centered approach is
communicated from the policy-makers to teachers throughout the Ministry of Education.

Figure 4.1. Model of How a Leamer-Centered Approach Is Communicated to Teachers.

 

Policy-Maker
Ott'ice of National Education

commission
(ONEC) Office ofthe Prime Minister

 

 

 

 

 

Policy Distributor to Teachers
Ministry of Education

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lecture on TV Conference Publication

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Educator Supervisors Educators

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1

Teachers Teachers Teachers

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

( Sh. stands for short; Lng. for long)

The policy makers set the guiding principle of a leamer-centered approach for all

agents. The Ministry of Education has been responsible for delivering the knowledge of

81

a learner-centered approach to teachers through three channels: 1) a lecture on TV, 2) a
one—day conference, and 3) a publication.

These three resources were in a lecture format with a document giving the
theoretical knowledge of a leamer-centered approach, and they did not focus on the
teaching of any particular subject. Teachers had to apply the ideas of a leamer-centered
approach to their subjects on their own. From my conversations, according to the
understanding of English teachers and most supervisors, there has not been any training
or workshops on a leamer-centered approach speciﬁcally designed for any subjects
including English. They believed that English teachers have been trained on
communicative language teaching, but not a learner-centered approach. The reason was
that both supervisors and teachers were provided with knowledge of communicative
language teaching and a leamer-centered approach separately, and consequently, they

were considered two different approaches.

4.1. Findings from Document One by Policy Makers: The Publication of the Ofﬁce of
National Education Commission (ONEC)

It is important to ﬁrst see how ONEC policy makers deﬁne a leamer-centered
approach. ONEC as the central organization responsible for national policy, produced a
publication called Learning Reform: A Learner-Centered Approach. It was meant to
illustrate the concepts of a leamer-centered approach so that all educators would
implement a learner-centered approach in the same direction. It deﬁned a leamer-
centered approach as:

The process involves identiﬁcation of objectives, contents, activities, learning
sources, instructional media and evaluation aimed at development of the

82

“persons” and the enrichment of their “lives”. Learners should therefore be

allowed learning experiences to their highest potential and in line with their

aptitude, interests and needs” (Ofﬁce of National Education Committees 2000,

p.25-26).

A learner-centered approach was deﬁned as a learning process and that learners’
aptitudes, interests, and needs are the important elements in teaching and learning.
Therefore, objectives, contents, activities, learning sources, instructional media and
evaluation are particularly designed in order to meet learners’ particular aptitudes,
interests and needs. The goal is to develop Ieamers to the optimal stage of their learning.
There are various stages for leamer-centered teachers to follow: 1) Needs identiﬁcation,
2) Preparatory work, 3) Organization of learning activities, 4) Evaluation, 5) Conclusion
and subsequent application

Based on the policy makers’ version of a leamer-centered approach, on a practical
basis, teachers have to work harder. First, they need to identify learners’ needs, interests,
and knowledge through questioning, observation and questionnaires. Next, in the
preparatory stage, teachers need to study the contents and curriculum to plan content and
teaching methods. Learning activities provide authentic experiences and a relationship to
learners’ lives. Teachers prepare learning resources in terms of instructional media, fact
sheets, instructions, materials and equipment; and self-leaming centers with data
available for learners to study and search when they wished. In this stage, teachers need
to survey learning sources for learners such as public libraries, museums, zoos, and the
environment.

In the section on the organization of learning activities in the documents, it was

clearly stated that teachers offer nothing but friendship and assistance in all matters.

Learners are encouraged to participate in the learning activities at their own pace in a

83

non-threatening environment. At the evaluation stage, teachers evaluate learners’
learning outcomes to see if the goals have been accomplished. Two methods of
evaluation are given. For the ﬁrst one on reading practice, criteria provided are: ﬂuency,
correctness and clarity in pronunciation; correctness and clarity in pronunciation of /r/
and /l/; correctness and clarity in pronunciation of compound consonants with /r, 1, w/;
correct pauses at the end of phrases/sentences. These criteria focus on accuracy, and
were used a lot by Teachers A, B and C. Especially, Teacher A used these criteria in her
class, and spent almost all class time in reading and pronunciation practice which did not
help developing students’ communicative competence. The second one was called
creative evaluation for speaking skill. There were no speciﬁc criteria, but a teacher’s
comments were provided:

When a child starts to speak, no matter whether he makes a mistake or not, we

have to, ﬁrst of all, praise him and give him such encouraging words as ‘Very

good’. If you continue like this, you’ll be better and better. I never say he’s
wrong, but will ask ‘what has happened to this part?’ ‘Is there something
missing?’ The boy concerned will then ﬁnd additional information. We call this

‘Fill in the gap process.’

Guidance of how to deal with situations when students could not ﬁll in the gap
was not provided. This seemed to focus more on student’s language performance.
However there was no explanation of how to interpret this performance for scoring since
teachers needed to give evaluation in terms of grades. Moreover, these comments were a
teaching technique rather than an evaluation method. However, from the observations,

none of the three teachers used the creative evaluation because none used any speaking

activities.

84

This publication also provided examples of teachers applying a learner-centered
approach in different subjects and different situations. For example, Vimolsri
Suwannarat received a national award because she had applied a learner-centered

approach in her science class.

Vimolsri Suwannarat makes a plan for organizing the learning process by
allowing her students to carry out a small-scale research project of their choice.
The teacher and her students decide on a topic closely related to their lives, e.g.
the best hours for rubber tapping for maximum quantity of latex; use of extracts
from tinosopra cordifolia and king of bitter to prevent worms in salted ﬁsh;
production of mosquito repellent from palm blossoms etc. The teacher’s role is
conﬁned to the provision of advice and recommendation on planning, seeking
knowledge and identiﬁcation of and solution to problems with her students.
(Ofﬁce of National Education Committees 2000, p. 31)

4.2. Findings of a Lecture on a Learner-Centered Approach: A lecture by an educator
from the Ministry of Education
This lecture on a learner-centered approach was conducted by Dr.Gowit
Prawalaprit, a Thai educator of the Ministry of Education. It was televised via an
educational channel on July 24, 2000. All teachers were required to watch this program
and produce a lesson plan based on the lecture for their teaching situations. The
following is taken from the transcription of his lecture:
A leamer-centered approach is a teaching method which allows Ieamers to go
through a process of participatory learning. Teachers no longer provide the right
answers to Ieamers, but guide learners to reach the answers and solutions in their
own. Teachers are coaches, trainers, or facilitators who support Ieamers on their
process of learning. In this process, teachers help learners collecting data,
organizing the data, evaluating the data, improving the data, practicing and

producing. Finally, learners are expected to be able to construct the body of
knowledge on their own.

85

Dr. Prawalaprit introduced a diagram of participatory learning as follows:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1. Collect r 2. Organize 3. Evaluate information F
information information
6. Construct the learning w 5. Practice V 4. Improve and plan

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

An example given in the lecture was a reading comprehension lesson. Learners
and teachers worked to ﬁnd an interesting reading passage. Learners read the reading
passage to collect information about the reading passage. After analyzing the data, they
were told to organize the information meaningfully based on organization of the passage.
According to Dr. Prawalaprit’s lecture, learners had to discuss and evaluate the diagram
in terms of rightness, virtue and beauty. There were no speciﬁc steps or guidance on how
to discuss and evaluate the diagram in terms of rightness, virtue and beauty. Then the
learners were told to improve the organization of the information, and planned for
practice. Learners practiced or produced tasks. Finally, Ieamers summarized and
constructed the knowledge on their own. In this process, teachers were not supposed to
give any answers, but to guide them to ﬁnd the answers on their own. He stressed that if
the answers were given, this process would be teacher centered. Teachers were
facilitators asking questions to encourage learners’ process of thinking. He emphasized
that learners were different; therefore, teachers should be aware that some Ieamers might
or might not be able to do the same thing at the same pace. It was possible that different
Ieamers might produce different outcomes based on their potential. This diagram was

explained without any example of how it was actually implemented in classrooms. He

86

then transferred the diagram into a lesson plan which he called the “play book”. Figure
4.2 shows the Play-book as suggested in the lecture.

Figure 4.2: Play-book

 

 

1 . Reading passage Memo

2. Organization

  

3. Question Answer 1
Question Answer 2

4. Summary

 

 

The above ﬁgure was presented to teachers on a board. Again, the
implementation of the ﬁgure in a real situation was not provided. All teachers were
expected to use this framework when they produced their lesson plans after watching the
program. What was surprising was that the six stages of the participatory learning
process were reduced to four stages in the play book. Stages 4 and 5 disappeared. There
was no explanation given. The memo on the right side of the lesson plan was for teachers
to record what actually happened in the classroom which had no clear usefulness to
learning given. There was a concern if teachers could really record what was going in the
class at the same time they were facilitating their learners. He stressed that learners had

to work on their own at every stage. How could learners do it on their own?

87

 

After watching this one-hour lecture, teachers of all subjects produced a lesson
plan based on this lecture, and handed it in at the Ofﬁce of District Primary Education the
following week. From my interviews with both the teachers and the supervisors, teachers
did not understand the lecture, and they could not apply it in their situations. According
to Supervisors 4 and 5 of the District Primary Education Ofﬁces, many teachers copied
each other’s lesson plans, and many teachers copied the same lesson plan they had had.
Many tried their best to produce the lesson plans, but they did not produce good ones.
According to Supervisors 3, 4 and 5, all teachers would get the certiﬁcate as long as they
handed in something. They said they did not expect application of the knowledge
teachers got from the lecture at this point. I wonder if supervisors themselves understood
the lecture, and were able to apply the knowledge in any actual teaching situations.
Supervisors could not provide training on their own; they relied heavily on leading
teachers in their areas to help them in terms of interpreting the curriculum and designing
teaching materials to meet the qualiﬁcation of the curriculum. They gave the certiﬁcates
to all teachers without any evaluation because good evaluation must provide an
explanation of why the lesson plans were not approved, and how teachers could improve

or correct them. Supervisors were not able to do so.

4.3. Findings from a One-Day Conference on a Learner-Centered Approach
conducted by supervisors at the Provincial Primary Education Ofﬁce.

The second resource of a leamer-centered approach provided by the Ministry of
Education was a one-day conference, organized by supervisors at the provincial level

who had been trained and were knowledgeable in the procedures for giving training about

88

a learner-centered approach to teachers and other supervisors. About 80-100 teachers
participated in each session. Supervisor 3, as the organizer and trainer of this conference,
deﬁned the concept and explained the procedure she followed in the following excerpt:

A leamer-centered approach is learner important. They learn happily based on

their potential. The ﬁve principles of learning reform of a child-centered approach

were: 1. Learners learn happily, 2. Learners learn by doing, 3. Learners learn from

ﬁiends and groups, 4. Learners learn with integration of related subjects, and 5.

Learners summarize the learning on their own. The Ministry provided us the

procedures to organize the training. After we gave the knowledge of ﬁve

principles, teachers were divided into 5 groups and rotated to 5 different learning
centers. Teachers learned through learning centers. There were ﬁve learning
centers for ﬁve principles. For example, one learning center demonstrated
teaching and learning of integration. Teachers studied and learned at each learning
center. Other learning centers demonstrated how Ieamers summarized the
learning by themselves. Each learning center had a trainer demonstrating the
stages of teaching and learning. This way, teachers learned. Alter that teachers

wrote what they had learned from each learning center. Each group designed a

lesson plan based on what they learned.

Teachers were encouraged to seek their own knowledge through the learning
centers provided. There were ﬁve learning centers for teachers which demonstrated how
each principle was actually used in different subjects. According to Supervisor 3, none of
these centers showed the use of a leamer-centered approach in teaching English. Most of
them were teaching social science subjects and Thai. Working together as a group,
teachers ﬁnally summarized the knowledge and produced a lesson plan after they went
through those learning centers.

The ideas of a leamer-centered approach from the conference seemed the most
effective way among the three channels to reach teachers and supervisors. Teachers and

supervisors seemed to cite the characteristics of a leamer-centered approach based on this

conference the most which provided opportunities for discussion between teachers. As a

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result, this experience stayed longer in teachers’ memories. However, English teachers
who participated in this conference reported that these ideas from the conference were
not suitable for teaching English. Details will be presented in Chapter 7, dealing with the

ﬁndings of research question 1.

4.4. Findings from the Publication Produced by the Curriculum and Instruction

Development Department, the Ministry of Education

The third resource of a leamer-centered approach provided for teachers was a
publication, Teaching methods of a learner-centered approach. In this publication, 3
learner-centered approach was deﬁned as:

A teaching method which provides learning activities in line with leamers’ lives,

aptitude, and interests. In this approach, Ieamers participate at all stages of

learning process, they learn through actual practice or action till self-leaming is
attained (Department of Curriculum and Instruction Development, Ministry of

Education, 1996).

This deﬁnition of a learner-centered approach was similar to that in the ﬁrst
publication by the NEC. Both emphasized the participation of Ieamers at all stages, and
development of Ieamers to their highest potential. This publication added the features of
actual practice and self-learning into the deﬁnition. Learners were expected to have
actual practice through 21 teaching methods provided in this publication. This
publication devoted only the ﬁrst three pages to the concept of a leamer—centered
approach, and the rest of it was detailed description of 21 teaching methods. It did not

provide any speciﬁc examples of teaching procedures for any subjects. It served as the

reference book for 21 teaching methods. Only one out of ten schools I visited had a copy

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of this publication. This school is situated close to the Department of Curriculum and
Instruction Development, Ministry of Education. This publication was not well known

among teachers and supervisors.

9]

Chapter Five
Findings from Observations and Stimulated Recall
Three teachers were observed in this study with three consecutive observations
for each. The analysis will be made for Teacher A, B, and C consecutively. I will ﬁrst
describe the classroom arrangement of each class, to acquaint the readers with classroom
situations in Thailand. Then I will describe the details of three observations with

information from the stimulated recalls for each teacher.

5.]. Findings of Observations and Stimulated Recalls of Teacher A

Classroom A

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

blackboard 0 Cl
D \
/
O
/ O
O
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_I 1 I

This was a 6/5 class, one of the ﬁve grade six classes at this school. There was a
blackboard in the front, windows to the left, and two doors to the right. Teacher A taught
eight subjects to class 6/5, except physical education. Her desk was next to the front door.
There were some pictures with English vocabulary next to the board, and pictures of
child development, human internal organs and human evolution on the wall in between
the two doors. There were some metal shelves, a garbage bin, a sweeper, two pairs of

slippers at the back of the room with some litter on the ﬂoor tile. Thirty-two students sat

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in six rows. They all wore white shirts and blue skirts for girls, and blue shorts for boys.
Students took their shoes off before entering the class, and left them on the ﬂoor under
their desks. This class was on the third ﬂoor of the building. The language lab was on
the second ﬂoor, but had not been used for a while because of broken sound instruments.
The adjacent building close to the window of the room was under construction; therefore,
construction noise was part of the learning and teaching of this class. I always sat at the

back of the class where I could see what was going on in the class clearly.

5.1.1. Teacher A’s Observation 1

Thirty-one students were doing mathematics exercises. Without mentioning my
presence in the class, Teacher A told the students to put away the mathematics exercise
they were doing and open the English exercise book. She told the students to repeat after
her in chorus when she read the vocabulary word one by one (Look at Appendix 3.
Exercise 6.1. Vocabulary list 1). The following was an excerpt from the observation. (TA

refers to Teacher A; C to Class.)

TA: tuﬁrnawm’aﬁut’taomﬁuznz (Today we will continue studying the
same topic “Cousin”). Open your book, page 65. Page 65, repeat after
me. Aunt

C: Aunt

TA: Aunts

C: Aunts

Then she told the students to open page 68, which was the homework assigned at
the previous English class. The following is the passage students were assigned to read
and ﬁnish the question before coming to class.

Question 1. Whose birthday party am I going to go to? Next month, some people

are going to have birthday parties? And I’m going to go. I’m going to wear my
best clothes. I want to eat a lot of cake and ice-cream. I think I am having a good

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time. Whose birthday party am I going to go to? Guess. Number one, this man
was 55, when I had my ﬁrst birthday. My father and uncles look like him. He
played with my father, when he was a little boy. His wife is my grand mother and
I am his grand child. Whose birthday party am I going to go to? Guess!

She asked students who ﬁnished the homework to raise their hands. Not many
students raised their hands. Teacher A read the passage sentence by sentence, and each
student was called to translate the sentence she just read. If a student translated it
incorrectly, she called another student to translate. After all sentences were translated
into Thai, she called a student to answer the question. Teacher A explained the answer.
Her explanation and conversation were all in Thai. Then she asked the class to repeat
after her, reading question one again. She explained later that she wanted them to practice
pronunciation. Finally, every student was called to read a sentence one by one. There
were another four questions similar to question 1, and Teacher A repeated the same
teaching technique for question 2. She assigned questions 3 and 4 as homework again for
the ones who had not ﬁnished them. This was the second time that this exercise was
assigned as homework.

The class was asked to open the textbook to page 69, which contained another
vocabulary list. (See Appendix 3. Exercise 6.2.Vocabulary list 2). Again, Teacher A read
the vocabulary and asked the students to repeat after her. She called on some speciﬁc
students to translate each one in Thai. If any student could not provide the right
translation, she called on additional students until she got the correct answer.

After ﬁnishing this reading and translating, she started reading the same list for
the second round. Students repeated and provided the translation for each vocabulary
item. Two students who sat together at the back of the class did not repeat after her, but

used their feet to ﬁx the broken ﬂoor tile under a table. Three to four students did not

94

bring their English books, so they did not read or translate any word. Another two
students were writing something on the tables.

After the series of repetitions and translations, Teacher A told the class to write
down the translation of each vocabulary item on the list. Although the translation of each
vocabulary item was given twice in this class, some students still either looked for the
meanings in the dictionaries or asked for the meaning from friends. It was clear that
students were not paying attention to the reading and the translation.

After the writing of translations was ﬁnished, every single student in the class was
called to read one word from the list starting with the student who sat in the last seat of
each row. Teacher A said that she wanted to test if each student could read after a few
times of repetition. Now most students were alert and counted when their turns would
come and which word they were supposed to read. Again, they did not listen to the
reading of their friends, but paid attention to counting the turns and practicing the
vocabulary they were going to read. One student in this class did not have the English
textbook, and did not participate in any reading or translating. He did not pay attention to
the class.

Teacher A corrected all pronunciations she thought not perfect. The class ended
with students reading aloud one by one. All students were corrected on their
pronunciation. Teacher A admitted that the correction might discourage her students.
However, she felt that she had no choice because she thought that mistakes needed to be
corrected; otherwise, they would repeat the same mistakes. She believed that it was her

duty as a teacher to correct students’ mistakes.

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5.1.2. Teacher A’s Observation 2

The second observation started with the teacher reading the same vocabulary list
from observation 1, and the class repeating after her. (See Appendix Exercise 4.2.
Vocabulary list 2.) Then each student read each word aloud followed by the translation,
again starting with the students who sat in the last seat of each row. She explained that
each student was called to read a sentence one by one because she wanted every single
student to have an equal chance to read. It was a technique to stimulate inattentive
students to pay more attention to the lesson. She complained that some students in her
class did not participate in learning English because these students thought that English
was not important and not necessary to their lives. I asked a student after observation 2
why he never participated in any activities. “I am bored,” he said. It was possible that
the students thought that the learning and teaching of English was very boring rather than
very difﬁcult, as she thought.

After every student had a chance to stand up and read a word with the translation,
Teacher A asked the class to open the homework she had assigned. (See Appendix 3.
Exercise 4.3. Cloze Test.) There were about eight students who did not do the
homework. The homework was a cloze test where students ﬁlled in the blanks with
information from the reading. Teacher A read the Cloze Test, and stopped at the blank,
then asked each student to provide the missing word to ﬁll in each blank. She wrote
down on the black board the right answer provided by students until the Cloze Test was
completely ﬁlled. The missing words were both grammatical and content words. She

seemed to focus more on grammar. The following is an example taken from Teacher A’s

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observation transcription. The explanation was all in Thai (the translation of each Thai
sentence is provided in the following parenthesis).

TA: He...45 Kilograms.

C: weighty

TA: atl'ioﬂu‘taula'i (Is it like this?) it S muniaula'i (Is there an —s?)
ﬁm‘tuuquzn: W-E-I-G-H-T (Look at W-E-I-G-H-T) Weight ntﬂtﬂun’iuiu
(Weight is a noun) nulir'lil‘ldi (You cannot use it) usi‘luztnrsmzfl . (But in
this case). He...45 Kilograms nuriao'lilmn‘tmm‘la (You have to put a
verb in this lot) ﬂuﬂﬂgzmu (It has a subject) ﬂudiaoﬂn'tm (It needs a
verb) Fi‘l‘i‘l Weighvt riiﬁ'lii‘tilmn‘tm (This word Weight is not a verb)
r-i'in‘ttmiltulat'iﬁumunmt‘é‘i'tumnnmn (You can ﬁnd the verb of this
word in the appendix, look for it quickly)

C: Weigh

TA: ashaauio'ls (how do you spell it)

C: W-E-I-G-H

TA: uﬂaaznétmﬁu (similar meaning) .

C: W-E-I-G-H-E-D

TA: ta‘wh'lilsiao‘tr'r ED vl'i'luaz? (Why do you need an —ed?)
flﬂutflut‘iaoaﬁnn‘tamai (Is this story past) luuqﬁﬂutﬂuaﬁnu‘tamm (Is
it past)

C: an -ed aan (Delete —ed)

TA: an -ed aan ﬂu'tii‘trlaﬁn (Ed should be deleted; it is not past)
rim‘tuuriaoqsiutlszianrmlﬁ IS ag‘ uanoiiﬁurﬁuﬂaqﬂu (You should look
at the sentence, they use ‘is’. This means that it is present.)
nitiﬁgnu‘taﬂomtﬁnuamou weigh. (Is it correct to write down weigh)
Class: :10 (No)

TA: ﬁqnazﬁaovhatho‘lsﬁn (What to make it correct?)

C: that 5 (Put an-s) .

TA: that S tlszmutﬂu He cerium He weighs um: He weighs 45 kilograms.
(Add an-s. He is the subject of the sentence, so we use ‘He weighs.)

Next, Teacher A started to read some questions such as: How old are you? When
is your birthday? How tall are you? How much do you weigh? She told the students to
repeat after her. She told her students that for the next class she wanted them to ask each
other about their age, weight, and height by using the questions they had just read.

Before they could do that, she wanted them to practice pronunciations with her ﬁrst.

97

Reading aloud continued until class was over. Students did not have a chance to ask each

other information.

