The Thai teachers of English who participated in this research explained to varying degrees during their interviews what they understood as learner-centered teaching. The
psychological themes (Ratner, 2002) that emerged from the meaning units, explained in the Data Analysis section of the previous paragraph, allows for analysis of the data with a view to learner-centeredness, encompassing varied use of content, student engagement, learning environment, student goals, assessment, and student autonomy (Blumberg, 2009), as well as scaffolding (Senior, 2011), and differentiated learning in relation to aspects of SLA.
When the teachers reflected on their teaching and explained their perceptions of learner- centeredness many differing viewpoints emerged. The subjects covered included making lessons fun and enjoyable, thinking of students as individuals, allowing for learner autonomy, and focusing on the perceived difficulties they were experiencing whilst teaching. Moreover, two teachers explained how they used the Presentation, Production, Practice (PPP) approach to teach their classes, indicating how they perceived this
pedagogical strategy as being learner-centered in nature, when there is clear evidence to the contrary (Criado, 2013). Criado (2013) explains that PPP uses the presentation and production phases under a highly teacher controlled environment, allowing a somewhat freer third phase for students to practice through more autonomous and creative activities.
The themes that emerged from the data included the English language levels of the students, the need to combine classes, the lack of qualified English teachers, the
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overarching need for vocabulary teaching, the burden of extracurricular activities and administrative duties, and a lack of confidence by both teachers and students. An example of one complete teacher interview in English and Thai is at Appendix O, with selected transcriptions of teacher interviews in English and Thai at Appendix P.
Two teachers explained that making the lessons fun and engaging was an important part of their learner-centered teaching.
“That is good. That is good of because the student if you want to teach excuse me. If you want to learn is open their brain, when we teach, when I teach the student is happy. I think they are happy.” (T1)
“For example, today. Sometime I ask student what you want to learn today. If the student can say I have the one two three they say choose one two three, they choose one, OK, I teach this.” (T1)
“For me, I think we have to make the student not be serious and do
everything for them to be happy funny maybe funny, when they study with me they will laugh all.” (T6)
If students are engaged with their lessons in a learner-centered way, then there are more opportunities for them to learn and this will also increase their motivation (Blumberg, 2009). Klausner (2000) explains how Thai people, especially in rural areas view happiness and fun as being interwoven with their work. Work is often called sanuk which is Thai for fun. Happy students who are engaged with their lessons have a better chance of acquiring a second language. One way this can be achieved in a learner-centered way is by allowing students to decide what they want to learn, allowing them to determine some of the course content (Blumberg, 2009).
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The following teacher sees themselves as being learner-centered sometimes in their classroom by allowing students to choose course content.
“Sometimes.”
“I.. last time about the class Matthayom Three [Grade 9] we learn about dance, I asked them last time we talk about musical instruments and what do you want to know next? They want to know about dance. OK. Next time we study about dance.” (T3)
As well as allowing students some autonomy, some teachers are making choices to provide comprehensible input (Krashen, 1985) for their students by allowing them to choose what they want to learn, and scaffolding (Senior, 2011) them through teacher/student and student/student interaction (Long, 1996).
“Yes, when I teach them I ask them what do you want to learn first? What do you want to learn? I will ask before the class starts one hour and what do you want to learn in the next hour there’re choices for them I let them choose when they finish choosing then I’ll pick the most choose choice and then they will prepare what we’re going to learn. If I’m going to teach about family then they will go find and then they will ask questions how to ask this? How to say this?” (T10)
It is important to understand that although the students are choosing the type of input during these situations, it is up to the teacher to ensure that the input is comprehensible by making sure that it is at the right level for the students. If there are different levels of English language skills in the class, for example, when classes are combined, then there
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will be a problem in making sure that everyone can achieve i + 1 (Krashen, 1985), explained earlier in the Literature Review chapter.
One teacher explained that they did not have a particular approach to teaching, but they considered students as individual learners.
“Not, not, not. I don’t have any special way. It depends on the lesson. “It depends on the student.”
“I try to make them understand for the main of the lesson.” (T3) “Does mean focus on the students what they want to know.” (T3)
Another example of teaching approach is where teachers believe that a mixture of both student-centered and teacher-centered teaching may be appropriate in their context, as teachers try to find the right balance for their classes. This teaching approach was
explained by Tudor (1996, p. 158) when stating the importance of teachers being adaptable in their classrooms. In the following example, the teacher focuses on the need of the students to be able to understand what has to be achieved first.
“I think student centered and both student centered before we teach them we have to…how to explain.”
“After then let them to think about what I say what let them do let them think themselves.”
“May be with just mind map about the topic for the vocabulary that has animals family member yeah let they do let them make mind map for themselves.”
