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Peter described his classroom as a “global village of learning” where there were “no barriers or borders between people in terms of race, religion, and nationality”. He strongly resisted the attitude of segregating people according to their race: “I don’t like to say you’re Bhutanese and I’m Nepali, there is the fence”. Peter indicated that his class had only one rule and that was “no racist behaviour to anyone in the class”.

Peter reported that teaching migrant students in the AMEP class was different from teaching children in a high school. In his role of a migrant English teacher, Peter positioned himself as an individual with multiple identities - such as psychologist, friend, brother, adviser - each depending on the mood and/or need of his students.

Peter expressed his commitment for an inclusive class in which the individual backgrounds of his students, and their past experiences, were taken into high consideration within his curricular priorities. Peter constantly encouraged his students to voice their opinions, not only about the subject matter but also about the class as a whole. For example, on one occasion he invited the students to share their individual ideas about what could be done, as a class, which would be beneficial for each other’s learning as well as for their own. Ahmad, an Afghan student, responded that he would tell a joke every day. He then shared a joke and the whole class burst into laughter.

Peter also encouraged students to take responsibility for their own learning by stating, “I say, don’t just do what I say. You have to be independent”. He encouraged them to

discover ways to learn and to plan and organize their own learning. The autonomy that Peter envisioned for his students was that they not only take responsibility of their own learning in the classroom, but that they also embraced self-reliant strategies in their everyday life. He stated “What we always say to them a lot is that you’ve gotta go out and find the

opportunities. They won’t come to you”.

The classroom practices consistently reflected Peter’s beliefs about teaching and learning. He created a friendly and informal relationship with his students. He always smiled as he entered the classroom and created an agreeable atmosphere by telling them funny jokes. He would share his own personal stories with them and would sometimes sit informally on a student’s desk. Students were free to choose their seats when they entered the classroom and to leave the class without seeking Peter’s permission. Students were rarely interrupted even when Peter caught them at playing video games or checking their Facebook page on their mobile phones. He also allowed students to speak softly to each other in their native language during class. Peter perhaps wanted his students to take responsibility for deciding whether or not, and the extent to which, they should seek bilingual support during cooperative learning environment. Occasionally, when the Afghan and Bhutanese students spoke loudly in their own language, Peter would look at me with an expression of frustration; however he did not tend to publicly reproach them for this.

Contrary to Peter’s perceptions, the Bhutanese students who had previously experienced a strict academic environment in refugee schools indicated that they felt it difficult to cope with his casual style of teaching. The interviewees reported that they experienced too much freedom in Peter’s class. Drona reported that the overwhelming freedom offered by the teacher made him “very lazy” towards his studies and that this

resulted in a slowing of his progress in learning English. Like Drona, Puja also indicated that because Peter did not impose any serious consequences for not doing the classroom tasks, she was less inclined to take her learning seriously. She said, “If we don’t do class work, Peter says nothing, just tell us: do it. That’s why we say: let it be”. Although Manju was generally satisfied with Peter’s style of teaching, she also felt that she had been less serious about

learning English due to Peter’s friendly, non-authoritarian style of behaviour to his students. The observation data supports what the interviewees said with regard to their lack of self-determination in academic learning. Some Bhutanese students were frequently late to class and some, especially the males, often went out for a smoke during the class.

Additionally, most Bhutanese students tended to spend a great deal of time checking their Facebook page on mobile phones during class time.

At the time of his interview, Peter also confirmed that some Bhutanese were less inclined to embrace his style of teaching despite his efforts to try and engage them and to help them become more motivated. He said “I have done everything that I possibly can, including having a volunteer. But they still don’t get it”. Peter pointed out that some Bhutanese learners considered the teacher to be someone to be esteemed and who has full authority; they therefore hesitated to question the teacher. The observation data also indicates that the Bhutanese students were less inclined to participate in interactions with Peter and thus the frequency of their interactions with him was relatively very low. The following excerpt illustrates this:

In a writing activity, Peter sat in the chair at the front facing his students. The students who had already finished their tasks were either using their mobile phones or chatting with someone sitting next to them. The three Bhutanese females (Manju, Puja and Kumari) and the Korean female (Lee) were seated in the front row and all had finished their tasks. The physical closeness of all the women to where Peter sat gave them an equal opportunity to participate in social conversation with him. Lee initiated a chat with Peter and asked a lot of questions about his family, his teaching

background and about Australian culture. She also shared some things with him from her own traditional background, including the roles of family members within her culture. They talked to each other for about ten minutes. During this time none of the

three Bhutanese women contributed a single word to this conversation. They just listened passively and sometimes laughed at Peter’s jokes.

Drona believed that students should fear their teachers in order to obtain better

academic achievements. He asserted that “If there is no fear of the teacher, then that class will be negligible”. Similarly, Puja expressed her beliefs that teachers should be strict with their students and that punishment was sometimes necessary to make the students study harder. Puja claimed that, if the teacher exerted some punishment system in the AMEP class, the students would automatically become more engaged in their learning tasks due to the fear of being punished. Puja held these paradoxical beliefs because she had been accustomed to learning in a strict academic environment since childhood. She explained that her teachers in the refugee camp used to beat their students if they did not complete their tasks properly and that students were forced to do their tasks even if they did not know the subject matter.

In addition, the interviewees expressed their dissatisfaction that Peter did not give them homework. When asked to express the things that he did not like about AMEP, Tek told me that “They didn’t give homework. I did not like it”. Like Tek, Manju also expressed the desire to have Peter give her homework every day so that she could practise her English at home.