5.1.3. Teacher A’s Observation 3

Teacher A did not continue what she planned the day before, for her students to
ask each other about their personal information. Class was started when Teacher A read
a short passage (See Appendix 3. Exercise 4.4. Reading passage.) She told the class to
read after her sentence by sentence. After that, Teacher A asked the class to read aloud
the Cloze Test they had ﬁnished the day before (See Appendix 3. Exercise 4.3. Cloze
Test.) One by one each of the 31 students was called to stand up and read a sentence in
the Cloze Test. After all students had had a chance to read one sentence, Teacher A told
them to look at an application form. (See Appendix 3. Exercise 4.5.) She had assigned
students to ﬁll in the form at home with their personal information. Now in class she
asked each student to give the answer. There were about eight questions provided after
the form. Teacher A assigned eight students to write the answers of these eight questions
on the blackboard. Some students, especially boys, talked quietly to each other or played
quietly with their pens or pencils. They seemed inattentive to what was going on in the

class. Class ended after she checked all the answers on the blackboard.

5.1.4. Summary of Teacher A’s Observations

It can be concluded that Teacher A depended heavily on the textbook. Reading

after the teacher, reading aloud one by one, translating into the native language, doing

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comprehension exercises, and focusing on grammar were highly common activities
repeated in all three observations.

In all three observations, students were sitting at their desks. They were not
supposed to move around without her permission. In three observations, only one student
asked the spelling of a word. Other students never asked any questions although she
asked them if they had any questions before continuing. While going over the
homework, she called on students to read or answer in row order. If the students’
responses came too slowly, the teacher would go on to the next student. She allowed
very little time for students to answer. If the response was incorrect, she would call on
the two or three particular individuals who always seemed to know all the correct
responses, or she would move on to ask the same question of the next student. Some
students did not pay attention to any activities at all. They did not even write down the
answers provided to the questions.

Based on my observations, only a few students paid attention to the lesson, and
Teacher A usually called these students to answer her questions. A few students were
never called at all. There were one or two ignored by the teacher, for example the one
who always sat at the back next to the window. In my ﬁeld notes I wrote,

In all three of her classes I observed, there was a student who was never called on

to make any response. He also did not seem to pay attention to what was going

on in the class. He sat at the back of the class next to the window. He always

looked out through the windows. He didn’t have the textbook with him. He did

not bring his English books in the ﬁrst and the second observations. In

observation 1, Teacher A was very upset with him. In observation 2, she did not

pay attention to him. He was ignored. He was not in the class during the third
observation.

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Teacher A said that she had been a leamer-centered teacher because her students
did things in class. They read and wrote English. She wanted to use more
communicative language teaching in her class, but the nature of the book she was using
(English is Fun, 1997) was not suitable. It did not provide many communicative
activities. Actually, English is Fun was written based on communicative language
teaching theory. Most of the activities in the book are focused on communication. The
problem was how these teachers used them. Rather than having students talking in pairs,
or discussing the reading, the communicative language activities provided in the book
were implemented as activities of reading aloud and repeating after the teacher as

demonstrated by Teacher A’s classes.

5.2. Findings From Observations of Teacher B

Classroom B

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

/ controlling \
devices
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Classroom B was a sound lab with the sound controlling devices next to the
blackboard, and a television set on the top. There were 16 ﬁxed booths in the front with
ear phones hanging on the glass wall of each booth, and behind the booths were 16 desks
and 16 chairs. All the sound instruments were broken. The teacher’s desk was at the

back of the room. Teacher B took the back of the sound lab as her ofﬁce. There were

100

piles of students’ exercise books, small English books, and activities. Next to her desk,
there was another desk for students who came to practice English during lunch break. On
the top of this desk, there were some exercises, and English activities for students. All
students wore uniforms of white shirts with blue skirts for girls, and khaki shorts for
boys. They came to this classroom for English. They took their shoes off, and left them
outside. There were some pictures with English words on the walls of the room. Outside

of the room, there was a poster of Valentine’s Day, made by Teacher B with her students.

5.2.1. Teacher B’s Observation 1

After introducing me to the class, Teacher B asked students to look at pictures of
eight different activities students were doing around a camp. In each picture, there was a
clock telling the time of the activity. Next to the eight pictures, there were eight different
sentences describing the pictures. She asked in Thai what they could see from the
pictures in Thai, and the students replied in Thai as well. Teacher B asked them to say it
in English. They could not.

Teacher B gave them the ﬁrst letter of the words to help them. She could elicit
only two items of vocabulary from students: camp and clock. Then she told the students
that she would read the eight sentences on the left of the pictures one by one. The
students matched what they heard with the picture. (The students could see the sentences
she read on the left of the picture). The following excerpt was taken from my
observation transcription of Teacher B’s class during the listening—matching activity: (TB
refers to Teacher B; C to class.)

T8: ﬂoﬁan‘nmwnngumﬁtﬂmniw (Listen to me, and look for the
picture) “Listen and answer the question."

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“Number one. “The camp will start at seven with some exercises."
“The camp will start at seven with some exercises."
“Which picture?” “The camp will start at seven with some exercises."
“Which picture?” mw'lnu mw‘lviu mw'tviu uamau mw (Which
picture? Which picture? Which picture? Tell me the picture)
C: mwaanmdomu (The picture of exercise)
TB: mwaanrhaiomu (The picture of exercise) Insraauétmwaanri‘id’on‘m
(Has anyone found it?) ratazuzqmiuiiuu: (It is correct)

Students did match the ﬁrst pair right without any problem by using information
from the sentences they heard. However, instead of continuing, Teacher B directed

students to use some tips in listening. Consider this excerpt:

TB: “The camp will start at seven with some exercises."

“Exercise” ﬁamsaanmztomu (Exercise means exercise)
uéoﬁuﬁuanﬂnr‘tuuﬁamtnu ( Which word in the sentence gives you the
clue to choose the right picture?)

C: “Exercise”

TB: “At seven" “At seven" tflumsuannm (At seven is telling time)
titmimut’ii'i “At seven” ﬁaaz‘lm‘immwd‘m'luu (If we know the

meaning of At seven, can we ﬁnd the right picture easily?

C: dirt ( Easily)

TB: Jutﬁms'ttidtuﬁawaminmmﬁqmﬂmu: Laisia‘lil (Therefore, to

make it easy we should look at the time on the clock)

In my ﬁeld-notes, I wrote,

In the listening activity, students were expected to listen to the target language.
They made sense of what they had heard, and matched what they could make
sense of with a picture. In this case, they had to choose a picture based on their
understanding. If they could get the right picture, it conﬁrmed what they
understood was correct. This conﬁrmation was part of the language development.
I was surprised when Teacher B told her students to pay attention to the time on
the clock rather than to the sentence. Teacher B cut short the learning process that
deﬁnitely hurt rather than helped students’ language development. Teacher B’s
tip inhibited the learning process. Students did not pay attention to the sentence,
and did not try to understand it. They simply looked at the time on the clock as
suggested.

102

After this activity, Teacher B drew students’ attention to the grammatical point
common for eight sentences. Then she read only the verb of each sentence, such as “will
have”, “will start”, “will get”, “will walk”, etc. The class repeated after her. After
reading after the teacher, students were asked to produce a sentence containing ‘have’ as
a verb. She hoped that the students would produce a sentence containing future tense
since they had just repeated after her with all the future tense sentences. Students could
not make a sentence containing the verb ‘to have.” They told her that they needed more
time, but she pushed them to think faster. Finally, a student could think of one. He said

,9

“ I have two hands. Then some other sentences were produced such as “I have two
legs,” and “I have a leg.” Things did not go as she wanted. So she changed the verb to
‘study.’ The students produced “we study English” and “we study Thai.” The sentences
were perfectly correct, but again were not in future tense as she wanted. The teacher tried
again by asking them when they would study Thai. Finally, through her elicitation, “We
will study Thai tomorrow” was produced. Teacher B did not have question asking skills.
It took so much time to get what she expected, which was a sentence containing future
tense. However, Teacher B did not take advantage of it at all. Instead of having them
produce the sentences with the future tense again since they understood what she wanted,
she asked them to translate the verbs she said into Thai. She provided the verb in the
future tense, and the class provided the translation of that verb. An example was the
following:

T: “Will go”

S: new (will go)

T: 3311] “Will play”
S: azta'u (will play)

103

She conveyed to the class in Thai the usage of ‘will,’ and the meaning of ‘will.’
Then she asked a student to cite some weather broadcast in Thai that the students usually
heard on the radio. She wanted to relate the tense with real life situations such as a
weather forecast in their native language. Here, there was an indicator of some idea of
trends in language teaching, e.g. connection to real world. However, due to the teacher’s
lack of eliciting skills, students did not understand what the teacher was expecting of
them. They did not produce a forecast showing the use of future tense in the native
language. She then asked some other students until one of them used a component of the
future tense (the word ‘will’ in Thai). Class was almost over when one sentence in Thai
was produced with the word ‘will.’ The students were confused. They did not
understand why Teacher B was not satisﬁed with their answers, and if their answers were
correct.

When asked later after class why she wanted to ask students to talk about Thai
forecasts, she said that she wanted them to relate a weather forecast in Thai also using a
future tense. Students did not practice English very much this day. They listened to the
sentences and matched them with the pictures by focusing on time on the clocks rather
than the sentences. They translated some English words into Thai. Only one student
produced an English sentence to meet her expectations. Teacher B asked some questions
in Thai about their background knowledge of weather forecasts, and the students

answered based on their knowledge. Most communication was in Thai.

104

5.2.2. Teacher B’s Observation 2

It was Valentine’s Day. Teacher B said in English, “Valentine is the day of love”
and asked her students to repeat after her many times and copy it in their notebooks. Her
students could not write Valentine, so they ran to the board outside the class to see the
spelling of the word “Valentine’s Day”. Most of them ran to the board more than once. I
asked Teacher B why she wanted the students to copy this sentence down. She thought
that after the students listened to the sentence, and then said it by repeating after her, they
should be able to write the sentence too. In her opinion, copying and writing were the
same.

After that, Teacher B asked all students to go to the front of the class, and she
divided them into two groups: boys and girls. There were about 16 students in each
group. She gave a set of seven strips of seven English words to each group. Then she
told both boys and girls who did not have a strip to go back to their seats. At this point,
these students had stood there with no directions for almost ﬁve minutes.

The seven students in each group had to arrange seven strips into this order:
Valentine- is -on -the- 14 -of -February. From the stimulated recall, Teacher B explained
that this activity was meant to warm up and lead students to the Valentine’s Day
atmosphere. She said it was too difﬁcult for her students, but she had not prepared
another activity. She used this sentence scramble activity because it did not take so much
time to prepare, she said. In this observation, Teacher B used much more English.
However, the students were confused because they were not familiar with English
instructions and did not understand. They did not understand even easy English

sentences. This strongly suggested that Teacher B had never used even easy English with

105

these students before the observations. Teacher B said each English instruction more
than four times, and ﬁnally ended it with a translation. Teacher B admitted that she was
willing to do so as long as she did not have difﬁculty in speaking English. She admitted
that she switched to Thai when she could not ﬁnd the word in English.

After students arranged the sentence scramble correctly, she asked them to return
the strips to her and return to their seats. She wrote, “Valentine is on the 14 of February”
on the board. She read the sentence that she wrote ﬁve or six times, and the students
repeated after her each time. Then she told the students to copy the sentence in their
notebooks.

Teacher B might have forgotten that students had already repeated this sentence
“Valentine is on the 14 of February” after her, copied it in their notebooks, rearranged the
sentence scrambles, repeated after her again, and ﬁnally copied it again for the second
time. This time they did not need to run to the board outside. All students knew that
Valentine’s Day is on the 14 of February because they gave each other roses and stickers
of hearts. I also received some before this English class. This activity took more than 20
minutes of the observed time.

After they ﬁnished, the teacher told them to sing a song called “Love.” It was a
short song taught to them before. However, Teacher B started to sing phrase by phrase,
and the students repeated after her, phrase by phrase. The students repeated singing after
their teacher three times. She explained to me that singing was meant to recharge her
students, and the repetition after her helped them to memorize the song better. I ﬁrst
thought that Teacher B introduced this song because it was about ‘love,’ which was

related to Valentine’s Day, the theme of the day. However, this was not the case.

106

After the singing of the song of love, Teacher B switched to the theme of weather
forecast again. Recall that in observation 1, she wanted her students to produce a Thai
sentence about a weather forecast with the word ‘will.’ To continue this theme, she
showed the map of Thailand. She also reviewed students’ knowledge of directions:
north, south, east and west, and introduced four pictures of different weather conditions:
cloudy, snowy, rainy, stormy. After that she said a sentence, “Tomorrow will be cloudy.”
The students repeated after her. She substituted the weather condition (cloudy) with
other words such as snowy, rainy, stormy; the students repeated after her for every single
sentence. She then added more information about places in the former sentences. She
said, “Tomorrow will be cloudy in Songkla” (a province). She substituted the place with
other different provinces in Thailand. Again, students repeated after her. Teacher B
believed that repeating after the teacher was important because Ieamers had the chance to
listen and speak at the same time. Therefore, she always made sure that her students had
a chance to repeat after the teacher.

Finally, Teacher B gave four pictures of weather conditions to four students.
These students were supposed to show the picture that matched what she said. Students
showed them correctly. Teacher B explained in the stimulated recall that she used this
activity to check her students’ comprehension. If they remembered and understood the
words and sentences, they showed the right pictures. Before class was over, she told the
students to draw four pictures in their notebooks without stating clearly what pictures
students were going to draw. I wonder if they knew what pictures they were going to

draw. Teacher B explained in the stimulated recall that drawing the pictures of weather

107

conditions helped the students to review what they had learned in the class, and helped
them to remember better.

I asked if she had a lesson plan. She stressed that she had been teaching English
for more than 20 years, and she did not need a lesson plan. Her lesson plan was in her
brain. She could remember them all. Students still did not have a chance to

communicate in English.

5.2.3. Teacher B’s Observation 3 (This was a two hour class)

Today, class was moved from the language lab to an ordinary classroom. When I
entered the room, the students were sitting in groups of ﬁve to six. She didn’t mention
the homework assigned in the former class. On the blackboard was the lyrics of the song,
called “Whatever Will Be, Will Be” or “Que Sera, Sera.” She read each line of the song
twice, and the students repeated after her line by line. Then she played the cassette tape
of the song, and asked the students to sing along with the tape, but the students did not
follow. She stopped the tape. She sang the song line by line, and students sang after her
line by line. Then the students sang with her twice. She called one student to sing, but
she couldn’t. Teacher A sang the song line by line again, and asked that student to sing
after her. She called another one to sing after her, too.

In the former observation, Teacher B had switched to focus on the theme of
weather forecasts and future tense again after focusing on the Valentine’s Day theme.
This song “Whatever Will Be, Will Be” contained the use of word ‘will.’ There seemed
to be a link between activities here. However, instead of keeping the same theme,

Teacher B had her students practice pronunciation of ﬁnal sounds /I/ and /n/. She also

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introduced some new words related to weather forecasts. Again, she had them repeating
after her. Then, she said the words in Thai, and asked students to translate them into
English. Or she said the word in English, and students translated it into Thai. This
activity was apparently not relevant and not necessary because it distracted students’
interests and attention. Pronunciation practice could have been done later if
misunderstanding or communication breakdown occurred due to the incorrect
pronunciation.

She then gave a name card of different provinces to each group of students. She
asked each group to show their name card, and pronounce the name on the card. She told
the students that they were going to do group work. The students were divided into 8
different groups based on the name card of a different province they received. Now
students sat in groups of four to ﬁve. She showed the pictures of different weather
conditions used in observation 2, and asked them to repeat after her again.

She then distributed the map of Thailand to each group. She told the class to
listen to the tape of a weather forecast twice, and they had to write what they heard on the
maps. There was no clear message what they were supposed to write on the maps, the
temperature, the name, or the weather condition of each place. She started the tape which
was a weather broadcast from eight different provinces. The speed was too fast, and the
sentences were too long for the beginning level. It was too difﬁcult for these students to
write down everything they heard. They were not provided with any information except
that they were divided into eight groups. Grade 6 students did not have note-taking
skills. After listening the ﬁrst time, she stopped the tape, and went around to different

groups to see if anyone could write anything. She was very disappointed because no one

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could write any information they had heard. They could not do the task because they
could not understand the difﬁcult listening, and they did not know what to write.

She rewound to the tape in order to replay the weather forecast for the second
time. Unfortunately, although she tried hard, she could not do it. Students started to talk
to each other. A student next to me started to draw a picture while waiting. Teacher B
was not very happy that she had no way to replay the same weather forecast.

This group work activity ended due to a technical problem. From the stimulated
recall, Teacher B explained what she meant by group work activity. In this listening
activity, the students sat in groups and each of them listened to the same tape. She
wanted these students to remember all the information and share the information with
peers in the group. Finally, after each student had enough information, she wanted these
students to work individually by listening to the same tape they had listened to before,
and ﬁll in the temperature of each city on the map.

Her explanation concerned me because she divided students into groups so that
after listening to the tape, each member of the group could copy each other’s information.
They could ﬁll in the map with information about the temperature of each city without
listening to the tape, by copying each other. Teacher B argued that this was group work.

After she could not replay the same weather forecast, she wanted to dismiss the
class; however, these students did not have a chance to ﬁnish their listening activity. I
asked her if she could read the weather forecast for the students. She said she could not
because she did not have the script of the tape. She thought that she could jot down the

information at the same time the students were listening. Unfortunately, she could not.

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I had jotted down important information of the weather forecast for each
province. I told her that she could read my notes to her students. However, she declined
to do so. I did not want to read to the students because I came to the site with no
intention of taking part in the teaching and learning activities. However, it was difﬁcult
for me to see students dismissed without any substantial teaching or learning. I asked her
if I could help. Finally, I helped her teaching these students listening skills. At this point,
it was no longer a non-participant observation. I had changed my role from a non-
participant researcher to a participant researcher. I took part in the teaching activities in
the classroom, and my ﬁrst priority was not only to observe, but also to teach. Therefore,
this information was not included in the analysis. Before I started to read, I told her
students to write down all eight provinces on the map. And I told them to listen for the
weather condition (four conditions: sunny, rainy, stormy and snowy) and the numbers for
the temperature in each province. With sufﬁcient information given to them, students
could ﬁll in the map with needed information. This was the ﬁeld-note I took.

The ﬁrst problem was the failure of the teaching technique. These students were
not told clearly what they were expected to do in this listening activity. They
were told only they were going to listen to weather broadcasts, and they had to
write the information. There was no purpose provided for these students. They
also were not told how to write the information, writing it as sentences as they
heard, or just symbols and numbers.

The second problem was the map that did not provide any information or clues for
the students. Teacher B could have prepared a better map with more helpful
information such as numbers in the same order as the tape with provinces written
on the map. This was helpful because it made students aware of the next
information they were going to listen to.

The third problem was the teacher’s lack of technology experience and classroom
management skills. She could have prepared the tape better, for example,
recording the weather forecasts 4-5 times so that she did not need to rewind it
since her tape player did not have a tape counter.

The ﬁnal problem was that she did not have knowledge of teaching methodology.
In her view, group work was activities with students sitting together so that they

lll

could copy information from each other. There was no purpose for working as a

group, no roles, no interaction, no problem to solve, and no decision to make.
5.2.4. Summary of Teacher B’s Observations

Teacher B had some knowledge of communicative language teaching, but she did
not understand it clearly. She used some communicative features in her teaching, but
ineffectively. In three observations, her students were involved in unrelated activities.
Their interests were distracted by these activities. She could not reach the goal of
communicative activities because she lacked classroom management and teaching
technique. She tried to use English as much as she could in her teaching, but her students
could not understand her simple English instruction. As a result, her students did not

actually practice in any substantial activities or tasks.

5.3. Findings from Observations of Teacher C

Classroom C

 

 

 

 

El
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Classroom C was on the second ﬂoor of one of the three main buildings in the
school. The students of this class learned all subjects in this room. Different teachers of
different subjects rotated to teach their subjects. Teacher C taught only English to this

class. Students wore white shirts with blue skirts for girls, and khaki shorts for boys.

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They normally sat in rows. However, in the ﬁrst observation, class 5/1 had their English
class under a big tree in the front yard near the building. In the second and third
observations, teaching took place in this room, but desks and chairs were pushed to the
back of the room. Students sat on the ﬂoor, stood in rows, or moved around depending

on the requirement of the activities.

5.3.1. Teacher C’s Observation 1.

This class was under a big tree in front of the building. Teacher C was standing in
front of her students in their gym uniforms sitting on the ground. She told them to divide
into groups of six. Students stood in ﬁve lines, and sang about four to ﬁve English songs
that Teacher C had taught them. They sang and acted to the song. Then she told the
students that she was going to teach them how to give directions to strangers. She told
them to sing a song about turning. They turned left, right, and around while they sang.
After the song, she gave the instructions to them such as turn left, turn right, go around,
go straight, and go to the back. The students followed the instructions by turning in the
right direction as instructed by the teacher. Teacher C stressed in the stimulated recall
that action was helpﬁrl to language learning. Action helped them to remember the
language pattern and use this language later.

After that a student was called to give the same ﬁve instructions to the members
in his groups. The rest of the class was watching. All members of the group could
follow the instruction correctly. Teacher C explained in the stimulated recall that this
group was used as the model for other groups. Then a student from each group took a

turn giving instructions to all members of his or her group. Finally, each member of each

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group took a turn giving instructions to each individual of his or her group. Again, almost
all students could follow the ﬁve instructions correctly. Students were told to bring a

piece of cloth to the next class.

5.3.2. Teacher C’s Observation 2

The students were in their classroom. Class was started with singing songs twice
related to directions. They also sang and acted to the songs. Now the tables and chairs
were pushed to the back of the room. The students were divided into six groups. She
then told the students to cover their eyes with a piece of cloth. Then she gave
instructions: turn left, and right, go straight, go to the back, go around, and stop. Most
of the students followed her instructions correctly without seeing their friends. Teacher C
explained later that she wanted to make sure that the students could follow the
instructions by themselves. Covering their eyes prevented them from copying their
friends. The result was impressive. Students could follow the instructions correctly
without seeing their friends.

Then she explained in Thai the game “Covering eyes, feeding a banana,” 3
popular Thai children’s game. One student of each group was the feeder who covered his
or her eyes with a piece of cloth with a banana in one hand. One was to be the eater, who
stood stationary'at a spot unknown to the feeder. The rest of the group helped by telling
the directions such as go left, go right, and go straight to the feeder so that he or she could
put the banana into the recipient’s mouth. In order to make this game more competitive,
two groups at a time competed with each other. The score went to the faster group. The

students were very excited. They did their best to get the score. Class was very noisy. It

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was full of shouting, screaming, and laughing. All students had a chance to be either the
feeder, the recipient, or the navigator. Class was very loud. All students had smiles on
their faces, but almost all of the talking between students and teacher and between
students and students was in Thai. Noise and fun did not equal language learning by

themselves.