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“When I give the vocabulary give them to remember cause in every lesson they will get about ten or eight word to them for them to remember and use in the lesson.” (T6)
Once the teacher has explained the task, he allows the students a certain amount of
autonomy (Blumberg, 2009) in the class in order to think critically, whilst being scaffolded (Senior, 2011) to complete the task, in this case with the use of mind maps to assist the students with the task at hand. T6 scaffolds the students by helping them remember vocabulary, which will be used in the lessons. More examples of this process of using teacher-centered and learner-centered teaching are demonstrated by the teacher in the classroom observation and is explained in more detail in the next section.
Vocabulary was used again to explain perceptions about learner-centered teaching as shown in the following passage.
“Mostly, if you are asking: Is there an objective in each topic? Yes.
There’re already set as to what we’re going to teach the children, but mostly the children are from the countryside and don’t know about vocabulary. So, we try to make them learn the most which is by learning all the categories of vocabulary in order to link it to grammar. But I admit that I don’t teach grammar much because the children don’t know the vocabulary, but I prepare each and every topic to teach them and let them know the vocabulary of this topic.” (T7)
She explains that grammar is not a priority in her classes as the students do not have much vocabulary, demonstrating how the needs of the students are given primacy and that vocabulary is her focus which will aid comprehensible input (Krashen, 1985). The reason
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given is because the students are from the countryside, indicating that children from the provinces are seen by some as being disadvantaged when it comes to English language learning compared to their urban counterparts (Graham, 2012).
T7 explained further how the students are given a certain amount of autonomy (Blumberg, 2009) to learn by themselves once the initial vocabulary studying has taken place as shown in the following quotation.
“They will learn about the vocabulary first and then they will get the topic of the day to go and study and learn by themselves on the internet. We can let them search and they can read and also use a dictionary. Student- centered learning is where they can learn by themselves, we don’t have to feed them everything. What does this word mean? But they have to look it up by themselves and work together in groups.” (T7)
This activity demonstrates an opportunity for varied use of content, created a learning environment that accommodates different learning styles, and shows flexibility in learning methods in line with the learner-centered dimensions detailed by Blumberg (2009). The students are not left alone, they still have their teacher as a facilitator, demonstrating a more learner-centered teacher/student interaction in the classroom (Hofstede, 1986), allowing for corrective feedback (Long, 1996) by the teacher to take place when the need arises, as the teacher is always nearby.
“Yes. With the teacher watching, but we don’t teach them everything, we let them study by themselves.” (T7)
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The situation was clarified by stating that this activity was an extra class taking place three times a week in addition to the students’ normal classes. The whole school is together for this activity; however, there are some difficulties. In this example, the younger students appear to have less English ability than the older students, and this causes problems for some of the older students.
“Monday, Wednesday, Friday.”
“The students’ problems are that they are all together.”
“All student in the school, the problem is the Prathom One, Prathom Two, Prathom Three [Grades One to Three], they do not know the words. “Not knowing the vocabulary, it makes the older class exhausted and also confuses them and they will be irritated and annoyed by the younger ones. But the intention of the teachers, is that they want the older ones to help the younger ones and teach them again but the older ones turn out to be
impatient and sometimes the younger students are slower than the older students who get irritated and when they get angry of the younger ones, the younger ones don’t want to come and learn. But we are always control it. These are the problems.” (T7)
Looking at this scenario as a whole, all the classes of the school are together, something that happens three times a week, with the intention that scaffolding (Senior, 2011) is supposed to take place, where the older students are expected to help the younger students until they can work on their own, in a ZPD (Vygotsky, 1978). For the ZPD to be effective in this example, the younger students have to work with their older peers and eventually become more independent as the support is reduced as their knowledge of the vocabulary increases. Their vocabulary knowledge in an ideal situation, would increase as they use and repeat the correct target form with their older peers during the interactions, acting as a
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type of corrective feedback. A setting such as this may lead to language acquisition (LaScotte, 2018). However, this was not the case as shown in the following comment.
“Not knowing the vocabulary, it makes the older class exhausted and also confuses them and they will be irritated and annoyed by the younger ones.” (T7)
By trying to use the older students to support and scaffold the younger students, T7 has found that the older students have become frustrated with the task they have been given, due to the lack of vocabulary of the younger students. The grateful relationships and interdependence orientations, as well as the smooth interpersonal relationships orientation appear more important for the older students than task achievement (Komin, 1990). The younger students appear to be annoying the older students upsetting the normally harmonious environment, considered a priority in Thai culture (Komin, 1991).