5.3.3. Teacher C’s Observation 3

Teacher C gave the same instructions used in observations 1 and 2 to a student,
and he could turn correctly. Teacher C said that she wanted to review what the students
had learned in the previous class. Then she showed ﬁve vocabulary cards of the same
ﬁve instructions: turn left and right, go around, go straight, and go to the back. She
showed the cards for four to ﬁve rounds, and the students read them all. They could read
what Teacher C had taught them. So far students had been exposed to only these ﬁve
vocabulary since observation 1. It was possible that students had been pre-taught about
these ﬁve words before observation 1 because they all knew them and had been able to
turn correctly as they were instructed since the beginning of observation 1. In
observation 3, Teacher C continued to use drill activity although her students appeared
ready to move to the next level where they could use language communicatively.

Then Teacher C told the students to play a whisper game, another drill activity.
They divided into ﬁve groups, and they sat in line on the ﬂoor. The teacher showed one
card only to the ﬁrst student in each group who whispered to the next student behind him
or her. Each student whispered it to the next student behind him or her. The last student

of each group told the class what he or she was told. The teacher revealed the card she

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showed to the ﬁrst one to show if it was right or wrong. The score went to the right
answer. All students actively participated in order to get the highest score. Each member
of a group had a chance to be the ﬁrst one in each line, and started to whisper the word he
or she saw on the card.

After that, Teacher C reviewed phrases about places and expressions used in
asking for directions “How to get to a (place).” It was clear that these students had been
taught about this expression before because Teacher C asked in Thai what phrases and
expressions she had taught. Students were able to tell her correctly in English. Then
instead of having a communicative activity, Teacher C used the expressions for asking
for directions in Thai, and the students gave her the English translations “How to get to a
(place)”. Or she said them in English, and students translated them in Thai. Now she
asked the class the directions to the post ofﬁce of the town. The class gave the directions
to her in English. They answered her differently depending on where they started. They
looked confused, and lost their conﬁdence. They started to talk to each other in Thai
about the problem. To help her students to gain back the conﬁdence, Teacher C called
the three best students in the class (Student A, B, C) to the front of the class to
demonstrate how to give directions to a stranger. She told Student A in Thai to ask how
to get to the market. Student A said it in English. Then she told Student B in Thai to say
go straight. Student B said it in English. The following excerpt was taken from my
observation transcription: (TC stands for Teacher C)

TC talking to Student A: agﬁi‘sai‘tuu uént‘tmamnazitnmo‘lﬂnmn
tm'tnéqn'au. (Student A, you are at school, and you want to go to the

market.)
Student A talking to the teacher: ﬂunﬁ‘i'trlmo'tuua: (Which direction do

I face?)

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TC talking to Student A: iquﬁ'i'lilvnot‘l raiuéiraaazmutiamo'ls (This
direction, how do you ask the direction?)

Student A talking to TC: How do I get to the market?

TC talking to class: taiguanzrfimraartaoﬂaﬂﬁ (Class, look! You will do it
yourself later)

Student B: It is....

TC talking to Student B: tﬁmuan'lvimo'lil (Wait, Student B. Tell her to go
straight). 'tviisn'lrltautt Go straight ( You say ‘go straight’)

Student B talking to TC: Go straight ahead, turn left, go straight ahead,
turn right.

TC: ta'i rat'tmi'i mu‘lml'i (Do it again. You ask again)

Student A: How do I get to the market?

Student B: Go straight ahead, turn left, Go straight ahead, turn left

TC talking to Student A: Thank you, Thank you panama uanmo (Thanks
for telling the directions)

Student A: Thank you

In my ﬁeld-notes I wrote,

This was not a communicative activity. Students A and B actually talked to

Teacher C, not to each other. Student A did not listen to the directions because in

reality, she knew where the market was. There was no need to listen to Student

B’s directions. Three students were called to the front of the class, but only two

of them were given the roles to play. Student C stood there uncomfortably

without any role.

Teacher C used another pair to demonstrate how to tell directions to a place in
their town. They gave the directions based on the location e.g. turning left and right and
directions they were facing at the moment, but Teacher C said it was wrong. She was
facing the direction opposite to the students! As a result, students were confused. They
were conﬁdent that it was correct, but the teacher told them that they were wrong. Both
the teacher and the students were not satisﬁed with the result.

In the stimulated recall, Teacher C said that she was very disappointed because

she expected them to tell the directions fluently and accurately. Teacher C thought that

this activity was too difﬁcult for the students. She admitted that the activity had

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discouraged her students in speaking English, and they thought that they could not give
directions in English. She explained that she adjusted this activity class by using actual
places in the school. Students actually walked to the place while they gave directions and
pointed to the locations at the same time. Teacher C misunderstood that what she
explained was real communication. In fact, it was not real communication because
Ieamers used language to describe the phenomenon rather than to communicate. In other
words, Ieamers were describing what they were doing. In actually giving directions, no
one could follow a stranger around, giving him or her directions and pointing to the

locations at the same time.

5.3.4. Summary of Teacher C’s Observations

Teacher C focused only on drills such as total physical response and games.
These activities were suitable for young learners especially during the preparation stage,
and they were relevant only at the pre-communication stage where students were
prepared step by step linguistically and emotionally to use the target language later in real
communication. In her three observations, Teacher C did not have communicative
activities that allowed Ieamers to speak or practice giving directions authentically
although students appeared ready to use them communicatively. Students needed
communicative activities that allowed them to talk, interact and negotiate for meaning,
not just act. In Teacher C’s class, students did not have any chances to talk to each other

communicatively.

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Chapter Six

Interviews with Teachers and Supervisors

This section presents the ﬁndings of the interviews of three teachers and ﬁve
supervisors. They were interviewed to see what they thought a learner-centered approach
is, how it was implemented in teaching English, and what problems they faced while
implementing a leamer-centered approach. It will start with the ﬁndings of the

interviews with the teachers followed by those with the supervisors.

6.1. Interviews with Three Teachers

Three teachers were interviewed about how they deﬁned a leamer-centered
approach, and what problems they faced during the time of changes in language teaching
in Thailand. They were Teacher A, B, C. Recall that the interviews were conducted in
Thai, and I have translated these excerpts into English.

6.1.1. Findings from an Interview with Teacher A

Teacher A’s opinion of a leamer-centered approach is evident in the following
excerpt taken from her interview:

Learners think on their own and do on their own. Teachers reduce their roles.

They are supporters... I mean if Ieamers are not able to seek knowledge on their

own, they consult with teachers. Teachers are consultants... Learners have to be

able to think, and act. They understand the content, and are able to summarize the

content on their own.

In her opinion, a leamer-centered approach was different from a teacher-centered

approach in the sense that in a teacher-centered approach, teachers provide the content,

teach how to think, summarize, and deliver the knowledge to students. But in a leamer-

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centered approach, Ieamers do most of the work on their own. They seek knowledge,
think and act on their own. Teachers are supporters and consultants. When asked how
she was told to teach in a learner-centered approach, she said,

They told us to stimulate leamers’ curiosity in the way that teachers are

counselors who advise their learning process, guide learners to learning resources,

suggest interesting topics. Learners take most responsibility in seeking
knowledge because Ieamers should seek knowledge on their own.

This was the knowledge she got from the training of a leamer-centered approach
with all the leading supervisors from different parts of the country. She thought that this
idea was not suitable for teaching English. She said,

The idea is suitable to teaching other subjects such as science or social science,

but it is not suitable for teaching English. It is impossible for Ieamers to seek

knowledge in English on their own. It is impossible.

Teacher A showed her opinion about how using a learner-centered approach
could cause problems from parents. She explained that all parents expected their children
to learn at the same pace as other children. Weak students’ parents were not happy to
know their children could not learn as much as the stronger ones. They complained and
asked their children to be taught like the others. Teacher A said:

In a child-centered approach, smart students could get all the knowledge and

enjoy seeking knowledge, taking notes, and summarizing on their own. On the

other hand, for weak students although the teacher summarizes for them, they still
can’t understand. They can’t summarize on their own. They do not have their
own work. When their parents ask them later what they learn, they cannot tell.

They do not know, nor understand. It seemed a failure of learning and teaching.

They do not learn anything.

The following was an excerpt from Teacher A’s interview. She showed her

opinion on how to use a leamer-centered approach in teaching English. She said:

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A leamer-centered approach can be used in teaching English through interaction,
group work where Ieamers participate in language activities... I ﬁrst knew about
a leamer-centered approach during my college year. For example, in teaching
writing, we cut a passage into strips of sentences. Learners learned by doing on
their own (combining strips into a passage). This way, Ieamers think and do on
their own as well.

Her knowledge of applying a learner-centered approach in teaching English was
not from the lectures or the conference by the Ministry of Education, but from the
university where she had graduated. Teacher A understood a leamer-centered approach
and knew how to apply it in teaching English. However, when asked if she had changed
to be a leamer-centered teacher, she admitted that she had taught in a learner-centered
approach only a few periods. There were three major problems that inhibited her from
teaching English communicatively.

The ﬁrst problem reported by Teacher A was her heavy teaching load (25 hours a
week excluding her other routine responsibilities). She explained it in the following
excerpt taken from the interview with her.

For most teachers, going to a teacher training is like energy recharging. The
heavy teaching loads are like energy extinguishers. Heavy teaching loads make
teachers run out of energy to teach in a leamer-centered approach. Other teachers
said that they should go to the training more often because the more training, the
more energy recharged for teachers. I think it is safer in terms of budget if we
provide good training to teachers, reduce their teaching loads so they can apply
what they have been trained in their teaching. The next problem is teaching
materials preparation. Teachers have to prepare tools and teaching materials. It
takes a lot of time and effort for that preparation. If teachers are required to teach
in a learner-centered way, teachers teaching loads should be reduced. It may take
a week to prepare for a period, and if there are 5 periods a week (like English),
there is no time for preparation... Moreover, there is no support in preparation in
terms of resources and budget. It has been difﬁcult already just to ﬁnd a teacher’s
manual, and the school doesn’t provide any ﬁnancial support for the expense in
teaching materials preparation. Teachers need to use their own funds in
preparation.

Her second problem was a classroom problem. She reported,

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In a class, it is not convenient to move tables and chairs, or to have physical
movements, or to have loud noise. Deﬁnitely, the class next door won’t like loud
noise because they may be concentrating on a serious subject.

The third problem she reported was a problem with some students. She said,

Some students do not want to participate in the activities because they do not need
English in their lives. When I ask them if English is useful, they say English is
useful, but not for them. They don’t use English outside the classroom...Some
students cannot read or write Thai language very well, and this deﬁciency of
mother tongue affects the learning of English as well. If students have a mother
tongue problem, I know that these students will have problems in learning
English. . . .Another problem is that some students do not like English because they
think English is difﬁcult. It is not fun for them to see red crosses of mistakes on
their work, and they have to correct their mistakes. In other subjects, students do
not need to correct, such as artwork. Although it is not correct, they still have a
piece of artwork.

Teacher A also reported the problem of materials preparation. She had already
had a heavy teaching load with extra routine jobs in school activities such as the lunch
program for all students and sound lab supervisor. She said,

Materials preparation is overloaded for teachers with heavy teaching loads. If
teachers are required to teaching in communicative language teaching or a
leamer—centered approach, teachers’ teaching load should be decreased so that
they have enough time to prepare teaching materials... It may take ﬁve hours of
preparation for one hour in-class teaching. Some subjects have ﬁve hours a week.
Then how can teachers ﬁnd time to prepare materials? (She teaches eight
subjects to class A). Moreover, teachers do not have any technical support in
materials preparation. Just to ﬁnd a teacher’s manual has already been difﬁcult
for teachers. Schools do not have resources for teachers. Deﬁnitely, expense in
materials preparation is unavoidable, and teachers have to assume the
responsibility.

Teacher A had known about a leamer-centered approach since her college years.
She understood clearly how a leamer-centered approach could be applied in teaching
English and other subjects. She was fortunate that she had never had to use her own

funds to participate in any training. She attended six to seven training sessions a year

which was considered many compared to other English teachers. However, she still

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thought that teachers were not trained or had not seen enough of a learner-centered
approach. In her opinion, changes take years. Teachers could change fast only if
teachers grow up and are taught in that teaching fashion which is not the case for Thai
teachers. She also suggests good ideas for the content and timing of teacher training.
She emphasizes that teaching methodology and English proﬁciency improvement are two
major components of any training for English teachers. Her ideas are reﬂected clearly in

this excerpt:

Teachers have not been trained in nor seen enough of a leamer-centered approach.
Normally, we can do it only when we have seen it not just once or twice. We
need to see it for years. Or we can do it if we grew up in that environment... A
learner-centered approach can be used well in some subjects, and teachers of
those subjects should be trained until they are conﬁdent to teach in a leamer-
centered approach...Each training should take at least 15 days. I think 1-2 days of
training is not worth doing. It is better not to have that training. Each training
should include teaching methodology and English improvement, vocabularies,
grammar, listening, speaking, writing and reading comprehension. In English
training sessions, teachers should be provided with a lot of activities... The
training should be held during the school breaks, not in the middle of the
semester. What happened is that training was held when budget was available. It
always falls on school days which caused students at schools to suffer from
having no teachers during the training.

Teacher A was trained during her college years to be a communicative language
teacher by a leading teacher education institution. She understood communicative
language teaching, and a leamer-centered approach, and knew how to apply the
knowledge in practice. However, she did not want to change. She planned to retire the
following year after 25 years of teaching which allows her to get the pension. She looked

forward to it, and at the moment, she was trying to survive in her teaching profession

waiting to be freed from this hard work.

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6.1.2. Findings from an Interview with Teacher B

According to Supervisor 3, Teacher B once was a very serious traditional teacher
who taught the grammar of English. She has changed after being trained in
communicative language teaching. In the training, she learned how to teach more
communicatively. After the training, she produced many communicative activities for
her students, and showed them to Supervisor 3.

Teacher B understood communicative language teaching to some extent, and tried
to apply it in her teaching. She heard about a learner-centered approach through TV
programs, and a conference. She barely understood it, and found it difﬁcult to apply in
her teaching. She said, “It is not difﬁcult to change if we know how to”. Like
Supervisors 3 and 4, who were Teacher B’s trainers, Teacher B thought that a leamer-
centered approach was not related to communicative language teaching. The following
excerpt was taken from the interview of Teacher B when she tried to deﬁne a leamer-

centered approach based on her understanding.

In a leamer-centered approach, Ieamers are the center. Teaching and learning
have to serve leamers’ interests. I agree with the idea, but not in teaching. ...In
teaching, they (The educator of the Ministry of Education) told us that in a
leamer-centered approach, Ieamers do and act on their own, and teachers are
facilitators. If we let Ieamers do and act from the beginning of the English class,
it is the end of the story because they do not know what to do.

Teacher B’s opinions reﬂected the reality of how a teacher perceived a leamer-
centered approach. She worked hard in order to change to a learner-centered teacher.
She paid her own expenses to participate in conferences and training. Teacher B reported
a lot of problems she faced in teaching English after the reform. She received training in

communicative language teaching before the reform, and was encouraged to change to a

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leamer-centered teacher. She wanted to be a leamer-centered teacher, but did not know

how. She waited for the training to help her to change. In her opinion, a one-day

conference, and long distance learning were not enough if the successful implementation

of a leamer-centered approach was the goal.

Teacher B reported that she had many problems in teaching English. The ﬁrst

one was the principal who did not provide her academic and administrative support. She

said,

Teaching English is a failure because grade 1 teachers refused to teach English to
their students although they were trained to teach. The principal does not do
anything to them... I was asked to teach English to grade 1 students. I am happy
to teach them because 1 want them to love English. Then these grade 1 students
pass to grade 2. Again, grade 2 teachers do not teach English to them. The
principal does not follow up with teachers if they have done their job, and I
cannot tell teachers what to do... I have very serious problems when I have to
teach these students in grade 5 or 6. I have to give them a foundation in English
which they should have had since grade 1 again. Most principals do not realize
the importance of English. They never participate in any English teacher training.
They do not know about the new curriculum focusing on communicative
language. This principal invited an English teacher from a private school to teach
classiﬁcation of words, count and noncount nouns to young students. This is
deterioration. According to the new curriculum of English, grammar should not
be taught to young Ieamers, but he does not know.

Of the principal, Teacher B said,
He never listens to teachers’ opinions. In the school meeting, teachers are not

supposed to speak... He thinks that this school belongs to him only.

She reported that the principal did not provide support in terms of budget for

academic activities. She said,

He used most of the school budget on building concrete things such as buildings,
a football ﬁeld, painting and ﬂower gardens which can be easily noticed by
visiting authorities.

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As a result, a very small budget was left for the academic domain. Teacher B
reported that she suffered from having no access to a working language lab because the
electronic sound instruments in the language lab had been broken for a long time, and had
never been repaired due to the lack of funds. She also lacked teaching supplies such as
markers, and paper for teaching and producing materials for Ieamers.

The next problem Teacher B complained about was that her grade 6 students had
almost no English proﬁciency. She said,

These students have serious problems in reading. They can’t read, or write. For

example, “what day is today”? They can’t read the word ‘what’ or ‘day’. I still do

not know how to solve this problem. Memorization is still needed, right? I have
them memorize the words although they told me not to.

Because of their very low proﬁciency, these students did not want to participate in
learning activities because they did not understand and thought that English was too
difﬁcult. She could not see any progress she could make with her students. She blamed
former English teachers at her school who did not teach English to these students. In the
interview, Teacher B not only complained a lot about her principal but also her
colleagues. She called them school staff rather than teachers who talked all day without
teaching. She thought that she was different from them. She did not interact with other
teachers very much. She did not have any professional conversations with them. She
thought that they did not understand her work and her goal of teaching English.

She also complained about her English proﬁciency, especially pronunciation.
Teacher B reported that during her college years, English was not used extensively. She
said,

I learned how to teach English. The teaching was all in Thai. I now get so used

to using Thai with my students... Even during my practicum, I used Thai in my
teaching, and my teacher did not tell me to use English. She also talked and

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taught in Thai. I had very rare chances to speak English only when a native
speaker was the instructor. Otherwise Thai was used in every subject.

She knew her weakness, so she tried to practice before class, and tried to speak
English to her students. Her students could not understand English, so she used English
followed by Thai translation. She said,

In the new English curriculum, English teachers are supposed to speak English to

the students to make them familiar with English. I even sometimes need to

translate Thai into Thai for these Ieamers. If I speak only English, they don’t
understand. I, therefore, speak an English sentence followed by a translation ...I
want to use English all the time, but I cannot. I switch to Thai when I can’t ﬁnd
the needed word in English to communicate what I think. I admit that I also have

a bad habit of speaking Thai to my students.

She participated in English proﬁciency programs provided by a teacher’s college
and teacher training sessions, and teacher training in communicative language teaching
provided by Supervisors 3 and 4. She expected to get practical knowledge she could
apply to improve her teaching. However, it seemed that she had not received the help she
needed. She also could not improve her English proﬁciency to the level she expected.
She still did not understand communicative language teaching. She stressed that before
training, teachers should have been asked what and how they wanted to be trained so that
the training could serve their needs better. Teachers should have had chances to see how
the theory was actually applied in classrooms.

Teacher B taught English about 22 hours a week, and her extra responsibility was
as a bookkeeper keeping records of all the students’ savings. She did not look forward to
her retirement like Teacher A. She was the oldest participant in this research, but she was
the most energetic. She enjoyed teaching although her efforts and expectations had not

been fulﬁlled which was discussed in the observations. She still kept up her hopes that

one day she could help her students to be able to read, write, and speak English.

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6.1.3. Findings from an Interview with Teacher C
The following excerpt was Teacher C’s answer when she was asked what a
leamer-centered approach is,

In a leamer-centered approach, Ieamers learn by thinking and acting on their own.
We have to teach Ieamers to be able to think. There is no more memorization.
Learners are encouraged to seek knowledge from learning resources, and they are
encouraged to put knowledge into practice.

When asked how she used this knowledge in teaching English, she said,

Teachers have to teach Ieamers to think, not to memorize. Learners are
encouraged to seek knowledge related to their lives. I don’t know to use it in
teaching English. I don’t how to do it... No one has given us the knowledge how
to use a leamer-centered approach in teaching English. Teachers are expected to
apply this knowledge to their subjects on their own. They can watch the
education programs from TV, read books. We have not been trained how to teach
in a learner-centered approach... In teaching English, it is difﬁcult to ask Ieamers
to think on their own. We need to give Ieamers a foundation of knowledge ﬁrst.
For example, they don’t know the meaning of a new vocabulary word; it is
impossible for them to think of the meaning of the word on their own. However,
if they want to know something, they can plan what they want to know. They can
ask about words they want to know. Teachers can help them or encourage them
to use dictionaries...

Teacher C did not major in English, and her main problem was her English
proﬁciency. Teacher C reported that Thai was used in teaching during her college years.

Less than 20 percent of class time was used in improving speaking skills. Most

of class time was used in reading and writing. Thai was used as the medium of

instruction... I think the way we were taught during the college years was not

correct because it was very boring. In phonetics class, the instructor explained

how to pronounce the sound. There was no pronunciation practice.

She wanted to improve her English proﬁciency so badly in order to be able to
acquire new knowledge of teaching. She said,

Since graduation (in 1979), I have never joined in any proﬁciency courses...I

have to improve my English pronunciation, speaking skills and reading. I want

to be taught by a native speaker, or one who is very proﬁcient. I have a serious
problem in listening, and vocabulary. Training provided by a group of native

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speakers from Malaysia, and India was very interesting, but I could not
understand the training clearly. If I could have understood everything in that
training, I would have been very happy because it was a very interesting training.
Teacher C’s school was a middle-sized school extending from grade 1 to grade 9.
There were only 3 English teachers. Some teachers were forced to teach English to the
lower levels such as grades 1-4, and she was very worried that she would be forced to
teach English to grades 7-9 when the English teacher for grades 7-9 retired. She knew
that she did not have enough knowledge of English to teach that level. She tried to
improve herself by reading and watching videotapes.
The next problem she reported was administrative. She said,
We have three English teachers in the school. One of them did not want to teach
English. The principal also assigns a teacher who has no English knowledge to
teach English in grades 1-4. English is not continuously taught during English
class... When I teach these students in grade 5, I have to start from A, B, C. I
wish I could teach them from grades 1-4, and have another English teacher for
grades 5-6 who would continue teaching English to these students... Some
teachers teach only when the principal is at school. If not, they do not teach.
Children love playing around without classes. There has been no administrative
measure to improve the learning and teaching quality.
She reported that some Ieamers did not want to study English. They refused to
participate in any learning and teaching activities. She said,
The most serious problem is that they are not attentive to learning English,
especially boys. They do not see the usefulness of English. They think they do
not need to work hard because the grade in English is not taken into consideration
in passing to the next level.
Teacher C also reported pressure for teachers to change to leamer-centered
teachers. She explained about her and her colleagues’ situations:

We want to change, but we don’t know what to do. There is no model, no help.
The Ministry of Education needs to realize this problem. It needs to give better

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knowledge of how to reform the learning and teaching to teachers... Teachers
need training before asking them to change. We are told to change, but we do not
know which direction they should go; as a result, they stick to what we know...
Now we are very worried that they are going to evaluate us in August of 2002 to
see if we have changed. They told us to do so many things in order to change that
we don’t think that we can work to meet the standards set.

6.2. Interviews with Supervisors

Five supervisors who were in charge of training English teachers were
interviewed. However, only four of them were reported in this study because data from
Supervisor 2 was not available due to the problem of the recording during the interview.

The four supervisors are:

Supervisor 1, the supervisor of English at the Ofﬁce of National Primary
Education (ONPE). According to the Thai hierarchical system, Supervisor 1 has higher

rank than any other supervisor.

Supervisor 2, the supervisor of English at the Ofﬁce of Bangkok Metropolitan

Primary Education (OBMPE). These data were lost due to recording problems.

Supervisor 3, the supervisor of English at the Ofﬁce of Provincial Primary

Education (OPPE).

Supervisors 4 and 5, the supervisors of English at the Ofﬁce of District Primary

Education (ODPE).

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6.2.1. Findings from an Interview with Supervisor 1

Supervisor 1 deﬁned a learner-centered approach in the following excerpt taken
from his interview:

Learners have individual needs. Teachers provide learning activities to meet their

needs. Teachers are the facilitators who set the learning process in which Ieamers

are encouraged to seek knowledge on their own.

Supervisor 1’s opinion was that teachers provide learning activities and the
learning process to meet leamers’ differences. Teachers should teach what interests their
Ieamers. When asked how learning activities and the learning process could meet
leamers’ differences, he explained,

For example, Ieamers may want to use cartoons, teachers’ work is to think how to

use cartoons to teach four language skills to Ieamers. Or teachers study the

objectives and the content of the curriculum, and try to relate cartoons to the
curriculum provided.

When asked if teachers were able to do as he explained, he answered that

There were many teachers who had already changed. An actual example given by

Supervisor 1 was that Ieamers at one province told their teacher that they wanted

to learn about a soccer game. Then the teacher and Ieamers looked for

information about a soccer game together. The teacher could not ﬁnd information
in English. He told his students to help. Finally, one day a student came to class
with a textbook from grade 11, which had the history of soccer.

One of the serious problems for teachers has been the lack of English teaching
materials. This teacher took time to look for information about soccer, and he failed. He
was fortunate enough that his student could get some. How often will an English teacher
be lucky to ﬁnd a piece of information in English that interests Ieamers and is suitable to

their proﬁciency level? Often, teachers do ﬁnd some materials, but they usually are in

the Thai language. Some may not be able to translate them into English due to their low

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proﬁciency. For others, translation could possibly be made, but learners should be
exposed to authentic language rather than simpliﬁed input. Why is authenticity
important? Learners who learn a second language through simpliﬁed texts or
conversations ﬁnd it difﬁcult or sometimes impossible to communicate in real life
situations because they are not familiar with the authentic language used by native
speakers. Apparently, Supervisor I agreed with the one-day conference where learners
were encouraged to seek knowledge on their own. Teachers guided them to the sources of

knowledge for example, by suggesting they go to the library.

Supervisor 1 stressed that a leamer-centered teacher encourages Ieamers to seek
knowledge interesting to them. Teachers are just the facilitators, not the knowers. He
stressed that Ieamers seek knowledge on their own; teachers do not need to take the role
of the knowers providing the new knowledge of English to learners. In his opinion,
teachers can learn at the same time with Ieamers. Supervisor 1 also stressed that learners
should be encouraged to practice the four language skills in English. Learners provide
part of the content, and teachers provide learning activities to practice four language
skills. When asked if teachers could fulﬁll that expectation, Supervisor 1 gave the
following answer. (SI stands for Supervisor I ; R stands for the researcher).

81: Many teachers still do not understand the concept of a leamer-centered

approach, and they also do not understand how to teach English. However, we

have to understand that we have many teachers. We have at least 32,000 teachers.

R: 32,000 only?

S]: We have 32,000 primary schools all over the country, and supposedly we

have one English teacher for each school. Not even 10 percent of English

teachers in primary school majored in English..... Teachers are not ready to
change. They do not understand the concept of a leamer-centered approach. As a

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result, we try to provide them concepts and rationale of a leamer-centered
approach. We provided the knowledge through the seminar, long distance
learning through television programs, and we invited the provincial supervisors to
get the concepts from us, then they train their teachers.

Supervisor I believed that the conference, and the distance learning provided to

teachers were sufﬁcient for teachers to get the right concepts of a leamer—centered

approach, and sufﬁcient for them to change to learner-centered teachers.

6.2.2. Findings from Interviews with Supervisor 3

The following excerpt illustrates how Supervisor 3 deﬁned a learner-centered
approach:

A learner centered approach is a learner important approach. Learners are
different. Teachers should know learners individually. Instructional media and
learning activities are designed to meet leamers’ potential, background, and
aptitude...Teaching techniques can be different (for different groups), or
sometimes similar for example at the presentation stage (when new knowledge is
taught)

Supervisor 3 stressed individual differences, and these differences were met by
providing teaching media or activities to different groups of Ieamers. This was not
different from Supervisor 1’s deﬁnition. When being asked how teachers should teach to
serve all differences in a leamer-centered approach, Supervisor 3 suggested a teaching
method for English in the following excerpt. (In the conversation, Supervisor 3 used
Some English words. All English words she used will be bolded, and this will be applied

to all excerpts taken from all informants. She used the word “present” to mean teach,

demonstrate, and speak). (R stands for researcher; S3 stands for Supervisor 3)

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R: Supposedly, Ieamers are required to introduce themselves. (It is the skill mentioned
in the curriculum of 1996). How does a teacher teach this through a leamer-centered
approach?

S3: The teacher should teach this information such as name, surname, age, or
hobbies ﬁrst, then what new information students want to tell (about themselves).
They have to prepare this information.

R: Everything is spoken in English?

S3: English. Can students speak English? They want to know how to speak the
new information in English, the teacher has to tell them in English. And the one
who doesn’t want to know, the teacher doesn’t need to tell.

R: So the teacher will go around to tell them how to say so in English.

S3: Yes, yes, this is learning because they hear what they want to know, so when
this student presents his information introducing himself, it will be different from
others. Students will learn from each other... Now each student introduces
himself. The rest just listen to information about others.

R: How do they start to have a conversation?

S3: First teachers teach. Teachers present ﬁrst. (Telling the students) “You
converse like this, What’s your name? My name is. What’s your name? My

name is.... What is your father ’s name? My father ’s name is....”. This is what
the teacher presents to the students... “Now what is your information? You need
to prepare the information”.

R: What?

S3: “You listen to the information the teacher presents (teaches) you, now you
have to prepare your information to present (talk)”. After that they exchange
their information. Speak with their pairs.

R: The asking and answering depends on what the Ieamers want?

S3: Yes, do they have the information to talk? If not, other Ieamers can help
teaching them how to say in English. They exchange the teaching and learning.
This is how Ieamers can learn by themselves. This is the learning reform. They
learn happily because they can speak, and they can greet each other.

R: In communication, have you heard about negotiation and interaction? (She
earned a master’s degree in Applied Linguistics from India)

S3: Yes, yes.

R: When communicating, we can’t tell what the other will ask or answer. If we
use this method as you told me, Ieamers imitate their teachers, right?

S3: Yes, imitate their teachers.

The following was an excerpt taken from the ﬁeld notes for Supervisor 3:

I was so surprised to get this answer because this teaching method was not a
learner-centered approach, but an audio-lingual approach where Ieamers imitated
the model provided by the teachers, and practiced. There was no real
communication among Ieamers. I might have misunderstood her; therefore, I
discussed it further. I asked her:

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R: In our real life situation, when we ask, it means that we want to know the
answer. When students ask each other like “what is your name”, do they know
the answer already? For example, if I ask you now “what is your name?’ It is the
question that I know the answer to already. It is not communication. When we
communicate, the interlocutor will give the unknown information.

S3: Umm. (She paused for 3-4 seconds). We have to make sure that Ieamers

know the language, and understand the language. When we meet friends whose

names we know, we don’t need to ask. If we want to know a visitor’s name, and if
we want to know his or her name then “what’s your name?” Then he or she can
answer the question. This is in the classroom. This is practice. When they are in
the real situation, they can do it. We can do it. Teacher shows the model, and

Ieamers imitate. In the real situation, meeting a foreigner or a visitor is quite

impossible. However, when they want to use it, they can use this information.

R: Ok.

In real communication, peOple ask something when they do not have the answers,
and they want to know the answer. Apparently, Supervisor 3 could not understand real
communication in language learning. If the major supervisor did not understand the
concept of real communication in communicative language teaching, then how could

English teachers understand it?

Supervisor 3 realized leamers’ differences, but the teaching method described to
meet the differences was an audio-lingual approach where correct models of language
were provided for Ieamers in order to show accurate models of language structures.
Learners imitated the models and they were expected to produce the models when they
were needed.

An audio-lingual approach has been rejected for a long time because it produces
Ieamers who may remember the correct sentences, but cannot communicate
appropriately, who do not have communicative skills because in class they do not have a
chance to practice authentic language in authentic situations. In an audio-lingual

approach, Ieamers are not prepared to use the language drill in a situation close to real

135

life language interaction. To be able to communicate, these Ieamers need practice in
communicating spontaneous and personal messages, not just models presented by the
teacher.

What was crucial in this situation was that even the major supervisor at the
provincial level who trained supervisors at the district level and teachers in the area could
not apply a leamer-centered approach in teaching English, and did not know how to
apply a leamer-centered approach to teaching English effectively. She did not realize
that a communicative language teaching approach is related to a learner-centered
approach. The purpose of learning a second language for Ieamers is to be able to
communicate, and communicative language teaching which focuses on improving
leamers’ communicative competence serves learner’s needs. Therefore, communicative
language teaching ﬁts well in a leamer-centered approach framework. Supervisor 3
trained English teachers for many years before the reform based on the English
curriculum of 1987 and 1996 focusing on communication. She also trained teachers in a
one-day conference on a leamer-centered approach.

Supervisor 3 stated that she understood communicative language teaching and
claimed that she had trained English teachers in her areas to use communicative language
teaching. From the materials used in the training, English teachers were not trained to
use communicative language teaching, but to use communicative drill activities, or pre-
communicative activities. It was important to know further if she knew that
communicative language teaching is related to a leamer—centered approach. The
following excerpt illustrated Supervisor 3 did not understand that communicative

language teaching, and a leamer-centered approach are related.

136

R: if there is any training based on leamer-centeredness for English?

S3: No,

R: No training based on a leamer-centered approach?

S3: Training of English based on leamer-centered approach has not been given by
anyone. But we have a leamer-centeredness for all subjects. We have done that.
We have the procedures. (The Ministry provided all the procedures for
supervisors to follow step by step to organize training of a leamer-centered
approach)

6.2.3. Findings from an Interview with Supervisor 4

Many sentences spoken by Supervisor 4 could not be understood clearly although
the interview was conducted in the native language. When being asked to clarify, she
became more confused, or sometimes changed the answer. Repairs for her broken
sentences are provided in parenthesis. Supervisor 4 deﬁned a leamer-centered approach
as

Learners are the most important. Teachers provide activities for Ieamers to learn...

Each learner is different. Therefore, teachers must provide activities for groups of

Ieamers who have (different) capability.

Supervisors 3 and 4 deﬁned a learner-centered approach similarly. This was not
surprising at all because Supervisor 4 was trained in learner-centeredness by Supervisor
3. Both emphasized leamers’ individual differences. However, Supervisor 4’s opinion of
how teachers taught based on a learner-centered approach was different from Supervisor

3’s. The following illustrated Supervisor 4’s opinion: (R stands for the researcher; S4 stands for

Supervisor 4)

R: How should a leamer-centered teacher teach English?

S4: Um. Try to ﬁnd many methods to teach so that they learn. We use many
activities they can do, and ﬁnally they learn as well.

R: What kinds of activities?

S4: The activities that students have a good time. They can do things and have a
good time, and ﬁnally they summarize the learning together.

R: Does repeating after the teacher still exist?

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S4: (pause) Yes, but changes, instead listening to the teacher, Ieamers can listen to
the tape cassette, or CD, or listen to the native speaker.

R: What is the main reason for using various activities?

S4: Students are different. Some students can learn from one activity (but some
don’t.) The one who learns ﬁrst will learn more. The one who can’t learn from
one activity, will gradually learn (Supervisor 4, interview, April 29, 2001, p.32).

The following is from my ﬁeld notes made after the interview:

Supervisor 4 suggested the use of a variety of activities to accommodate all
individual differences in the class. In her opinion, a learner-centered approach
had two major characteristics: knowing leamers’ differences, and providing
activities to serve the differences. She emphasized the good time Ieamers had
from the activities rather than language development. The use of various activities
was not only to accommodate individual differences, but also to provide more
room for grading activities from the easiest to the most difﬁcult so that Ieamers
can be developed systematically to their highest potentials. Various activities also
provide room for language skill integration. All four language skills can be
developed under the same theme which deﬁnitely help Ieamers to develop their
communicative skills fully. The most important point was that learners’
proﬁciency was gradually developed to their optimal stage where they used
language communicatively. This way all individual differences are met since they
could use language to communicate as they wish.

When being asked about roles the leamer-centered teachers had to take,
Supervisor 4 answered the following:

R: What roles should the leamer-centered teacher take?

S4: Pay attention to all students.

R: How?

S4: Communicate with every student in the class, instead of just standing in front
of the class and teaching.

R: How can a teacher communicate with all students since there are a lot of
students like 49 students?

S4: (Chuckling) Divide them into small groups. To communicate with all students
is to communicate with the representative of each group.

R: Why do you emphasize the communication between teachers and students?
S4: Because other than teaching media (teaching materials), learners learn from
teachers.

S4: Look for the smart students who can teach other students.

R: What else?

S4: Correct the one who is still not perfect.

R: Is correction necessary?

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S4: Very important. When teachers ﬁnd mistakes, they should correct them, but
don’t make students lose face.

R: How?

S4: If they read incorrectly, instead of giving the immediate correction, give them
the compliment then correct them.

R: (I can’t help laughing) They are smiling because you just gave them the
compliment, then you correct them?

S4: (She is chuckling.) This is better.

R: So you mean you correct the mistakes when you ﬁnd them, but give the
compliment ﬁrst and then correct them.

S4: Yes.

The roles of a learner-centered teacher, in Supervisor 4’s opinion, were not
different from those of a teacher-centered teacher. Teacher-centered teachers paid
attention to their students, communicated with their Ieamers by giving them commands,
and corrected leamers’ mistakes. Due to the lack of knowledge of teaching a second
language, she had difﬁculty in expressing her ideas and controlling her thoughts. Her
turn when answering each question was very short compared to the preceding
supervisors. During the interview, she sometimes changed her opinion when she
reconsidered the questions.

In the following excerpt, she explained to me about a group of effective English
teachers in her responsible area. They could interpret the curriculum of 1996, and
designed communicative teaching lessons and activities. This was an excerpt from this
conversation with Supervisor 4:

S4: Our 13 leading teachers from 6 school clusters will meet and discuss what

they have done. What techniques they use?

R: What exactly are they doing?

S4: Designing activities, and reforming the learning of English. They are leading

teachers. We have seen their work and they are good. Su is an example.

R: What do they do?

S4: I invite them to come
R: Why?

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S4: They exchange their ideas. Then we tell other teachers based on the report of
the meeting. These teachers share what they know, and what they have done.
(These teacher’s teaching materials were used during the training sessions
organized by Supervisor 4)

Su was an excellent English teacher whom Supervisor 4 mentioned in her
interview. I observed Su four times, and interviewed her. I was very impressed by her
experience and knowledge of language teaching. She was not included in this report
because she also worked as a teacher trainer. From interviews with her and supervisors,
it was clear that supervisors did not have as much ability to interpret the curriculum and
design activities as she did. Supervisors had used her work including that of other leading
teachers in the area to promote themselves. Su reported that some leading teachers who
also worked as teacher trainers now stopped working with supervisors. They did not get

a promotion, but supervisors got a promotion to the higher level by using the teachers’

teaching materials. They felt that they were taken advantages of by the supervisors.

6.2.4. Findings from an Interview with Supervisor 5
Supervisor 5’s deﬁnition of a leamer—centered approach was captured in the
following piece taken from the interview:
Teachers select the content, teaching methods, and provide learning centers such
as interviewing other people, language labs, ﬁeldtrips, and libraries with
interesting English books. They learn through the learning centers, or resource
center. They learn and think, divide into groups, and make conclusions of their
learning on their own. They learn by themselves based on their interests.

When asked if this approach was suitable for teaching English, Supervisor 5 gave

the most sincere answers compared to other supervisors. She was the only supervisor

140

among the four who criticized the knowledge she got from the one-day conference as not

suitable for teaching English. The following was an excerpt taken from her interview:

R: Is this way suitable for teaching English?

SS: Not exactly. Learning a language is to use it in daily lives.

R: So this teaching method where Ieamers think and do by themselves is
suitable?

SS: Not suitable. English needs practicing. It is not relevant. This is what
scholars told us, but we can use only part of it. We can’t use all of what they told
us in teaching. English needs practice listening, speaking, reading and writing
skills.

R: You said they are not relevant.

SS: Yes, it is irrelevant.

R: Can you explain what you mean by that?

SS: It (Learning center) is not relevant for English because if Ieamers study about
life and their environment, they can learn through the learning center. However,
they learn English through listening to the events, and then use those events for
speaking. English must have listening, speaking, reading and writing skills. This
is the framework of learning a language. The learning center cannot develop the
ability to communicate. Language is for communication. It is the goal of learning
alanguage.

R: So is a leamer-centered approach suitable for teaching English?

SS: Yes, suitable because a leamer-centered approach focuses on Ieamers, and
Ieamers do and act. They listen, speak, read and write, but they do not need to
look for information from the learning center.

What was interesting here was that Supervisor 5 rejected the use of learning
centers as suggested in the conference on a leamer-centered approach as they not suitable
for teaching English. She said that in English four language skills are needed to be
practiced in real life situations rather than seeking information from learning centers. She
had worked in Thai situations long enough to know how to survive. The following
excerpt showed her expertise:

SS: We can use the idea once only to show the educator that I have already used

this method. . .Use it as a part of many teaching methods. For example, one can

say today he or she uses a leamer-centered approach, and he or she can do it once

just to show off.
R: To show off?

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SS: (Chuckling) To please those educators who gave the knowledge, to show that

I have already done what they suggested. But in reality, their ideas do not work.

They are not the teaching methods for teaching English, right?

Supervisors had different interpretations when putting the idea of a learner-
centered approach into practice based on their qualiﬁcations. Some supervisors were
confused and had no idea about a leamer-centered approach when teaching English. On
the other hand, they had to do their duties, and maintain their pride of being the
supervisors who knew better than teachers. As a result they had given their
misinterpretations of a leamer-centered approach to English teachers without realizing
that it was just not helpful to teaching English as a second language. Although they tried
to fulﬁll their jobs, Supervisor 5 frankly reported that not many teachers had conﬁdence

in supervisors of English. Teachers did not see that supervisors were sufﬁciently

knowledgeable to guide them in teaching.

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Chapter Seven
Findings on Research Question One
Having presented data from documents, interviews, observations and stimulated
recall, in the previous chapters, I will unify the data to answer the research questions
through summary and interpretation. Chapter seven will provide answers to research

question 1, and chapter eight will provide answers to research questions 2 and 3.

7.1. Research Question 1: What were the conceptions of a learner-centered approach by
policy makers, teacher training personnel and English teachers?

In order to answer research question 1, it was necessary to see how each agent
deﬁned a leamer-centered approach. The ﬁndings were based on the ﬁndings from
documents and interviews with three teachers and four supervisors. Table 7.1 shows how
policy makers and policy distributors deﬁned a leamer-centered approach. The common

elements shares by the policy makers and policy distributors are in bold.

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Table 7.1: Deﬁnition of a Learner-Centered Approach by Agents (ONEC stands for

Ofﬁce of National Education Commission. MOE stands for Ministry of Education.)

 

 

Agents Main features of a leamer-centered approach Goal of teaching and
learning

ONEC Learner’s differences Learners’ optimal

(Policy makers) Objective, contents, activities, learning development

resources, instructional media and evaluation
designed to meet leamers’ differences

 

 

MOE Learners’ differences Learners’ optimal

(Policy distributor) Learner’s participation in learning process development
Learners actual doing, thinking and acting_on

1.Lecture their own
Teachers as facilitators

2. Publication Learners’ differences The attainment of self
Learners’ participation in learning process learning

Learners actual doing or practicing through
different teaching methods.

3.Confcrence Learners’ differences Learners’ highest
Learning through learning centers ' potential
Learning happily

Learning with a group of friends

Learning by doing

Learning with integration of related subject
matters

Summarizing their knowledge on their own

 

 

 

 

 

 

Policy makers and policy distributors shared the idea that in a learner-centered
approach, learners are different, and their differences should be taken into account in the
teaching and learning process. Policy makers and policy distributors also shared the
same concept in terms of the goal of using a leamer-centered approach to develop
leamers’ optimal potential. However, in the publication by MOE, the goal was to attain
self-leaming which was the highest goal of the learning process, and it was an unrealistic
one for teaching and learning in schools. If Ieamers could be independent from teaching
and learning, they did not need to go to schools.

There were differences in terms of how to develop Ieamers to their optimal

potential. ONEC emphasized the importance of needs identiﬁcation to ﬁnd leamers’

144

differences, and it designed objectives, content, activities, learning resources,
instructional media and evaluation to meet leamers’ differences. On the other hand,
MOE had its own interpretations which were different from ONEC. It is important to
note that in MOE’s different channels of delivery, the knowledge of a learner—centered
approach had its own interpretation. The lecture and the publication shared the same
interpretation that Ieamers participate in the learning process, and in actually doing,
thinking and acting. In the lecture, Ieamers participate in the learning process where they
have to learn and ﬁnd the answer on their own. As was shown in the ﬁndings of the
lecture, the guidance provided for teachers was not clear nor sufﬁcient. Some of the
guidance was neither practical nor meaningful; for example, teachers were told not to
give answers, but guide Ieamers to the answers without explaining how to guide them.
Teachers did not understand what they were supposed to do. Although MOE’s
publication shared the same concept of how to develop a learner in a leamer-centered
approach with the lecture, it did not provide any help to teachers on how to change. It
only provided a description of 21 teaching methods for teachers.