“…. but the older ones turn out to be impatient and sometimes the younger students are slower than the older students who get irritated and when they get angry of the younger ones, the younger ones don’t want to come and learn.” (T7)
It appears that the older children may see their status in the group as ‘elders’ meaning that they do not have to necessarily help the younger children because of their higher status, classifying themselves as vertical/collectivist in this context (Triandis, 1995). This situation seems to have produced bad feeling and has led to a lack of motivation for the younger students as they become disheartened (LaScotte, 2018) as illustrated by their reluctance to participate in future activities like this. Moreover, Storch (2002) explains how dominant/passive pairs of learners are not the most effective pairing of students as it does
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not allow for effective internalisation and transfer of knowledge due to few instances of knowledge being constructed or co-constructed.
The next example by T3 illustrates how some teachers believe that they have a choice as to how they teach, as well as the way they give feedback.
“Yes. They allow me to teach any way that I yeah any way with just can [not heard] and give feed-back.” (T3)
Schools generally allow teachers to teach their students in any way they choose, as long as they produce the required results for the national tests (O-Net). These tests are mainly multiple choice and do not necessarily assist in the development of higher-order thinking and transfer of knowledge (Darasawang & Watson-Todd, 2012). It is important to understand that language policy comes from the government and is passed to schools via provincial offices as explained previously in this study. CLT has attracted admirers over the years and attempts have been made to implement this approach in Thailand due to the similar qualities to that of learner-centered teaching and the potential to encourage
autonomous learning (Wongsothorn, et al., 2002).
The previous quotes by T7 and T3 on pages 121-124 illustrate how these teachers have highlighted feedback as an important element of the learning process, whether it is in additional classes for the whole school as explained by T7, or as part of normal classes illustrated by T3. The feedback can take the form of interactional activities which involves student/student interaction as well as feedback from the teacher to the students. These activities are learner-centered when they involve student, teacher and content interaction, the possibility of students’ self-assessment of their strengths and weaknesses, and the teacher’s timeframe for feedback as part of the assessment process (Blumberg, 2009). For
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SLA to take effect, input, negotiation for meaning and form, output, and having an awareness of the interaction that has taken place need to register with those who are involved in the interaction, something that has been researched at university level, but not so much for children (Loewen & Sato, 2018). These examples of feedback through various types of interactional activities taking place involve students, teachers and content as well as providing the necessary timeframe for feedback (Blumberg, 2009), Long’s (1996) Interactional Hypothesis, and Hofstede’s (1986) patterns of student/student and teacher/student cross-cultural interactions.
In another scenario, T1 explained his teaching strategy to manage a class when students were at different levels of attainment and ability.
“Like if the children are at different levels. This year is the first year, we separated the children into two groups, the clever group and the weak group. The clever group goes fast and are very good and the weak group when I teach them, I don’t concentrate on having it all written down. If they understand then we move on, if they don’t we will repeat it again first. When they understand then we move on, if they don’t, the weak group will not finish.” (T1)
This teacher is describing a form of differentiated learning, without using the specific terminology. Differentiated learning is described by Tomlinson & Imbeau (2010) as a philosophy where the emphasis is balanced between course content and the student, allowing for the adaptation of the content, the process, the product and the affect, based on the readiness, the interest and the learning profile of the students in the class.
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By conducting his class in this way, T1 has varied the use of content and created a better learning environment for his class, as he is catering for the different abilities of his students. This context is a transition from teacher-centered toward learner-centered teaching (Blumberg, 2009) and this teacher has demonstrated his understanding of
differentiated learning, where his students are given work at different levels of difficulty so it is possible for learning to take place for all the students in his class. What is particularly significant about this situation, is that the concept of differentiated learning is not that well understood in Thailand (Kiddle, 2014). This strategy aligns course content with student needs, which may motivate students to learn by engaging them in course content appropriate for student learning goals (Blumberg, 2009).
Two teachers explained how they used the PPP teaching approach to teach their classes, but they have differing ideas as to whether they perceive themselves as learner-centered teachers. One teacher (T8) explained that she learned English at school in a teacher- centered way, but she learned about her teaching strategies from her MA TESOL degree studies.
“Translation the most and PPP lesson plan.”
“The way I think the way I learn English because the way I learn I learn as my natural that I have a basic, basic practice them.”
“Teacher centered last thirty years ago, ok at grammar.” (T8)
From the above passage, it is clear that T8 believes that PPP is learner-centered and she contrasts this pedagogical strategy with teacher-centeredness from thirty years previous. When T8 was asked about where she learned her teaching strategies, she explained that it was when she was studying for her MA TESOL.
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“From my study MA TESOL.” (T8)
Asked whether she considered herself a learner-centered teacher, she indicated yes.
“Yeah.” (T8)
T10 also uses PPP for her lessons.
“I teach them three P [PPP]” “Because Dr. Ying teach me.”