The most interesting idea was that the one-day conference for all teachers had
different interpretations from the other two channels by MOE. In this interpretation,
Ieamers learned through learning centers, and learning with integration of related subject
matter. They learned happily with peers. They learned by doing and summarizing
knowledge on their own. In this interpretation, teachers were only facilitators; they did
not need to identify leamers’ needs, design teaching materials, and evaluate to see if what
was taught served leamers’ needs. How were these concepts put into practice? Table 7.2

shows how the concepts were put into practice.

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Table 7.2: The Implementation of Concepts of a Leamer-Centered Approach by Policy

Makers (ONEC) and Policy Distributors (MOE)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Agent Practice Practice Practice Practice Practice Practice
ONEC Teachers Teachers Teachers Teachers Teachers Learners
identifying preparatory planning organizing evaluating concluding
leamers’ work in content, learning leamers’ and applying
needs, analyzing and activities to progress knowledge
interests, curriculum methods serve
and leamers’
knowledge interests.
MOE Teachers Teachers as Learners Learners
1. Lecture providing facilitators participa- thinking and
learning ting in acting on
process learning their own
process
2. Teachers Teachers Learners Learners
Publication providing planning participa- learning
various learning ting in through
teaching activities. teaching actual
methods methods practice or
action
3. Teachers Learners Learners Learners Learners Learners
Conference guiding seeking learning learning learning summarizing
Ieamers to knowledge by doing with friends with the learning
learning through on their and groups, integration on their own
centers learning own of related
centers subjects

 

 

 

It is clear from Table 7.2 that policy makers and policy distributors have different
ways of putting their concepts into practice. According to the policy makers, teachers
take most of the responsibilities in learner-centered classrooms. Teachers analyze
learners’ differences, interpret curriculum, design materials, organize learning activity,
evaluate progress, and guide Ieamers to the highest development. Learners in this
interpretation are responsible for sharing their needs and interests, participating in
learning activities, and at the end producing learning outcomes. With teachers’ current
teaching qualiﬁcations, most teachers would ﬁnd it impossible to take on such

responsibilities. The work to develop teachers to meet the working demands would be

tremendous for policy distributors.

146

As a result, teachers in the policy distributors’ interpretation take fewer
responsibilities. They could provide the learning process as in the lecture, or use various
teaching methods in which they act as facilitators providing support and friendship. Or
teachers could guide Ieamers to learning centers which are available. Learners in this
interpretation take more responsibilities. They have to participate in the learning process,
and learning activities. They have to seek knowledge, actually think and act, interact
with friends, and summarize the learning. Teachers act like facilitators in this
interpretation.

According to the policy makers, leamer-centered teachers need to do many things
with which teacher centered teachers are not familiar. Starting from the ﬁrst role,
teachers need to identify leamers’ differences. Teachers have to take action to identify
leamers’ differences through questioning and observation. In preparatory work, they
study the curriculum, and plan for the learning process by focusing on integration of the
content of related subjects. They then organize learning activities which motivate
Ieamers to learn to the best of their abilities. It is clearly stated in this stage that teachers
“should offer nothing but friendship and assistance in all matters” (Ofﬁce of the Prime
Minister and Ministry of Education, 2001, p. 31). In this stage, teachers provide various
learning activities and learning resources outside classrooms so that they can guide
Ieamers to the right resources. Teachers help Ieamers to discuss the outcome or body of
knowledge gained from learning activities. In the next stage, teachers evaluate learning
outcomes by using various assessment methods. Finally, teachers provide a chance for
Ieamers to draw conclusions and search for implications of the learning by using role-

play, self-expression, presentation, etc. (Ofﬁce of the Prime Minister and Ministry of

147

Education, 2001). These new roles for teachers are very important. They are the most
important messages that MOE should send to teachers.

However, teachers in the ONEC policy are considered only as facilitators
although they assume many additional roles such as needs analysts, curriculum
interpreters, materials designers, activity organizers, evaluators, and counselors. The
messages are confusing and cause misinterpretation for related agents such as teachers
and MOE. It can be seen how MOE interprets teachers’ roles in the lectures, publications
and the conference. Moreover, in a leamer-centered approach, the teachers’ role as the
knower is still necessary and important in English teaching. Teachers still need to teach;
for example, delivering linguistic, socio-linguistic, and pragmatic knowledge of a
language and culture, and giving feedback when the time is right. Learners should be -
guided until they get the answers or solutions on their own because this will enhance
comprehensible input. In guiding, teachers can mime, show real life objects or pictures,
and suggest contextual clues to guess the meaning. In some cases, direct translation is
also useful or sometimes even more effective, for example when teaching words related
to concepts and abstraction. Deﬁnitely, translation should not be practiced too often;
otherwise Ieamers become used to the idea that there always is a one-to-one translation
from one language to the other. Learners should be guided in a way where meanings are
always based on the context. Learners have to interpret the meanings by using the
context and their background knowledge.

This publication Learning reform: a learner-centered approach by the ONEC
was produced for all agents involved in education, including teachers of all subjects.

Examples of how the concept of a learner-centered approach could be applied in many

148

situations are not helpful at all. Teachers of different subjects could not use these
examples correctly and effectively. One important thing that should not be overlooked is
that different subjects have different requirements for teaching. For example, the nature
of learning and teaching English is different from that of science; therefore, different
teaching methods should be used in order to develop Ieamers to their optimal level.
Problems can happen when teachers apply teaching methods not appropriate to the nature
of the particular subject.

For instance, Teacher 5, who was not reported in this study, copied what Vimolsri
Suwannarat had done in her science class. Vimolsri Suwannarat, whose work was cited
as an example of a leamer-centered teacher, had her students divided into groups and
carried out science projects. Teacher 5 had her students divided into groups of 9 and
utilized a small language project of making a picture dictionary based on their interests
(The topic was parts of a human body). In her English class, some students in the group
drew pictures of different parts of human beings, some copied a commercial picture
dictionary, some wrote the vocabulary, some played, and some did nothing. Teacher N,
including her principal and her colleagues believed that she had already implemented a
leamer-centered approach although such a project was ﬂawed.

Did Teacher 5’s students learn anything appropriate to their level, did they
improve their English skills, and did they develop to their highest potentials? Learners
were deﬁnitely happy that English was no longer difﬁcult, but they were happy at their
own expense. These students plan to move on to higher education. How could they catch

up in English with other students in the same level?

149

In the televised lecture, Dr. Gowit Prawalaprit, an educator of the Ministry of
Education, focused on how a teacher can apply a learner-centered approach in the
classroom. He particularly looked at only one of the ﬁve characteristics provided by
ONEC, which was the organization of learning activities to serve learners’ interests. He
overlooked the other four important characteristics. However, he particularly stressed
that in this interpretation, Ieamers had to think and act on their own under the teachers’
guidance. Similar to the teachers’ role given by ONEC, teachers in this lecture played
the role of facilitators who guided and asked questions to elicit learners to think and act.
Teachers were not supposed to give answers to students but to guide them until they got
them on their own. He seriously emphasized that this learner-centered process would be
a teacher-centered process if answers were given to Ieamers.

In this interpretation, Ieamers thought and acted on their own when they went
through the participatory process where they I) collected information, 2) organized it, 3)
evaluated it, 4) improved it and planned for practice, 5) practiced it and ﬁnally 6)
constructed the body of knowledge on their own. Teachers facilitated them during the
participatory process.

According to second language learning theory, it is important that Ieamers get
enough comprehensible input through various learning activities before they are asked to
produce language performance. Learners in the participatory process suggested in the
lecture need to help themselves considerably in order to get comprehensible input during
stage 1. There are no pedagogical activities that help Ieamers to get the meaning across or
that allow them to interact with peers to get more information in order to understand the

passage. If teachers are not allowed to help more, then the only source of knowledge in

150

English for Ieamers would be dictionaries, especially in the absence of authentic
materials and context. It is possible that Ieamers in this participatory model seek
meanings of new words most of the time. In stage 2, Ieamers independently organize the
information they get from the passage. They evaluate the information and plan for
practice. It was not mentioned what the purposes were for stages 3-4 (evaluating the
information and improving and planning), and how they help improving communicative
competence. Stage 5 is practicing and he stressed that the language could be mechanical
or drill like. Practice could be recycled until Ieamers learn the target skills. During the
ﬁnal stage, Ieamers reconstruct the knowledge based on their background knowledge and
interpretation. They should be able to use language to interact and negotiate meaning.
The issue is what language would be used during their reconstruction. These
Ieamers did not have chances to interact before in stages 1-4, and they had drill practice
in stage 5. How were they able to produce the target language meaningfully in stage 6?
It was impossible for the Ieamers to use English since they did not get much
comprehensible input. How would these Ieamers have comprehensible output? In this
participatory process, the Ieamers interacted frequently with the text. They had very little
interaction with peers. These Ieamers also had very little exposure to spoken English
which is important for language development for young Ieamers. Teachers were told that
they were just facilitators. They should not provide answers to Ieamers, but guide them
until they found answers or solutions on their own. If Ieamers are expected to produce
the outcome of the learning at stage 6, pedagogical activities, communicative activities,
and tasks should be provided to them. Since teachers were only the facilitators, who

would prepare and design communicative activities and tasks for these Ieamers?

151

In this interpretation, Ieamers thought and acted on their own when they went
through the participatory process and collected information, organized it, evaluated it,
improved it, planned for practice, and ﬁnally constructed the body of knowledge on their
own. The teachers facilitated them during the participatory process. The lesson plan,
called the playbook, was not helpful. The six stages in the participatory process were
reduced to four stages. Learners read the reading passage, collected the information on
their own, and organized the information. Teachers asked the questions; Ieamers
answered. Then teachers helped them to summarize the reading passage. This
participatory process was not different from the activities one of the teachers used in her
class. During my observations, Teacher A told her students to do things on their own.
For example, they found the meanings of unknown words, read the passage and answered
the questions before coming to class. In the classroom, they were called on to read their
answers aloud one by one back to the teacher. She called on the next student if the
answer was not right. She would not give the answers but called on new students until
she got the right answer. At the end of the class, she helped her students summarize what
they had learned through asking questions as well. Teacher A did claim that she was a
leamer-centered teacher.

Dr. Gowit Prawalaprit’s interpretation of participatory process is basically
suitable for teaching social science subjects where the medium of instruction is their
native language. In his participatory process, there are not many interactions between
teachers and Ieamers, nor Ieamers and Ieamers. It is not ideal for teaching English as a
foreign language to beginners because comprehensible input and language exposure are

not provided to Ieamers sufﬁciently through language activities.

152

Second language Ieamers should not learn a second language independently from
their peers because they are going to use the language in society. Therefore, they should
learn through interaction and communication as it will be in their target language
situations. Good language teachers are not only facilitators, but also knowers,
counselors, and guides. They adjust their roles to suit their leamers’ differences, they
tailor their language to suit the leamers’ proﬁciency level, and they give answers to

Ieamers when the time is right.

The next interpretation was provided through a publication by the Ministry of
Education. In this interpretation, leamer-centered teachers need to allow Ieamers to learn
through actual practice or action until self-learning is attained. This idea is appropriate
for language teaching. Teachers need to plan learning activities and teaching methods
that allow Ieamers to practice using English authentically and meaningfully. Of the total,
88 pages of this publication were devoted to descriptions of 21 teaching methods
followed by an example of each teaching method. Most of the examples provided were

for teaching Thai or social science subjects, and none for teaching English.

How could English teachers make use of these detailed descriptions of 21
teaching methods? How possible is it for teachers to follow the descriptions and apply
them in their classes with their current knowledge of the subject matter, teaching
methods, and experience? Especially when teachers are not familiar with new teaching
methods, and had not seen them in real practice before. Similarly, those who do not

know how to swim, and are asked to swim based on the descriptions provided, would not

153

be able to swim due to lack of skills and experience. Teaching skills can not be acquired

through reading, but practicing and training only.

In the one-day conference by supervisors at the provincial primary education
ofﬁce, a learner-centered approach was interpreted as teaching that allows Ieamers to
learn under 5 principles of leamer-centeredness: learning happily, learning by doing,
learning from friends and groups, learning with integration of related subject matter, and
summarizing the learning on their own. The ﬁve principles could be accomplished
through using learning centers. Learners are encouraged to seek knowledge on their own
from learning centers available such as a library, museum, zoo, park, the environment,
etc. Leamer-centered teachers provide or guide Ieamers to these sources of knowledge.
This conference is provided for teachers of all subjects. And this interpretation is
claimed to be suitable for any subject. Teachers should apply these principles in their
teaching.

This interpretation puts most of the responsibilities on Ieamers. Teachers just
guide and provide learning centers which in most of the cases are school libraries or
public libraries. When being asked how learning centers can be applied in teaching
English, Supervisor 3, the major responsible agent of the conference argued that English
teachers apply this in teaching English. Teachers take students to the sources of learning
such as a park, a museum, and asked students to tell each item they saw in English.

How many years will it take to improve leamers’ communicative competence
through learning centers as suggested by Supervisor 3? English teachers complain that
they can not provide or guide Ieamers to learning centers. School libraries do not have

suitable English books for Ieamers, and schools do not have extra budgets for them.

154

During data collection in the ﬁeld, I went to the library of each school I visited. Most
libraries had two to three small shelves with some old Thai textbooks. Some libraries had
some cartoon books, and some had some old newspapers. There were few English books,
and most of them were free copies of English textbooks for Ieamers provided by the
Ministry of Education. Teacher B’s school library was empty due to a big ﬂood a few
months before my visit. None of the libraries I visited had English newspapers or
English books for young learners such as English comics or children’s stories. The local
library could be an option for Ieamers, but how much could a local library cater to all
leamers’ different interests without guidance? Especially, English books were not the
local library’s interests since the target clients were not just elementary children. The
most serious problem was that English books were much more expensive than Thai
books because they were imported. This would add more problems for any library to
purchase English books.

English teachers were told to attend both the lecture on television and the one day
conference, and they were asked to be leamer-centered teachers by applying the concepts
from these two sources in teaching English. It is apparent that the concepts from these
two sources are not appropriate for teaching English. For example, the one-day
conference’s interpretation was suitable for a social science subject where learning and
teaching is in Thai, but not for teaching English as a foreign language to young learners.
Second language Ieamers need learning activities that allow them to communicate
meaningfully with their peers. They need to learn the language in a social context with
authentic situations and language. Learning centers are not an ideal place to get verbal

interaction. On the other hand, self-leaming centers with suitable pedagogical and

155

communicative activities and tasks with different level of difﬁculty are still needed and
important for language learning. Graded learning activities focusing on different skills
and topics are ideal for meeting learners’ differences.

The problem is how many self—learning centers are available for Ieamers in the
country. At least, a technician, a materials designer, and a teacher are needed to develop
an effective self learning center. Knowledge, hard work, creativity, and care from each
of them are the most important factors in determining success or failure of a self-learning
center. This is because learning activities provided in the center need to be graded
suitably to leamers’ levels and interests, and they have to be challenging, interesting for
Ieamers, and motivating to keep them coming to the centers. This means that the

activities need to be available and suitable for them as Ieamers progress in development.

ONEC has provided ﬁve major characteristics to conceptualize a leamer-centered
approach. Teachers take many important roles such as identifying differences,
interpreting curriculum, designing learning activities, organizing learning activities,
evaluating, and helping learners to be able to summarize the learning. On the other hand,
MOE, the distributor of these concepts to supervisors and teachers, has its own
interpretations of a leamer-centered approach. Moreover, it does not include all teachers’
major duties in the lecture and the one-day conference on leamer-centeredness. How did
supervisors and teachers perceive a leamer-centered approach based on three channels of
knowledge provided by MOE? Table 7.3 shows the concepts of a leamer-centered
approach perceived by supervisors and teachers. Information was taken from the

transcription of their interviews.

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Table 7.3: Concepts of a Leamer-Centered Approach Perceived by Supervisors and

Teachers.(Ts stands for Teachers, and Ls for Learners).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ts Ts Ts as Ls seeking Ls Ls Ls
planning organizing facilitators knowledge learning summarizing thinking
content learning on their through the learning and
and activities own learning on their own acting on
Agents methods to serve centers their
Ls’ own.
interests
Supervisor 1 X X X
Supervisor 3 X X
Supervisor 4 X
Supervisor 5 X X X X X
Total 1 3 3 2 l l 0
Teacher A X X X X
Teacher B X X X
Teacher C X X
Total 0 l 2 2 0 l 3

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

According to the interviews with teachers and supervisors, they reported these
seven major characteristics of a leamer-centered approach as shown in the ﬁrst row of
Table 7.3. Numbers represent the total number of supervisors and teachers who shared
the same perception of each characteristic of a leamer-centered approach. Supervisors
and teachers received the concepts of a leamer—centered approach through the lectures, a
publication, and a one-day conference which included only one of the roles a leamer-
centered teacher suggested by ONEC. The other four major roles that teachers should
take (identifying learner’s needs, interests, and knowledge, preparatory work by
analyzing the curriculum, evaluation and conclusion and application of the learning) were

not included in the original sources of knowledge for supervisors’ and teachers. As a

157

result, in their perception of a leamer-centered approach, those four major characteristics
did not exist. They interpreted the concepts based on what they had been provided.

Three major characteristics of learner-centeredness which were mentioned most
often by supervisors were: teachers planning learning activities to serve leamers’
interests, teachers as facilitators, and Ieamers seeking knowledge on their own. These
were the strongest messages that most supervisors received. Supervisors still focused
more on teachers’ roles in planning learning activities to serve learners’ differences, and
taking the role of facilitators. However, only Supervisor 5 got the message that teachers
have to plan the content and teaching methods for Ieamers. This is one of the most
important messages that supervisors have to possess and deliver to teachers under their
supervision. Only Supervisor 5 expanded and modiﬁed the concept by adding more roles
for learners. Learners in her concept learned through learning centers, and summarized
the learning on their own.

None of the three teachers in this study mentioned their roles as the planners of
content and methods. None of these teachers realized that they need to analyze the
curriculum of 1995 to see what language skills, language items and themes have to be
included in their planning. Only Teacher B mentioned that teachers need to plan learning
activities to serve leamers’ interests. But she stressed strongly that she could not apply
this idea in her situation because her learners are not interested in learning English.
Surprisingly, these three teachers all agreed that in a leamer—centered approach, Ieamers
have to think and act on their own. And two out of the three agreed that Ieamers need to
search for knowledge on their own, and teachers are facilitators. These were the

strongest messages obtained by teachers. Teachers seemed to focus on leamers’ roles

158

and responsibilities rather than their own. In their perceptions, Ieamers take more
responsibility in learning; they have to seek knowledge, summarize the learning, and
think and act on their own.

The idea of a learner-centered approach is not at fault, but it is misinterpretation
of the Ministry of Education, and the transmission of the information from the top and the
comprehension of it by teachers in the absence of a model and practice that are ﬂawed.
Teachers misunderstood. If these characteristics of a learner-centered approach cited by
teachers are actually applied in classrooms, Ieamers will be in trouble. The
responsibilities of teaching and learning no longer belong to teachers. Learners take all
the responsibility. The leaming and teaching is not helpful to the learning development
of Thai Ieamers in general.

Although these three teachers cited different characteristics of a leamer-centered
approach, they all agreed on one thing - that it was problematic for them to apply a
leamer-centered approach in their classrooms. It would be fortunate if they do not apply
what they understood in their teaching although they were strongly encouraged to apply
it.

The following is parts of interviews of the three teachers to illustrate how they
thought about applying the concepts of a learner-centered approach. Teacher A said,

Actually, I agree with this idea, but it is difﬁcult to use it with all subjects because

our society is not familiar with this learning culture, and some subjects are not

suitable for a leamer-centered approach... For example, Science. Science is a

subject which we can motivate Ieamers to learn and seek knowledge on their own,

or handy crafts, but for some subjects, it is not suitable... In English, it is
possible to motivate Ieamers to learn such as telling them about the usefulness of

English, or showing them beautiful sceneries from abroad, or advertisement. But

it is impossible to tell Ieamers to seek knowledge for themselves in English.

Teacher B said:

159

I agree with the idea, but not in teaching. It is always easy just to talk, but not to
apply it. They tell us to teach to serve leamers’ needs. We should teach what
Ieamers want to learn. I wonder what my Ieamers want to learn. Let’s follow
what they have said. I asked “ students, can you tell the teacher what you want to
learn?” The students smiled. They said “I want to learn whatever you want to
teach”... Then I asked if they wanted to learn about tourist spots, traveling,
cooking, football? They said they wanted to learn all. That means they can’t
think, and teachers need to guide them to think. Then why I bother to guide them
to something I don’t have the teaching materials. I guide them to what I have
already had... In teaching activity, if I have to teach to serve their needs or their
aptitude, I would be dead. No students like English. If I were a store-owner, I
would have been bankrupt because there were no customers...Then they told us
that in a leamer-centered approach, Ieamers do and act, teachers are facilitators.
If we let Ieamers do and act from the beginning of the class, it is the end of the
story because they do not know what to do. They cannot read. How can Ieamers
communicate if they cannot read? They cannot read an English sentence on their
own, then how do these Ieamers seek knowledge in English on their own? The
worst is that we don’t have English resources for them to search for knowledge. I
bet a leamer-centered approach doesn’t work with teaching English at grades 5-6.

Teacher C said:

I don’t know. I don’t know how to use it. . .No one has given us the knowledge on
how to use a leamer-centered approach in teaching English. Teachers are
expected to apply this knowledge to their subjects on their own. They can watch
the education programs on TV, and read books. We have not been trained how to
teach in a learner-centered approach... Teachers have to grow by themselves.
They (Teachers of other subjects) are told to teach Ieamers to think and do on
their own. Teachers are happy now. They let their students do their own thinking
and learning... Students are now dead. It is not successful. Teachers need urgent
help. They don’t know what to do. No one advises them. No teaching model for
them to follow.

She added:

“In teaching English, it is difﬁcult to ask learners to think on their own. We need
to give Ieamers a foundation of knowledge ﬁrst. For example, they don’t know
the meaning of a new vocabulary word, it is impossible for them to think of the
meaning of new words on their own.”

It can be concluded that policy makers, policy distributors, supervisors and

teachers have different concepts about the approach and about putting it into practice.

ONEC, the policy makers, emphasized more roles for teachers. In order to successfully

160

implement it, teachers need indepth training. MOE’s responsibility is to train teachers
based on the policy given by ONEC. It would take a considerable burden and sacriﬁce on
the part of MOE to train all teachers for all subjects. Therefore, instead of training
teachers, MOE provides only lectures, a conference and a publication for teachers. MOE
has its own interpretation of a leamer-centered approach in order to ﬁt it into the lectures
and the conference. In MOE’s interpretation, leamer-centered teachers could encourage
Ieamers to participate in the learning process as suggested in the lecture, or guide them to
available learning centers as suggested in the conference, or encourage teachers to use
many teaching methods as suggested in the publication. This interpretation was different
from the policy makers.

Both supervisors and teachers received the knowledge of a leamer-centered
approach through MOE’s three channels, and they did have some different concepts
about a leamer-centered approach. While supervisors focused more on teachers’ roles,
teachers emphasized leamers’ roles. However, most supervisors and most teachers in
this study seemed to agree that in a leamer-centered approach, teachers organize learning
activities to serve leamers’ interests, and act as facilitators. And Ieamers need to seek
knowledge on their own. Teachers in this study perceived that in a leamer-centered
approach, Ieamers take more responsibilities in learning. They seek knowledge,
summarize the learning, think and act all on their own. However, all three teachers agreed
that as long as no training sessions are provided, it is quite impossible for teachers to be

able to implement a leamer-centered approach in their situations.

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Chapter Eight

Findings on Research Questions Two and Three

8.1. Research question 2: To what degree did teachers actually implement
communicative language teaching in their classrooms?

This study attempted to investigate how English teachers actually implemented
communicative language teaching which is related to a leamer—centered approach in the
sense that both focus on leamers’ need and interests. English language leamers’ needs
and interests are developed through communicative language activities and tasks.

As mentioned before, I ﬁrst thought that teachers would use a variety of
communicative activities and classroom interaction patterns such as pair work, group
work, individual work, and whole class activities. However, after carefully looking at the
transcription of the observations of the three teachers, I found that the three teachers used
a lot of whole class activities. They did not use pairwork or groupwork where Ieamers
could have communicated with each other. In the transcription, there was no
communication in English between Ieamers and Ieamers or Ieamers and teachers.
Teachers used short single English instructions such as repeat after me, do you
understand? These were common phrases in the classroom. There were no verbal
responses or questions in English from the Ieamers to the teachers.

Based on the patterns of teaching behavior found in the transcription, two major
features of communicative language teaching were used to determine the degree of
teachers’ implementation of communicative language teaching. They are: classroom

interaction patterns, and the use of target language in the classroom. Initially, the ﬁrst

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look at classroom interaction patterns was from three observations of each teacher,

followed by a look at the target language used in each observation of the three teachers.

8.1.1 Classroom Interaction Patterns in Three Classes.

Table 8.1 demonstrates the proportion of class time for whole class activities, a
student with a group, choral, individual work, and pair work/group work from the three
observations of the three teachers. Whole class activity is when the teacher interacts with
all students in the class. A student with a group of students is a student interacting with a
class or a group of students with a central activity for all groups, and the language used is
drill like (e.g. command and response in TPR). Choral is when all students in a class do
things in chorus such as greetings, singing and reading aloud. Individual work is each
student working individually such as copying the sentences on the board, and writing
answers to questions individually. Pair work or group work is students interacting and
negotiating in pairs or groups, and they use language freely and communicatively.
Examples of communicative group work and pair work are problem solving activities,
information gap activities (jigsaw activities), simulations, drama, etc. In these types of
activities, Ieamers control what to say and how to say it. The information given between
them is unpredictable.

Table 8.1. Percentage of Observed Time for Different Participation Patterns of the

Classes of the Three Teachers

 

 

 

 

 

Teachers Whole class L> G Choral Individual Pair work
A learner with /Group work
group/class

Teacher A 99.02 0 0 .98 0

Teacher B 79.21 6.10 9.67 5.02 0

Teacher C 38.77 43.58 17.65 0 0

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Long (1980), and Varonis and Gass (1983) suggest that small group work in
language classrooms provides the optimum environment for negotiation and interaction.
Therefore, a communicative classroom should provide considerable group work and pair
work for Ieamers. In this study, none of the three teachers used group work and pair
work, which is the most important feature of communicative language teaching.

Table 8.1 shows that all three teachers used extensive whole class activities.
Teacher A used more whole class activities (99.02%) than the other two teachers. She
was the most powerful agent who directed all the moves in the class. She directed the
class to the textbooks which provided a time frame of what to do next. She followed the
textbooks closely. She read the passages in the textbook, and instructed the students to
repeat after her or to answer her questions. Mostly, students sat passively listening to her
reading aloud, and repeating after her. They would speak a word or a sentence only when
they were called on to answer her questions. They did not have a chance to interact with
their peers at all.

Like Teacher A, Teacher B used substantial whole class activities (79.21%). In a
whole class activity, Teacher B spoke most of the time while her students listened to her
talk. Learners did not have much chance to talk. Compared to Teacher A, Teacher B
used a greater variety of activities including Ieamers working with a group, choral, and
individual activity. Although more varied activities were used, students still did not have
a chance to talk in English; for example, in the student working with a class or group,
students still did not have a chance to talk because the activity used was a sentence

scramble where Ieamers silently arranged the right order of the words in a sentence.

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However, compared to class A, class B was more relaxing because of the use of singing
in chorus which helped create a better learning environment for Ieamers.

Compared to Teachers A and B, Teacher C used the fewest whole class activities
(38.77%). She spoke less than the other two teachers. Class time was used in students
working with class or groups (43.58%), and choral (17.65%). Students in class C had
chances to speak an English word or phrases to their peers. However, the language used
was predictable, and drill like. The learning environment in this class was a lot better
than the other two because students talked, sang, and acted to the songs.

It was signiﬁcant to investigate in further detail which activities were used by
each teacher. Table 8.2 shows all activities used by the three teachers in three
observations for each: 1) teacher teaching grammar, 2) teacher translating, 3) teacher
reading aloud, 4) teacher using pronouncing activity, 5) teacher using TPR with class 6)
class repeating after teacher, 7) learner reading aloud one by one, 8) learner answering
question one by one, 9) individual work, 10) learner working with group, and 11) learner
reading or singing in chorus. Each activity was timed by minutes. The activities

representing the longest amount of time in each observation are in bold type.

8.1.la Teacher A’s class

Table 8.2 shows that in observation 1, Teacher A spent most of the observed time
(43 percent) reading after her word by word, sentence by sentence. Learners repeated
after her every single word without any sense of what they were repeating. Students were
told not to write the pronunciation of each word in Thai. Teacher A explained that if the

students wrote the wrong pronunciation, this caused serious pronunciation problems later.

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The pronunciation written with the Thai alphabet could be wrong because there are many
English vowels and consonants that do not exist in the Thai sound system. The students
were used to repeating after the teacher. They sometimes repeated after her even when

the command was given to listen to her reading, or to answer her question. (TA refers to
Teacher A; C to Class)

TA: Number two, Listen

C: Listen

TA: Listen tulm'i (Listen means...)

S: We (Listen)

TA: We (Listen)

TA: We (Listen)... Listen. Listen urlai'iaz’ls (Listen, listen means what?)
‘lii‘lriuan‘tt’t repeat nan: (I didn’t ask you to repeat) Listen and think.
Think urlaii (Think means ...)

C: ﬁn (think)

TA: ﬁn lﬁWouaiﬁt-in‘ltlnm (Think, I want you to listen and think)

Another example of how Ieamers did not pay attention to what they were
repeating after the teacher.

TA: Whose birthday party

Class: Whose birthday party

TA: Am I going to go to?

Class: Am I going to go to?

TA: Guess

Class: Guess

TA: Answer

Class: Answer

TA: Answer

Class: Answer.

TA: ...Answer uznguanlﬁﬁm‘tuunau (Answer. I want you to answer the

question.) dolaﬂoutlauuzn: (Pay more attention, please!)

Despite the above problem, Teacher A argued that repeating after the teacher was
important for Ieamers because they were exposed to the correct pronunciation, and exact
reading according to the punctuation. As a result, they could pronounce and read

correctly. Teacher A used the same criteria for teaching reading as suggested in the

publication by ONEC:

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Fluency, correctness and clarity in pronunciation;

Correctness and clarity in pronunciation of /r, l/;

Correctness and clarity in pronunciation of compound consonants with /r, l, w/

Correctness in pauses at the end of phrases/sentences” (Ofﬁce of the Prime

Minister and Ministry of Education, 2000, p. 36).

About 37 percent of observed time in observation 1 was used in translation.
Teacher A read aloud each sentence of the passage, and gave the translation for each
sentence she just read although the glossary of difﬁcult words had already been provided
at the end of the book. She explicitly told her students to write down the translation she
gave in the books. Teacher A thought that translation was necessary in studying English.
If there was no translation, the students could not understand the passage, and they could
not answer the comprehension questions. Although Teacher A told her students that it
was not necessary to know all English words when they read, she persistently focused on
translating every single word and sentence. These students were not trained to be patient
when they did not know some of the words, and they were not prepared to guess
meanings from the context. They were told to check unknown words before coming to
class. Some gave up trying to ﬁnd the meaning in the dictionary. These students ended
up not doing homework and not bringing the English textbook which upset Teacher A.

In observation 2, Teacher A used most of the observed time (40.0%) in explicitly
teaching grammar rules. Teacher A used the traditional way of teaching grammar where
forms were taught explicitly, and learning the language rules was emphasized. Doughty
and Williams (1999) called it form-focused instruction. Meaning and function were not
combined during the teaching of forms. She explained later in the stimulated recall that

forms were important because they helped the students to write correctly. The following

excerpt was taken from Teacher A’s stimulated recall:

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R: vh‘lungﬁnii grammar rules airtight (Why do you think grammar is
important?) .

TA: tw'rizaavh‘tﬁmstﬁuuﬁqndao (Because it helps learners to write
correctly) ﬁaﬁmonuﬁt‘iwnii aau‘liﬁtﬁnaiutuazq
‘lntﬁulnsoaiioﬂszluntuaaq ttéiﬂuaadiua‘iﬁ‘lua'lrltao. (Some said that
grammar rules could be acquired through extensive reading. They are
exposed on many sentence structures, and grammar rules can be
naturally acquired) ﬁamoriniuﬁ'lua moriniuﬁ‘lrﬂna (Some rules can be
naturally acquired, but some can’t.) un’ grammar moadioﬂuﬁﬁitﬂuuan:
ﬁnanaoaauuy. (Some grammar rules need to be taught.) dilﬁngtaan‘ln
mammary/fauna nguauaau grammar. (If I can choose, I want to teach
only grammar rules. aiaaaaauuuu teacher center rim (1 probably use
teacher-centered approach as well.) W518 grammar
uaotﬁnﬁtﬁntmamnaaitﬁamm Inutamztau (It is because learners
want to know about grammar rules).

Teacher A stressed that her students were interested in grammar rules because
they wanted to go to higher education. And entrance examinations to higher education
used the multiple-choice format, testing leamers’ writing, reading, vocabulary, and
grammar. Speaking and listening skills are not tested in any entrance examination at any
level in Thailand. She told students that they had to remember a particular grammar
exercise because it was always on the exam. The following excerpt shows how she told
her students about the importance of the grammatical exercise.

nglﬁtimttm‘tuumumﬁuana (The teacher gives you 3 minutes) tﬁtJt-i‘l'lﬁ
gnriaouﬁ'ltmaoshtaolvign (to correct all your mistakes) anao'lrl‘luuﬁoaa
tﬁu‘lirjtﬂuuunamo (Copy them in your notebook for later review)
ﬁaaauaanwnﬂrau‘lanﬁiﬁuz unaiaaztﬂauuﬁamn uﬁatfluuﬁn (This
page (page 66) has always been in the ﬁnal exam, but the name is
changed) grlilsziunaamﬁauﬁu (The same sentence structure will be
used) tﬁaaantﬁu'l’irj (You copy for later review)

It seemed to be Teacher A, who gave the importance of grammar to students by
telling them to memorize it for the exam. Teacher A used another 35 percent of the

observed time in observation 2 and 52 percent of the observed time in observation 3 was

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used in answering comprehension questions. Learners were asked to read and answer
these questions at home. During class time, Teacher A called on them to answer one by
one in order of their seating. Learners answered by either reading the answers aloud, or
writing them on the blackboard. Teacher A told the class if the answers were right or
wrong. If the answers were wrong, the teacher called on the next learner to answer.
Learners were expected to listen carefully to the correct answers Teacher A gave, and
correct their own answers. However, students did not pay attention and correct their
answers which upset Teacher A when she found out later. These students tended to pay
attention more when it was their turn, and they tried to ﬁnd the answer before they were
called. They also tried to practice pronunciation. They did so because they did not want
to get a reprimand from the teacher. These students struggled very hard in order to please
their teacher.

Across the three observations of Teacher A’s class, about 32 percent of the total
observed time was used in Ieamers reading a phrase or a sentence one by one. This
activity took the longest amount of the total observed time in Teacher A’s three
observations. About 21 percent of the total observed time was used in Ieamers repeating
after the teacher. And another 1 1 percent of the total observed time was used in Ieamers
reading a phrase or sentence one by one. These two activities did not help improving
leamers’ communicative competence. It also did not help them to have positive attitudes
toward English because it was not interesting. Learners did not have a chance to be
creative in using the language. Teacher A corrected their repetition and reading aloud
although the pronunciation sounded correct. This made Ieamers very cautious about

speaking English, and afraid to speak English for fear that they would make mistakes.

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Good language Ieamers should not be afraid to take risks in producing the target language
in order to make themselves understood.

Teacher A used about 18 percent of the total observed time in translation and 16
percent in teaching grammar. This was a typical example of a grammar-translation
approach. This class was made up of three major groups of activities 1) grammar and
translation (34 %); 2) Ieamers repeating after teacher or reading one by one (32 %); and
3) Ieamers answering question one by one (33 %). These three groups were all whole
class activities and took almost all the class time (99%). Pair work or group work
activities were not practiced in this class. Learners in class A had few chances to do
individual work (.9%) in which they answered the comprehension questions or copied the
answers from the blackboard to their books. No laughter was ever heard from this class,
only the teacher’s complaints for not ﬁnishing the homework, not bringing textbooks to
class, not paying attention in class, changing seats, or using perfume. Class was very
quiet and tense especially when she complained.

Teacher A had the knowledge, ability and experience to apply a leamer-centered
approach or communicative language teaching in her English class. She had been trained
since her college years to teach communicatively from the best teacher education
program in the country. She might be the only English teacher in the country who
participated in teacher training in communicative language teaching frequently about 7-8
times a year. However, she did not want to change. Teacher A believed that Ieamers
were studying English to pass entrance examinations which focused on grammar skills,
reading skills, writing skills and vocabularies. She deliberately focused on only skills

included on the exam. This was not surprising at all. Some leading schools in Thailand

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ignored the learning reform and announced clearly that they taught their learners to pass
the entrance examination. Many students went to those schools but there was a limit on
enrollment. Teacher A had no more motivation to improve her teaching for the reform.
She reported that she was very tired with her heavy teaching load, and ready for early
retirement in a few years. Grammar translation seemed to ﬁt very well with her heavy

teaching load because it was the easiest way to teach English.

8.1.lb Teacher B’s class

Table 8.2 shows that in observation 1, Teacher B used about 77 percent of the
observed time in teaching grammar (future tense). According to the one-day conference
for a learner-centered approach, integration with other related subjects should be included
in the teaching of all subjects. Teacher B related the rules of future tense with weather
forecasts. Teacher B tried to show how a future tense could be meaningfully used in the
context. However, she discussed at length the details of weather forecasting in Thai. She
wanted to show that future tense was also used in native language weather forecasts.
However, because of the lack of eliciting skills, she ended up with many weather
forecasts in Thai which did not show the feature of future tense. She kept asking students
to produce more sentences hoping that one would show the feature of future tense. As a
result, 77 percent of observation 1 was spent on this activity. For learners, they were
confused and did not understand what she expected. There was no difference between
English class and social science class; as a result, an outspoken student reminded her that
they were in English class not social science class. She was not happy with that reminder

and told Ieamers that according to the learning reform, she needed to relate English with

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other subjects. In the conference, English teachers were not told that integrating four
language skills could accomplish that requirement.

In observation 2, she used 29 percent of class time in teaching pronunciation.
Learners practiced pronouncing the ﬁnal sounds /I/ and /n/ in minimal pairs such as will-
win, bill-bin. Teacher A knew how to teach pronunciation to young Ieamers. This
activity seemed to be successful; as a result, most Ieamers could distinguish the
differences between the two ﬁnal sounds.

Then she spent about 24 percent of the observed time in observation 2 asking
learners questions. Normally, well-qualiﬁed teachers ask questions that they and their
Ieamers do not know the answers to in order to elicit more discussion. Less qualiﬁed
teachers ask questions to which they know the answers, and the learners do not know the
answer. Surprisingly, Teacher B asked questions and she and her students already knew
the answers. For example, she asked questions in Thai about the location of famous
provinces in Thailand. Obviously, Ieamers had possessed this knowledge from their life
experience or from their social science class. They could answer and they answered in
Thai as well. She could have developed communicative activities making use of
leamers’ existing background knowledge.

Like Teacher A, Teacher B used a lot of class time having students repeat after
her and calling on students to answer her questions one by one. She used about 32
percent of observation 3 on Ieamers repeating after her. Like Teacher A, she focused on
the accuracy of the sound. However, what was different was that Teacher A used
repeating after her as a way to practice the correct pronunciation of new vocabulary.

However, Teacher B could not indicate the pedagogical purposes. For example, in

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observation 2 on February 14, she asked her learners to repeat these two sentences
“Valentine’s Day is the day of love”, and “Valentine’s Day is on the 14 of February”
after her (Round 1). Then the students were told to write these sentences down in their
notebooks (copying from the board outside the room) (Round 2). Then one of these
sentences was used again in a sentence scramble (Round 3). The students were asked to
repeat this sentence after her again (Round 4). Finally, they had to write the sentence
down in their notebook again (Round 5). Altogether she used the ﬁrst 15 minutes of the
observed time in repeating these two sentences 5 times. She argued that Ieamers needed
to repeat many times so that they could remember. All Ieamers knew how to pronounce
Valentine’s Day. They knew when Valentine’s Day was. They gave red roses and hearts
to their friends even before the observation. Therefore, there was no point in repeating
after her 7 times, and writing this sentence in their notebooks. She could have used these
15 minutes for other more meaningful activities such as writing a Valentines’ card for
their loved ones in English. Repetition was used continually in observation 3; Ieamers
repeated a song after her line by line for 10 minutes for the chance to actually sing the
song along with the tape for about one minute, and sing along with her for about 6
minutes. Learners did not have a chance to sing by themselves in chorus. Learners were
not motivated to sing although Teacher B tried to push them to sing. Teacher B did not
have the ability to sing on key. It would have been better if Ieamers had sung along with
the tape three to four times. Deﬁnitely, they enjoyed the singing more, and learning
could have been facilitated.

Teacher B knew that group work enhanced language learning. In observation 3,

she planned to have a listening activity of a weather forecast, but Ieamers could not make

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sense of what they listened to because it was too difﬁcult in terms of dense information
and speed, and she did not provide sufﬁcient information for her Ieamers before listening.
Moreover, Ieamers had only one chance to listen to the tape because she could not rewind
the tape to the right spot. She wasted much class time in rewinding the tape searching for
the weather forecast she had just played, but unsuccessfully (about half an hour which
was not included in the calculation of the observed time). Teacher B called this listening
activity a group work activity because before playing the tape, Ieamers were asked to sit
in groups of ﬁve to six and listen to the tape of the weather forecast. She argued that
Ieamers could have shared their information they had learned from listening. This means
that Ieamers copied each other if they could not get information from the tape. Copying
is not interaction. She did not realize that in group work, Ieamers had the need to interact
in their group in order to give or get information, or to get the work done. In her case,
Ieamers did not have the need to give or get information from each other in the group.
They all got information from the tape. This activity could be adjusted so that Ieamers
have the need to communicate.

Teacher B did use a variety of teaching techniques. She used singing, listening
and matching activities, sentence scrabble, TPR, etc. These were pedagogical activities
allowing Ieamers to practice language skills needed for the communicative activities.
They also helped in creating a learning environment for young Ieamers. The overall
learning environment of class B was not as tense as Teacher A’s class. The students had
a chance to sing, and act sometimes. The introduction of a special topic such as
Valentine’s Day, and ‘weather forecast’ with the use of word cards interested the

students. However, due to the use of unrelated activities, problems in handling and

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managing the class, the lack of deep understanding of the purposes of teaching techniques
and the lack of knowledge of communicative activities, she could not use each activity
effectively. She could not accomplish the teaching goal of each activity. Learners did not
have a chance to practice in pedagogical activities as they were supposed to. Her
Ieamers might have been able to improve their language skills better if she had
understood teaching techniques better. Teacher B still could not understand why her
students could not read or write, and did not realize that the problem was the lack of
opportunities for her students to develop to their optimal potential. I was not sure if
Teacher A’s grammar translation class was more helpful in developing second language
skills, at least grammatical and pronunciation skills.

Teacher B used only 3 teaching techniques in observation 1, namely teaching
grammar, translation, and listening activity. In observation 2, she used 9 teaching
techniques: translation, teacher reading aloud, pronunciation practice, Total Physical
Response (TPR), Ieamers repeating after teacher, Ieamers answering a question one by
one, individual work, Ieamers working with group, and choral activity. There was a big
difference between observation 1 and 2. Why did she use more teaching techniques in
observation 2? Teacher B told me that before observation 1, she was not sure if I would
observe her; therefore, she did not prepare her lesson for the observation. After
observation I, I assured her that I deﬁnitely would come for observations 2 and 3. As a

result, Teacher B prepared 9 teaching techniques for the observations.

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8.1.1c Teacher C’s class

Teacher C planned to teach her students how to give directions. Before the ﬁrst
observation, it was clear that all needed vocabulary, expressions, and songs relating to
telling directions had been taught to the students. Table 8.2 shows that Teacher C used
40 percent of observation 1 in singing in chorus. The songs were about direction and
turning. She used these as a way to review all vocabulary concerning directions as
mentioned before. Learners sang and acted to the song. They were very energetic and
highly involved.

Teacher C used 39 percent of the time of observation 1 in Ieamers working with a
group. She used Total Physical Response (TPR) again. In this activity, a student in the
group gave a short command to the other members. The rest of the group acted
according to the instruction given, namely turn left, turn right, turn around, and go
straight. Learners were having fun in this activity. They were very involved in the
activity. Laughter and native language discussion could be heard occasionally.

Table 8.2 showed that Teacher C used about 15 percent of observation 1 in
translation although all the 4-5 expressions had been pre-taught, and reviewed in the TPR
and singing. It can be concluded that observation 1 was used in reviewing what Ieamers
had known before.

In observation 2, she used 81 percent of the observed time, and another 32 percent
of observation 3 in TPR. Deﬁnitely, drill and controlled practice activities like TPR still
have a place in language classes. They serve as pre-communicative activities which
provide Ieamers with the warm up skills for more communicative language tasks

(Littlewood, 1981). TPR is an effective way to teach young Ieamers because it is

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focused on meanings and response is limited to physical movement. It is a receptive
activity to which learners do not need to give any verbal response. It is appropriate for
teaching simple verbs. However, TPR is not supposed to be used more than 15 minutes
three or four times a week at the beginning level (Richard-Amato, 1988). If it is used
extensively, there is the danger that Ieamers get the impression that the purpose of
learning English is to give commands. Table 8.2 shows that Teacher C used about 27
percent of all the observed time in three observations for translation. She translated the
vocabulary, sentences and expressions used in giving directions.

About 19 percent of the total observed time was used in choral activities where
Ieamers sang songs and responded to the lyricsiof the songs. Teacher C used songs to
teach vocabulary necessary for giving directions. This was an excellent idea. Lyrics
were ﬁlled with meaningful input relating to the topic of giving directions. At the same
time, they could move their bodies to the lyrics of the songs. Learners were all highly
motivated in singing and acting. This choral activity could be considered a TPR activity
as mentioned before. The difference was that in choral activity all students of the class
sang together in chorus and reacted together in chorus. At this point, Teacher C had used
TPR much too often as suggested by Richard-Amato (1988). The amount and frequency
may not be the most serious problem. The issue is that TPR is just a pre communicative
activity. It is supposed to be followed by communicative activities where learners extend
their short commands to longer stretches beyond sentence or phrase level. And Teacher C
did not have any communicative activity for her students during these three observations.

It was clear from the ﬁrst observation that her students knew all the vocabulary,

and they could give and follow directions correctly. Observations 2 and 3 showed that

177

these Ieamers did not have the chance to develop beyond basic short phrases in total
physical response. They did not have a chance to interact in pair work or group work
where they could have created the language freely, and where they could have used
English to perform speech acts, or to communicate ideas. Almost all the time in
observations 2 and 3 was used in TPR, which was not needed.

In observation 3, Teacher C tried to use drilled language in communication. She
asked the students to give the directions from the school to places around the area.
However without any situations, settings and roles, it turned into a translation activity
where she asked in Thai, and students translated into English. She spent about 25 percent
of three observations in translation of words about places and directions that learners
already knew. There were no communicative activities which allowed them to integrate
their understanding with language skills such as reading, listening, speaking and writing.

Teacher C called on three students to give directions from her instructions. There
was no need nor purpose for these students to ask directions for places they had known
already. Teacher C needed to reduce drill activities, and provide more communicative
activities such as role-play, information gap, etc. For instance, two students have similar
maps. Student A has information on how to get to the hospital, but Student B does not.
Then Student B asks Student A for the directions. Then Student B has the information
that Student A does not have. This way, both have the chance to give and get
information.

The. learning environment in class C was suitable for communicative classrooms.
Class was not limited to sitting in a common classroom scene. Class was both inside and

outside the classroom, under a tree, or on the ﬂoor. Students moved around doing the

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activities. The noise of this class sometimes was very loud when students were very
involved in the games. Laughter and smiles from the students could be heard and seen
most of the time.

Similar to Teacher B, Teacher C also was not trained sufﬁciently during the pre-
service and in-service programs. In Teacher C’s case, she had some foundation in
teaching methodology. She had already prepared her students systematically in
pedagogical activities. What she needed was conﬁdence, and communicative language
activities. There have been many commercial communicative activities about giving
directions so that Teacher C could get one easily if she were guided to the right resource.
Using a map can be an option. Two Ieamers have similar maps, for example a map of a
town. Each of them has partial information about the town. In order to ﬁnish their tasks,
they must ask for information that the other possesses. This way, they exchange their
information through direction and names of places. They negotiate for- meaning when
they cannot hear clearly or they want to make sure if what they hear is correct or if they
want the other to repeat the information again. They interact as people actually do in real
lives. Unfortunately, class C Ieamers did not have a chance.

It can be concluded that based on classroom interaction patterns in the three
classrooms, these three teachers did not implement communicative language teaching in
their classrooms. Teacher A used the grammar translation approach. She used only
whole class activities in all three observations. She taught grammar explicitly. She read
the reading passage aloud, and Ieamers were asked to repeat after her. She translated the
reading passage phrase by phrase into Thai. Learners were asked to answer the

comprehensive questions one by one. Learners were completely controlled in terms of

179

when and what they spoke. They did not have a chance to use language to communicate
to each other.

Like Teacher A’s class, Teacher B’s class was not communicative. She taught
grammar explicitly. Repetition after the teacher was used extensively. Learners were
called to answer questions. However, Ieamers in class B had a chance to work with a
group activity such as a sentence scramble and choral activity. However, these activities
did not require learners to communicate with each other, but they helped to create
learning environment.

Teacher C used the least amount of whole class activity. She used Ieamers
working with group the most among the three teachers. Learners were engaged most of
the time in TPR and singing in unison. However, Teacher C’s class was not
communicative because the language used in TPR was limited to physical movement
rather than verbal response. Learners did not have a chance to use language to

communicate freely and creatively with each other.

180

Table 8.2. Activities Used in the Three Classes: A, B, and C:
Duration (in minutes) and percentage of observed time per activity. (T: Teacher, C: Class, L: Learner, G: Groups)

A
V

Whole class activity

L
V

 

 

 

 

 

 

T T > C T > C T>C T > C T>C C repeat after L read L answer Choral L > G/C Ind. Gr. Total

grammar translation read Pm. TPR T one by one by one Wk Wk (Min)

one
I II III IV V VI VII VIII [X X XI XII XIII
TA:
1 0.7 11.3(37%) .7 0 0 13.1 (43%) 3.9 0.7 0 0 0 0 30.5
2 12.(40.0%) .9 0 0 0 2.8 2.7 10.4 (35%) 0 0 1.0 0 29.8
3 3.3 6.5(15.5%) 0 0 0 5.7 4.6 21.9 (52%) 0 0 O 0 42.0
Total 15.7% 18.3% 8% 0% 21.0% 11.0% 32.2% 0% 0% 1% 0% 100%
TB :
1 23.5 (77%) 1.4 5.6 0 0 O 0 0 0 0 0 0 30.5
2 0 2.4 1.8 9.1(29 1.5 4.5 0 7.4 (24%) 2.7 5.7(18.6%) 4.7 0 30.6
3 0.4 3.9 0 .7%) 0 10.3(32.5%) 0 1.6 6.1 0 0 0 31.8
0

Total 25.7% 8.2% 8.0% 9.8% 1.5% 16.40% 0% 9.7% 9 6% 6.1% 5% 0% 100%
TC:
1 0 4.1 (15.1%) 0 .8 .5 0 0 0 10.9 (40.1) 10.8 (39.8%) 0 0 27.1
2 0 O 0 0 0 2.6 0 0 0.7 14.4 (81.1%) 0 O 17.7
3 .3 16.7 0 1.4 0 0 0 0 2.6 10.0 (32.4%) 0 0 30.7
Total 3% 27.4% 0% 2.9% .7% 3.3% ”/r, 0% 18.7% 46.6% TPR 0% 0% 100%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1: Teacher taught grammar to class
III: Teacher read aloud to class
V: Teacher used Total Physical Response with class.

VII: Learner read a phrase or a sentence aloud one by one.
IX: Class sang in choral

XI= Learner worked individually such as copying sentences
on blackboard.

II = Teacher translated English into Thai to class
IV: Teacher taught pronunciation to class
VI: Class repeated a phrase or a sentence after teacher in unison

sentence

VIII: Learner answered to teacher’s question one by one.
X: Learner worked with group or class with central activity and predicted phrase or

XII: Learners worked in group work with unpredicted language

 

 

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8.1.2. Target Language Use in the Classrooms.

Table 8.3 shows the amount of use of target language and native language by the
three teachers.
Table 8.3. Amount of Target Language (English) and Native Language (Thai) Used by

Three Teachers (counting sentences or phrases both in English and Thai used by teachers

in each observation)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Teacher A Target language Native language Total
TA: 1 16 (5.63%) 268 (94.70%) 284
2 27 (11.69%) 204 (88.31%) 231
3 10 (5.35%)* 177 (94.65%) 187
Total 53 (7.55%) 649 (92.45%) 702 (100%)
TB: 1 17 (8.33%) 187 (91.67%) 204
2 1 14 (36.77%)* 196 (63.23%) 310
3 72 (26.18%) 203 (73.81%) 275
Total 203 (25.73%) 586 (74.27%) 789(100%)
TC: 1 39 (27.86%) 101 (72.14%) 140
2 l6( 17.36%) 119 (82.64%) 135
3 24 (8.66%) 253 (81.61%) 277
Total 79 (14.31%) 473 (85.68%) 552 (100%)

 

 

Teacher A used the least amount of target language in the classroom. Her speech
in English ranged from 10 to 27 sentences. About 7 percent of her total oral production
was in English.

Teacher B used the largest amount of target language in her classes. In general,
she used English about 25 percent of her verbal statements in English in three
observations. Her English speech ranged from 17-114 sentences. The range was very
wide. Particularly in observation 2, she used English about 36 percent of her verbal
statements. Recall that Teacher B also used varied language activities (9 activities) in
observation 2. Before I met Teacher B in person in observation 1, she was not sure if I
would really come. Therefore, she did not prepare sufﬁcient learning activities and her

English speaking in observation 1. After observation 1, she asked if I would come to

182

 

not
Eng
Tea
pre

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obs

SEC

lin

Sill

 

observe her again. I reconﬁrmed with her that I would deﬁnitely come to the other two
appointments. Teacher B, therefore, prepared both the language activities and English
speaking for observation 2 extensively, but apparently this is not what she usually did.
Her students could not change overnight in terms of understanding English. They could
not understand even the simple English she used. She normally spoke her prepared
English sentences 4-5 times and ﬁnally provided the translations. In observation 2,
Teacher B was very exhausted with the 9 activities and the 4-5 repetitions of all her
prepared English sentences. As a result, in observation 3, she reduced both the activities
and English language use.

Teacher C used some English in her class. The English speech used in three
observations ranged from 16 to 39 sentences or phrases. Overall, she used English about
14 percent of all speech in her class.

The percentage of target language used by the three teachers did not relate to the
sequence of observations. Most of the target language used by these three teachers was
limited. Target language was used in many situations with many purposes. Table 6
shows the number of English expressions used for different purposes by the three

teachers.

183

 

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Table 8.4. Speech Acts Used by Three Teachers. (counted by speech acts)

 

 

 

 

 

Teachers Giving Giving Asking Greeting and Giving Giving
command information questions leave taking conﬁrmation compliment

TA: 1 16 4 0 0 0 0

2 12 4 l 1 0 0 0

3 8 1 1 0 0 0
Total 36 (63%) 9 (15%) 12(21%) 0 0 0
TB: 1 4 5 0 0 6 2

2 49 34 27 l 0 3

3 30 17 16 3 0 6
Total 83 (40%) 56 (27%) 43 (21%) 4 6 l 1
TC: 1 32 1 2 3 l 0

2 9 0 l 5 0 l

3 1 1 2 8 0 0 1
Total 52 (67%) 3 11(14%) 8(10%) 1 2

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Overall these three teachers mostly used English to give commands, ask
questions and give information. Giving commands was the most popular among these
speech acts. Teacher A used 36 English commands (63%). Teacher B gave 83 English
commands (40%), and Teacher C gave 52 English commands (67%). Most of the
commands were short and simple, for example, look, sit down, stand up, listen, etc. The
most common commands among these three teachers were: repeat after me, and open
your book, sit down, stand up. These three teachers also used the target language to ask
questions; Teacher A used 12 sentences (2] %), Teacher B 43 sentences (21%) and
Teacher C 11 sentences (l4 %).

Teacher A used the least amount of English, and at the same time the least variety
of speech acts. She gave commands, gave information and asked questions in English,
but she did not greet students at all because she taught this class the whole day. She did

not give conﬁrmations or any compliments to her students. She did not give

184

 

compliments even in the native language although most of her students were very
attentive.

Teacher A admitted that she used very little English in her teaching. She used
more of the native language in English class. She used Thai to explain and give
translations. She explained that if she used more English, her students could not
understand. When asked why she used very little target language, she explained that
teaching something new was already difﬁcult for Ieamers to understand; if she used
English to explain it, her students would not be able to understand anything. Teacher A
was conﬁdent about her ability in speaking English. She said that she did not have any
problem in speaking English in class to her students if she wanted to. She suggested the
idea of teaching in the native language ﬁrst, and English later to help her students
understand better. However, Teacher A did not do so in any of my three observations.

Teacher B used the most English in her classes compared to the other two
teachers. She used it for a wider range of purposes. She used English to give commands
(83 sentences), give information (56 sentences), and ask for information (43 sentences).
She also used English to give compliments (ll sentences), give conﬁrmation (6
sentences), and greet and take leave (4 sentences). Teacher B gave her students 11
compliments ( ‘ good’ was the only compliment used) in three observations. Compliments
helped Ieamers to feel that they had accomplished something with English which
encouraged and motivated them to do better.

Teacher B said that according to the curriculum of 1996, English teachers should
speak English to familiarize students with the language. However, like Teacher A,

Teacher B believed that Ieamers could not understand if she used English all the time.

185

Apparently, her students really could not understand her. Teacher B explained that
during her college years in teaching English, she never used English in teaching practice,
and all of her Thai instructors used Thai in teaching and communicating with students.
She reported that the main reason for not using English most of the time was due to her
level of English proﬁciency and her lack of conﬁdence. She normally switched to Thai
when she faced difﬁculties in maintaining the English language. Most of the difﬁculties
were not being able to ﬁnd the right word in English to express the ideas. She also
switched to Thai when she was not very conﬁdent that what she was speaking was
correct. She said that she usually practiced speaking English before she actually used it.
She sometimes practiced through listening to commercial tapes, and reading. This
conﬁrmed the explanation given before about her increase in target language use and
language activities in observation 2.

Her preparation both in terms of target language use and language activities was
good. The issue was whether she consistently did so in her normal teaching career.
Apparently, her students were not accustomed to her English use and activities. When
asked if she had a lesson plan for all these three observations, she did not have one. She
explained that she was experienced, and her lesson plans were very familiar to her.

Teacher C used some English mostly in giving commands about directions (52
sentences), asking questions (11 sentences), and greeting and leave taking (8 sentences).
Teacher C reported that she had not been attentive to improve her English skills during
her college years; as a result, she had low English proﬁciency. She did not use English
very much in teaching. In her opinion, she needed extra help in pronunciation,

vocabulary, listening, and speaking. Teacher C’s English proﬁciency was lower than that

186

of the other two teachers; therefore, she had a hard time speaking or pronouncing English
correctly. For example, she could not differentiate between /r/ and /l/, so she said light
instead of right. She could not pronounce consonant clusters and ﬁnal sounds correctly,

for example she said stead instead straight. Learners seemed to imitate all her mistakes.

8.1.3. Summary of Findings of Research Question 2

In conclusion, based on the data of participation patterns and the limited use of
English in the classrooms, these three teachers did not apply communicative language
teaching in their classes. This ﬁnding conﬁrmed that CLT has been only in the written
goals of teaching English, and changes have existed only in the written English
curriculum (Naksuk, 1984; Namphet, 1986, Sawadwadee, 1991).

All three teachers used many whole class activities. Teachers B and C used
students with groups; however, they were all drill-like activities wherein the whole group
of students used a central activity. Language use was still highly guided and controlled.
None of them used pair work or group work or communicative activities where learners
used English communicatively. Basically, Teacher A used the grammar and translation
approach while Teachers B and C did use some drill-like activities, especially Teacher C.
Teacher B used considerably more drill activities, but not successfully to improve
language development. Learners in class C practiced enough language skills needed for
the communicative activities. However, none of her Ieamers were developed to the point
of learning a second language where they could use language to communicate freely and
authentically. How much time should be devoted to pedagogical practice? According to

Norman et a1 (1987), the ratio of guided /controlled practice to free practice in a class

187

 

 

11

1C

 

th
ra

ha

30

 

311

 

 

should be 40%-60%. In these three classes, this ratio was not accomplished. The guided
or controlled activities took 100 %.

Teachers’ use of English in these three classes was not high. The highest
percentage of English use was about 25 percent of all utterances by Teacher B. The
lowest was about 7 percent of all utterances by Teacher A. None of these three teachers
used English more than 50 percent of all sentences in the classrooms. All of them used
English mostly in giving basic commands, asking for information, and providing

information.

8.2. Research Question 3: What facilitated or hindered teachers in using a learner-
centered approach?

All three teachers in their interviews mentioned a lot of problems hindering them
from being learner—centered teachers. They were:

Low Standard of Teacher Education. Teachers B and C who graduated from
teacher education institutes reported that during their college years as students of teaching
English, they were not trained sufﬁciently. As a result, they were not qualiﬁed in terms
of language proﬁciency or teaching methodology. The medium of instruction during
their college years was Thai, except when they had a foreign instructor, which was quite
rare. Teachers believed that they would have had better English proﬁciency if English
had been used as the medium of instruction. Teacher C further explained that her
phonetics class had been conducted in lecture style emphasizing the articulation of
sounds without actually practicing them. Language skill classes focused more on reading

and writing skills. Speaking and listening skills were not emphasized at all. All three

188

 

 

ir.

IL“

in

 

CO

an

lee

 

teachers admitted that they were not conﬁdent in speaking English, and found it difﬁcult
to communicate in English. Teacher C admitted that she could not understand the
training sessions which had been conducted in English by native speakers.

Teachers B and C stressed that lecture was the common format in delivering
teaching methodology and language skills at their teacher education institutions. Teacher
C speciﬁcally explained that the teaching methodology class did not focus on teaching
practice, but the theoretical knowledge of various teaching methods. Both agreed that
during their practicum, teacher instructors observed their teaching without requiring the
use of English in classrooms. Teachers B and C argued that pre-service English teachers
need to be trained better by providing them more teaching practice and opportunities to
be exposed to English. They also believed that if they had been encouraged to use
English in those days, they would have had better English proﬁciency. And this view was
shared by Teacher A as well. They would have been in a better position to implement a
leamer-centered approach if they had been properly trained by the teacher education
institutions.

There have been many requests to improve teacher education programs especially
teaching English as a foreign or a second language programs. Teacher education
institutes have held seminars on measures to improve teacher education programs.
However, it has not been reported to what extent those measures have been implemented.

Poor Knowledge of a Learner-Centered Approach. All three teachers
complained that they were not certain about their knowledge of a leamer-centered
approach. They had received some knowledge about a leamer-centered approach in

lecture style from different sources which was not always compatible. Different

189

educators interpreted a learner—centered approach differently, and suggested different
ways of implementing a learner-centered approach in the classrooms. Educators in the
lectures and conference suggested ideas without actually implementing them in the
classrooms. Teacher B disagreed with the way knowledge of the learning reform was
delivered to teachers, and said “doing by talking is easier than doing by hands”. She
meant that it is easy for these educators to talk about how to implement a leamer-centered
approach, but not to actually implement it. Teachers were confused, and could not put
those theoretical ideas into practice.

Lack of Training for Teachers. All three teachers requested speciﬁc training for
English in particular. They wanted to actually see how a learner-centered approach is
used in teaching English. These three teachers suggested many interesting ideas for
English teacher training. Teacher A and B suggested that in the preparation stage of each
training, supervisors should survey teachers’ needs and interests so that the training could
be speciﬁcally designed to meet them. This way, teachers would beneﬁt the most from
the training. Teachers’ needs and interests were never taken into consideration in the
process of designing and presenting a training session. Both teachers reported that
supervisors did not plan their work well enough; they organized a training session
whenever budget was available. Training sessions always fell during school semesters,
and students were left without any learning and teaching while teachers participated in
training sessions. They suggested that training sessions should be held during school
break when teachers are free from teaching, and have more energy and effort to

participate in the training sessions.

190

All three teachers stressed that training sessions should have two major
components: English proﬁciency improvement and teaching methodology. Teachers
wanted to improve all their language skills such as pronunciation, speaking, listening
reading and writing skills. Teacher A asked for conversation courses to improve
impromptu speech. Teacher B who spoke the most English in class among the three
admitted that she was not conﬁdent when speaking English. Before class, she took time
to practice what she was going to use in class. Teacher C had the most difﬁcult problems
in English proﬁciency, especially pronunciation. Her young students imitated her
pronunciation which could become a serious problem for the next English teachers of
these students.

Teachers B and C deﬁnitely needed the knowledge of teaching methodology,
especially Teacher B whose teaching activities did not achieve a communicative goal
barely accomplished any teaching objective of each activity she used. Teacher C needed
more knowledge in communicative language teaching, communicative activities or
materials design.

Supervisor Qualifications. Teachers cannot improve their teaching quality if
they do not have qualiﬁed supervisors in the areas. These three teachers reported that
their supervisors needed to improve their knowledge and performance. In terms of
knowledge, they explained that supervisors did not have high English proﬁciency, nor
knowledge of teaching methodology. These teachers reported that supervisors made easy
mistakes in terms of pronouncing easy English words during the training session. These
errors caused teachers to mistrust their English proﬁciency. Moreover, supervisors were

not able to provide the training without the creativity and hard working of local leading

19]

teachers. Both Teachers A and B did not agree with using local English teachers in
training sessions because these teachers already had a heavy teaching burden, and their
English proﬁciency and knowledge of teaching methodology were not much different
from theirs. They suggested better qualiﬁed training personnel for teaching methodology
and English proﬁciency. They could be instructors or professors of TESOL or TEFL
programs from leading universities in the country.

Teachers suggested that supervisors needed to do their jobs better by visiting
teachers at schools on a regular basis, providing help and advice to teachers, and
improving training sessions. All three reported that they never received help or support
from supervisors on site. Teacher B reported that supervisors came to her when they
wanted to collect some information for their portfolios for their promotion. After they
ﬁnished their work, they never came again.

Amount of Administrative Support. All three teachers agreed that principals
played a major role in learning reform because they were the most powerful agents in
school. All decisions at schools are made by the principals, such as those regarding
budget and teacher promotion. Teacher effectiveness highly depends on principals’
interests and knowledge because they have the power to determine who will or will not
be promoted in each academic year.

Most of the school budget is spent on painting buildings, building basketball
ﬁelds, remodeling canteens, improving ﬂower gardens, but not repairing teaching
instruments in sound labs, or providing needed stationary for teachers. All sound lab
instruments in these three schools had not worked for years. The three teachers reported

that they did not have sufﬁcient teaching supplies such as markers or paper for teaching

192

activities in class, and they sometimes had to use their personal funds to get the needed
teaching supplies.

All teachers agreed that their principals could not help them academically because
they did not have the academic knowledge. They did not understand the new curriculum
of teaching English nor the learning reform because they never attended the conference
or training. These principals never admitted that they did not have the ability to perform
their work. Teachers B and C called their principals “dictators” who never listened to
teachers’ opinions. Teacher B was asked not to express her opinion in a meeting. “I
never talked to the principal,... it’s really the dark ages of my teaching career”, said
Teacher B. Their principals were not concerned with how English should be taught only
if the teachers were in the classrooms. Principals of these three schools had teachers who
did not have knowledge of teaching English in grades 1-4 as in Teachers B and C’s
schools. Also they did have English teachers teaching mathematics and science as in
Teacher A’s situation. Teacher C explained that a physical education teacher who could
not even pronounce ‘good morning’ was assigned to teach English. Teacher C was
concerned about what Ieamers could learn from him, and these Ieamers would cause her
many problems when she had to teach them English later in grades 5 and 6 English class.

Proﬁciency of Learners. These three teachers reported many problems from
Ieamers which inhibited them from applying a leamer-centered approach. Many students
had serious problems of low or no proﬁciency. They could not read, spell or write
English. All blamed English teachers from grades 1-4 who did not teach English to these
students during English classes. Teachers B and C had to begin teaching their students

basic knowledge of English such as writing alphabet skills and spelling skills. This

193

hampered the progress of the class in general. At the same time, these teachers had to
teach what they were supposed to teach in grades 5 and 6.

This situation burdened both the teachers and Ieamers. For Ieamers, English was
not enjoyable because they were overwhelmed with new knowledge. Teachers B and C
reported that many of their students had negative attitudes towards English. They
thought that English was too difﬁcult for them to understand. In the classroom, they
were not attentive to what was taught, and they did not participate in the activities. They
knew that they could pass to the upper class even if their English proﬁciency was low.
According to the curriculum of 1996, the English grade is no longer taken into account
for passing learners to the next level. Teacher B complained that she could not make any
academic progress with her students.

Teacher A seemed not to pay attention to her students’ proﬁciency although there
were two students in her class who never participated in any activity, and whom she
never called on to read or give the answers. However, she noticed that there was a
relationship between native language proﬁciency and second language proﬁciency. The
students who had problems in learning Thai also had problems in learning English. For
example, Ieamers who had problems in pronunciation in the mother tongue also had the
same problem in English. Therefore, to improve learner’s English proﬁciency,
improvement in Thai language skills might also be needed.

Teacher’s Problems

1. Teaching Load. Teaching loads seemed to be the most troublesome problem
for teachers. In Teacher A’s case, the problem was very serious as she was assigned to

teach 8 subjects to a class. She spent considerable time in preparing subjects with which

194

she was not familiar such as mathematics and science. With the 25 hours a week of
teaching, and other extra responsibilities such as the lunch project for students, and lab
care taker, Teacher A reported having been overburdened for years. She had been trained
in the best TESOL program in the country, and had a higher proﬁciency than the other
two teachers. She had more than enough knowledge and capacity to change, but she did
not want to change due to the heavy workload she had. She was ready for and looked
forward to early retirement. The cry for reducing teachers’ teaching load has been voiced
many times, but it seems that the Ministry of Education has not provided more teachers to
schools. The reason has always been due to the budget. Teacher A seemed to understand
the situation, and accepted it by teaching as well as she could, and retiring when the time
was right.

Teachers B and C had heavy teaching loads as well, about 22 hours a week, but
they did not teach 8 subjects. Both Teachers B and C taught only English which helped
reduce the amount of preparation because English had been their major and minor. At
least they both had enough basic knowledge of English. With the heavy teaching load
and extra responsibilities, these teachers did not have time for materials preparation.
Teacher A relied heavily on the textbook. Teachers B and C did not, but most of the
activities they used did not require much time for preparation. For example, Teacher C
used TPR, which did not require any materials preparation.

2. Low Qualiﬁcations. Teachers B and C did not complain about their heavy
teaching loads, but about their English proﬁciency and knowledge of teaching

methodology. They wished to be trained more extensively and regularly on these two

195

skills. They believed that if they had enough knowledge of English proﬁciency and
teaching methodology, they could teach better to help their Ieamers.

3. Working Environment. These three teachers complained that all decision-
making about their teaching problems resided with them individually. There was little
chance of participating in professional dialogue with their colleagues. When they had
problems, they solved them on their own, or sometimes they sought help or advice from
friends from other schools. Teacher A did not want to get involved in any activity more
than teaching to reach her early retirement. She seemed to be indifferent to any
problems. Teachers B and C criticized other teachers in their schools for not doing their
work well. Both thought that they worked in isolation. They could not ask help from

their colleagues because they did not understand their work.

196

Chapter Nine

General Discussion and Proposed Plans

9.1. General Discussion
In Thailand, the learning reform has been the new educational policy for all
teachers in the country since 1996. All teachers were educated about the learning reform
regarding a leamer-centered approach through three channels of knowledge from the
Ministry of Education (MOE). This study attempted to ﬁnd out the answers to these
three major questions:
1. What were the conceptions of a learner-centered approach by policy makers,
teacher training personnel and English teachers?
2. To what degree did teachers actually implement communicative language
teaching in their classrooms?

3. What facilitated or hindered teachers in using a leamer-centered approach?

What is the relationship between a leamer—centered approach and communicative
language teaching? In the area of second language learning, both a learner-centered
approach and communicative language teaching focus on second language leamers’
needs and interests (Nunan 1985, Savignon 1983). A second language is learned in order
to use it forcommunication. Learners’ communicative competence is developed through
language teaching where communicative tasks and activities such as pair work and group
work are provided. This study attempted to examine the conceptions and the
implementation of a leamer-centered approach in the ﬁeld of English as second/foreign

language.

197

Four different research methods were used in this study: observations of three
English teachers, interviews with teachers and supervisors, stimulated recall and
document analysis. Three teachers in grades 5-6 from different metropolitan areas
participated in this study. The selection was made based on their participation in
communicative language teaching training, a conference and a lecture on a learner-
centered approach from MOE before the study, a big class size of at least 30 students in a
class, and willingness to participate in the study. Three consecutive observations, and an
interview with stimulated recalled were conducted with the three teachers. All
interactions in the classrooms and all comments of the teachers and the supervisors were
recorded, transcribed, and analyzed.

It was found that policy makers, policy distributors, supervisors and teachers
deﬁned a leamer-centered approach similarly, and they shared the similar goal-of
teaching and learning that was to develop Ieamers to their optimal level. They all agreed
that learning and teaching activities should be designed to meet learner’s needs and
interests. This deﬁnition was not different from the deﬁnition that has been widely
accepted in western countries (Altman 1980, Knowles 1963, Nunan, 1988, 1989, Page &
Thomas 1980). All share the same idea that a leamer-centered approach is characterized
by the attempt to meet individual leamers’ needs.

However, they all had different concepts regarding the application of the
deﬁnition. They had different ways of the implementing a learner-centered approach in
the classroom. The ﬁndings in section 7.1 showed that the Ofﬁce of National Education
Commission (ONEC), the policy makers, emphasized ﬁve major roles teachers should

take in order to meet leamers’ differences. They should identify leamers’ needs, interests,

198

and knowledge, plan content and methods and analyze the curriculum, organize learning
activities to serve leamers’ interests, evaluate Ieamers progress, and help Ieamers
conclude and apply knowledge.

On the other hand, the Ministry of Education (MOE) had its own interpretation of
a leamer-centered approach and educated supervisors and teachers in the country through
a lecture, a conference and a publication. In this interpretation, teachers did not take the
same roles as suggested by the policy makers, but took the roles of facilitators who
facilitated Ieamers in the participatory process, and guided learners to learning centers
such as libraries, parks, and provided a variety of teaching and learning methods. 1 From
this interpretation, teachers took fewer roles, and learners had to take more responsibility
in their learning. This message has been conveyed to teachers and supervisors. Most
supervisors and teachers in this study agreed that in a leamer-centered approach, teachers
act as facilitators, and Ieamers need to seek knowledge on their own, summarize the
learning, think and act all on their own.

What did these three English teachers think of a leamer-centered approach? They
all agreed that the ideas of a leamer-centered approach suggested to them were not
appropriate for teaching and learning English as a foreign language because learning
centers in English were not available, and it was impossible for their learners to
summarize the learning, think and act on their own in English. They all agreed that
teaching and the practice of the four skills were still important for their Ieamers.

The headline news in all leading newspapers of the country seems to reﬂect how
other teachers taught after they received knowledge of a leamer-centered approach

through the three channels of MOE. The following excerpts were taken ﬁom the

199

headlines of the two major English newspapers in Thailand. In one incident, the student
Council representing all students in the country gathered at the Parliament House to mark
Children’s Day. On this day, they reported the failure of the educational reform to the
Prime Minister who was also the Minister of Education. These students reported what
really happened in their classrooms after teachers were asked to become learner-centered
teachers:

Teaching theory dismissed as ‘bull’. Child-centered learning, once hailed as a
radical new approach to education, was mocked on Saturday by the National
Youth Council, who labeled it “buffalo-centered”, or an ignorant system (The
Nation, January 14, 2002).

New method of learning under fire. Teachers ‘abdicating their responsibility’.
The Education Ministry's new “child-centered” learning approach is under ﬁre
from students who say they will end up failing if teachers abdicate responsibility.
If teachers pull out and leave everything to students, child-centered learning could
foster “kwai —centered” (ignorant) learning instead, they said.

Hiranya Vivatdechakul, a Mattayom 5 student (grade 12) of St Francis Xavier
Convent School, said she realized “kwai”, or water buffalo, a common reference
among Thais to something stupid, was a strong word to describe the learning
concept. However, she said self-driven research and discussion was not the
answer. Students needed teachers to guide and encourage them.

Anusom Intarasaeng, a secondary student from Kalasin Pittayasan School, who
acted as the chairman of the assembly, said teachers were leaving the burden of
looking for knowledge to students. The concept allows students to focus on
subjects they were interested in. However, Anusom said teachers were assigning
subjects to students and then leaving them to it (Bangkok Post, January 14, 2002).
Apparently, based on these headline news, teachers in other subjects in the
country did follow what they were told in the conference that in a leamer-centered

approach, Ieamers were supposed to seek knowledge, summarize the learning, think and

act on their own. Teachers facilitated and guided them to sources of knowledge.

200

Teachers seemed to have been blamed for relinquishing their responsibilities and
abandoning their students. However, to be fair, the public needed to see if teachers were
ready in terms of their qualiﬁcations and how teachers were provided with knowledge
and skills to change to a leamer—centered approach.

Recall that most teachers were not been trained in a learner-centered approach
after the reform. For example, in the case of English teachers, in early 1999 they were
required to take an English proﬁciency exam with the content and level of the exam of
grade 12. The results of the English teachers in the capital area ranged from 35-96 correct
out of 100 (Kittiphumchai, 2001). This result was considered satisfactory (General
Education Department, Ministry of Education, 1997). The result reﬂects that teachers
with scores below 50 out of 100 need help and are not eligible to teach English to grade 5
and 6 pupils, especially when the content and difﬁculty of the test is at a level of grade
12. These teachers needed help, but they did not get it.

Basically, teachers had not been trained in a leamer-centered approach even
though they were going to teach in one. Society, in general, now condemns teachers for
misinterpreting a leamer-centered approach. However, it was unknown to the public that
it was MOE who had provided the directions to the teachers. Otherwise, how could
teachers in different parts of the country interpret a leamer-centered approach in the same
way? Moreover, teachers and supervisors in this study also had the same interpretation
that Ieamers took full responsibility for their own learning, and teachers just facilitated
them.

The headlines should be a wake-up call for MOE to realize that the three

channels (an hour lecture, a one-day conference and a publication of 21 teaching

201

methods) giving teachers knowledge of a leamer-centered approach were not sufﬁcient.
The knowledge of a learner—centered approach provided by MOE was not correct. Their
directions that Ieamers take more responsibility in their learning, and teachers facilitate
them have not been helpful in making positive educational changes. The reform was
meant to improve the quality of education which, in turn, would improve the quality of
lives. It was meant to “improve education so as to be attuned to economic and social
change; create and strengthen knowledge” (Ofﬁce of the Prime Minister and Ministry of
Education, 2000 p. 1). However, what two students, Hiranya Vivatdechakul and
Anusom Intarasaeng, reported to the Prime Minister conﬁrmed that the quality of
education in general did not improve but rather it deteriorated.

How did these three teachers actually teach English in their classrooms? These
English teachers did not appear to know how to teach in a learner-centered approach. In
their opinions, what was provided in the lecture and the conference of a learner-centered
approach was not appropriate for teaching English. They never experienced how a
learner-centered approach is applied in teaching English. As a result, they kept their old
teaching behaviors. They taught what they knew and what made them feel conﬁdent.

Two characteristics of communicative language teaching were used to analyze
teachers’ teaching behaviors: classroom interaction patterns, and the use of target
language in the classroom. Based on the patterns in the observation data, the three
teachers were highly teacher centered, and not communicative, especially Teacher A,
who used 99 percent of class time in whole class activities. She heavily emphasized
repetition, grammar, translation, vocabulary and answering comprehension questions.

She admitted to teaching English in order for students to pass the exam. This ﬁnding is

202

compatible with studies by Burnaby and Sun (1989), Li (1999) and Vacharaskunee
(2000). It conﬁrms Gorsuch’s (2000) ﬁnding that the entrance examination has a
negative wash-back effect on teaching English as a foreign language. Teacher A will
focus only on what is on the exam. Teachers B and C are less teacher-centered because
of their effort to decrease whole class activities, and increase more students working with
groups such as in Total Physical Response, and choral activities such as singing.
However, they were trained to use only drill activities not communicative activities; as a
result, there were no communicative activities or communicative tasks as suggested by
Savignon (1990), Long and Crookes (1992). Unfortunately, Teacher B was not able to
use drill activities effectively; as a result, her students did not really practice any skills as
they could have. In these three classes interaction, negotiation, and uninterrupted
communication which are important for developing communicative competence (Long &
Robinson, 1998; Pica, 1996; Pica & Doughty 1985; Polio & Gass, 1998; Varonis & Gass,
1985).

The use of the target language in these three classes was not high. The avoidance
was due to teachers’ low English proﬁciency, lack of conﬁdence, and leamers’ low
proﬁciency. What inhibited these teachers from using communicative language teaching
in their classes? They reported many common problems of English teachers in English as
foreign language situations such as China (Burnaby & Sun, 1989), South Korea (Li,
1999), and another report on Thailand (Vacharaskunee, 2000). The teachers reported
these additional problems: standards of teacher education, knowledge of a leamer-

centered approach provided, lack of training for teachers, supervisor qualiﬁcations,

203

amount of administrative support, and proﬁciency of Ieamers. They speciﬁed their
personal problems such as teaching loads, qualiﬁcations and working environments.

The origins of these three teachers’ problems can be traced to their pre-service
education and training, in-service training and support such as moral, academic and
administrative support. If the pre-service education and training had provided teachers
with sufﬁcient knowledge both in terms of teaching methodology and language
proﬁciency, and if the in-service training and support had been available for them
including training with local highly qualiﬁed supervisors and principals, they would have
been able to change more effectively and smoothly.

From the interviews with teachers, principals were not perceived as qualiﬁed to
help teachers academically. Teachers will get better academic support if they have
principals with outstanding academic knowledge and experience. From the interviews
with supervisors, almost all supervisors were underqualiﬁed in terms of language
proﬁciency and knowledge of teaching methodology. During the training for English
teachers, teachers were trained with only drill activities, or the pre-communicative
activities. They took leamers’ roles and were provided with varieties of unrelated
pedagogical activities which did not systematically develop Ieamers to the optimal stage
where Ieamers use language freely and communicatively. They never experienced as a
teacher how to design teaching activities or combine them to develop a speciﬁc language
skill to the point where Ieamers could communicate authentically. They did not have a
chance to actually teach and get candid feedback on their teaching performances. They
also did not get suggestions to improve their performance. None of the supervisors in

this study had ever given any candid feedback to teachers for fear that they would not get

204

any cooperation from teachers, or would not be liked by them. Another problem was that
supervisors did not have a commitment to improve their performance. At least three out
of ﬁve supervisors interviewed in this study had other sideline jobs which used almost all

of their time and effectiveness.

9.2. Proposed Plans for Improvement

It seems that the traditional system of giving knowledge of communicative
language teaching to English teachers has been unsuccessful and ineffective. So far the
learning culture for teachers has been limited to the training sessions provided once every
a few years by the Ministry of Education through the incompetent provincial and district
supervisors. All of the training sessions have been conducted in a short period of 2-5
days in hotels in big cities which can provide conference rooms, room and board for
teachers and trainers. Deﬁnitely, it takes a tremendous budget excluding traveling
expenses for each teacher and trainer. And budget has always been the common
explanation for not giving training to teachers. The problem is not only insufﬁcient
budget, but also not having competent supervisors or teacher trainers to help English
teachers.

It seems that the adoption of communicative language teaching has caused many
problems. The feasibility of communicative language teaching has been questioned.
Deﬁnitely, communicative language teaching is possible and feasible for Thailand.
However, it needs to be coordinated and structured on a national level. MOE should
have the major responsibility of bringing together specialists, instructors, professors and

institutions to help English teachers. In—service and pre-service education need changes.

205

The following are proposed plans to help English teachers to change to communicative

English teachers:

1. Modiﬁcations of Master’s Degree for English Teachers and Supervisors. The

following are major components of the degree:

1.

One year of an English proﬁciency improvement program, and an
intensive teaching methodology program including coursework on
Needs Analysis, Teaching Methodology, Materials Design and
Adjustment, Teaching Four Language Skills, Testing and Evaluating,
Classroom Problems and Solutions. Both programs use English as the
medium of instruction with the focus on actual practice and use.

Three months of teaching practice in actual situations with extensive
discussion and candid feedback for improvement from teacher trainers.
Half a year of training other teachers (weekend training to English
teachers from a school cluster of about 6-8 teachers for consecutive 8 -
12 weeks. Therefore, they train teachers at least from two school
clusters)

Three months of following up on teachers at schools during the
weekdays (three days a week).

These teachers will work as major teacher trainers in the area. They
are no longer responsible for routine classroom teaching, but for
training teachers.

After these teachers ﬁnish the degree, their job description as the

trainer is as follows:

206

a.

e.

Training: During the weekends, give 8-10 training sessions
to teachers from a school cluster in the area. The training
session will be held at any meeting room at any school in
order to save money. During weekdays, three days a week,
observe teachers in their actual teaching situations.

Materials designing for teachers (Materials, tools, and
academic resources are fully available).

Provide consulting when teachers need help.

Organize other activities where teachers can improve their
teaching skills and language skills such as English language
camps for teachers, trips to accepted schools, talks or
seminars.

Evaluate the program annually.

II. Adjustment of Pre-Service Program. Pre-service teacher programs need

signiﬁcant changes to suit teachers’ English teaching situations after graduation. Teacher

education institutes should improve their curricula by focusing more on actual use and

practice in addition to theoretical knowledge, reducing non-interactive teaching styles

such as lectures and increasing task- based instruction. The following courses should be

provided in pre-service programs: Teaching English as a Second or Foreign Language,

Materials Designs, Needs Analysis, Teaching Speaking Skills, Teaching Listening Skills,

Teaching Writing Skills, Teaching Reading Skills, Testing, Phonetics, Classroom

Research, Program Evaluation, and Practicum. In addition, English proﬁciency courses

207

particularly focusing on authentic speaking and listening skills must be part of the
curriculum. Last, but not least, English must be used as the medium of instruction.

III. Adjustment of Entrance Examinations. Entrance Examinations need changes.
Many schools in Thailand claim openly that they teach to pass the entrance examination
which tests memorization of discrete points. English teachers such as Teacher A explain
that they need to focus on grammar rules and vocabulary memorization because their
Ieamers want to go on to higher education. And the entrance examinations for English at
all levels focus on reading, writing, and grammar. Speaking and listening skills are not
tested at any level on the entrance examination. Thai leamers’ communicative
competence is low compared to other Asian nations. If the goal of learning reform to
improve Thai Ieamers to be able to compete in the new economic world is meant to be
accomplished, communicative language teaching should be implemented in schools.
Entrance examinations at all levels should test communicative competence through
writing skills so that Ieamers will pay more attention to their communicative competence.

IV. English grades in elementary school. The English grades should be taken
into account when passing students to the next level. After the reform, the new policy
allowed Ieamers who could not pass an English course to move to the next level. This
policy has caused serious problems for English teaching in general because learners do
not see the importance of learning English. In classrooms, they do not pay attention to

English teaching and learning.

208

9.3. Conclusion

The changes in teaching approach from a teacher-centered to a leamer-centered
one have been the written policy of language teaching for all levels in Thailand.
Teachers cannot apply this knowledge in their classrooms. English teachers in this study
still teach the way they were familiar with because the information concerning a learner-
centered approach differed according to its source which confused them. Teachers have
been provided with theoretical knowledge of a leamer-centered approach which has not
been effective. Teachers have not been trained to teach the way they were expected to
teach. They reported many problems such as a lack of administrative support, learner
problems and teacher problems such as inadequate English proﬁciency. Therefore, to
accomplish the goal of educational reform, it is a must for the Ministry of Education to
give the needed help to teachers who are the most important element of educational

reform.

209

APPENDICES

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213

APPENDIX 3

Exercises used by Teacher A taken from Ministry of Education (1998) English is
Fun (Book 4). Kurusapa Printing House.

Exercise 4.1. Vocabulary list 1

 

 

1. Aunt 2. Cousin 3. Family
4. Grand-child 5. Grand children 6. Grand father
7. Grand mother 8. Husband. 9. Uncle
10. Wife 11. Primary 12. Centimeter
13. Weight, Weigh 14. Retire 15. Sure
16. Older 17. About
Exercise 4.2. Vocabulary list 2
1. Age 2. Buddhist 3. Christian
4. Dress maker 5. Government ofﬁcial. 6. Height
7. Hobby 8. Muslim 9. Occupation
10. Religion 11. Secondary 12. Surname
13. Telephone 14. Weight. 15. Future
Exercise 4.3. Cloze Test.
Manus Rakdee is 12 old. He is a . He 45 kilograms,
and is centimeters tall. He lives at in . His
number is 234567. He is in the grade at school. His
is Amath. He is government ofﬁcer. His mother is a
. is Surang. Manus likes to swim, , and
football. He wants asoldier.

 

Exercise 4.4. Reading passage

Next month, some people are going to have birthday party, and I am going to go.
I’m going to wear my best clothes. I want to eat a lot of cake and ice cream. I think I am
going to have a good time. Whose birthday party am I going to go? Guess. This man
was 55 when I had my first birthday. My father and uncles look like him. He played with
my father when he was a little boy. His wife is my grand mother, and I am his grand son.
Whose birthday party am I going to go to? Guess.

The man is the son of may aunt and uncle. I like to call him an older brother. But
he is not my brother. Whose party am I going to go to? Guess.

214

Exercise 4.5. Application form

Last name, ﬁrst name:

 

Sex: Boy Girl

Religion: Buddhist Christian
Age:

Height: CM.

Address:

 

Muslim Others

 

Telephone number:

 

Hobbies:

 

pWNQMPPNi“

Future occupation:

 

O

. Primary school:

Grade:

 

~
~

. Secondary school:

 

[\J

. Father’s name:

Occupation:

 

b)

. Mother’s name:

 

Occupation:

 

215

 

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216

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