The present study aims to investigate experienced EFL elementary school teachers’ beliefs and practices in teaching large multilevel classes. This chapter gives an outline of the methodology used in this study, including participants, data collection, research procedures, and data analysis. To enhance the validity of the study, different forms of data were collected using questionnaires, interviews, classroom observations, and the researcher’s reflective journals.
3.1 Participants
Two experienced EFL elementary school teachers were invited to participate in this study. The two teachers were recommended by the researcher’s advisor1 due to their excellent teaching and many years of teaching experience. This section provides information about the teachers’ background, school contexts, and the target classes being observed.
3.1.1 Ms. Chou2
During the present study, Ms. Chou taught at an elementary school located in a city in the north of Taiwan. She has been an English teacher at the target school for over seven years. During those years, she has been enriching her teaching skills by attending TEFOL3 programs, teacher training programs and workshops, especially
1 The adviser originally recommended three teachers but one of the teachers was not able to participate in this study due to busy schedule, so two teachers took part in this study.
2 Pseudonyms, approved by both teachers, were used in this study to protect the participants’ identity.
Ms. Chou currently teaches in School A. With her permission, two of her classes, Class A and Class B, were observed. Ms. Yin teaches in School B. Three classes, Class C, Class D, and Class E, were observed with permission.
3 TEFOL stands for Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages.
those related to English proficiency assessment, individual learner differences, language learning strategies, and CLT instruction.
Ms. Chou majored in music in McGill University in Canada. Before teaching English, she served as a substitute teacher of music at a suburban elementary school in Taiwan. During her second year as a substitute, the Ministry of Education (MOE) expanded the English education to the elementary schools, and started to recruit new EFL elementary school teachers. Ms. Chou attended the recruitment and started her elementary school English teachers’ training program at National Taiwan Normal University. Afterwards, she joined the post-bachelor elementary school teachers’
training program at National Taipei University of Education. After graduating, she became an official elementary school teacher and was soon accepted by a newly established elementary school in northern Taiwan, in which she has been teaching since then.
In the present school, Ms. Chou taught three second-grade and three fifth-grade classes. She tried to adopt various teaching approaches to arouse her students’ interests, such as introducing students to English songs, movies, picture books and games; she believed that having both interest and motivation is the key to learning. “If you have interest in something, you will have strong motivation in learning it. When you have strong motivation in learning, you will be active in participating in the class activities”
(TIC4, 20080415). If teachers lack motivation, how can they expect students to have interest in learning? Ms. Chou’s personal motto was “If you don’t have the passion in becoming a good teacher, then don’t try to be one” (TIC, 20080415). Ms. Chou believed that teachers should have a positive, dynamic attitude towards learning; hence, to motivate students in learning English, she constantly developed new and interesting ways to teaching the language.
4 TIC stands for Teacher Interview with Ms. Chou. TIY is short for Teacher Interview with Ms. Yin.
3.1.1.1 The School Context
Ms. Chou’s school, School A, was located in a metropolitan area in northern Taiwan. During the study, the school consisted of thirty-six classes, with approximate thirty-five students in each class. There were a total number of seven English teachers;
each in charge of six classes. The catchment area of School A was mainly white-collar class, and according to Ms. Chou, parents were very active in participating in the parental meetings held by the school.
The school was well-known for it’s impetus to bilingual education. Starting from grade three, students had three English classes per week. Also, to promote students’
English proficiency and conform to parental expectations, the school used English textbooks imported from the United States. Compared with other published textbooks in Taiwan, the textbook was more advanced and displayed a more authentic style in its content topics, conversation formats, teaching activities and workbook layouts.
Besides imported textbooks, School A is also equipped with an English-book reading section in the library to encourage young learners’ extensive reading. Furthermore, students were very active in participating in the annual elementary school English competitions held by the local educational bureau, and had always achieved great accomplishments.
3.1.1.2 The Classes
For the present study, one second-grade class and one fifth-grade class were chosen by Ms. Chou as the target classes to be observed. Ms. Chou suggested that the researcher should observe both the lower and higher grade level classes in order to gain a broader and deeper perspective of the difficulties she encountered and the effective measures she adopted in teaching large multilevel classes.
The second-grade target class, Class A, was composed of thirty-five students,
with twenty boys and fifteen girls. Ms. Chou had been teaching these students since they were in the first-grade and had built a good relationship with them. Besides, she and Class A’s homeroom teacher often shared thoughts and information about the students. By doing so, she could better grasp the students’ learning problems and provide them with proper support according to their needs. According to Ms. Chou, approximately 95% of the students had attended cram schools before her teaching or were still learning English in cram schools during her teaching. Ms. Chou said that compared with the second-graders from other schools, most of the students had intermediate, if not advanced, English proficiency in all language skills, especially in listening and speaking.
Class B, the fifth-grade target class, was composed of thirty-two students, with fifteen boys and seventeen girls. Ms. Chou had only started to teach this class in the school year of 2007, which added up to almost eight months. Same as Class A, approximately 95% of the students have already learned English in cram schools.
Overall speaking, Ms. Chou said that due to the students’ parental background and the high level textbooks used in the school, the fifth-grade students’ English proficiency in her school were basically a grade or two higher than the fifth-graders in other elementary schools. However, Ms. Chou indicated that students’ individual English proficiency differed greatly within the class. For example, three of the students in Class B had been learning English since they were toddlers. According to Ms. Chou, their English proficiency might even be better than average junior high school students in Taiwan. Fortunately, the learning atmosphere in Class B was exceptionally enthusiastic and cooperative. Every student, even those with lower English proficiency, tried to participate in her class activities even if they had to face more challenges and obstacles than other students.
3.1.2 Ms. Yin
Ms. Yin has been an English teacher for about ten years. It was her seventh year of teaching in the current school. Ms. Yin majored in English literature in Tunghai University in Tai-Chung. Like Ms. Chou, Ms. Yin was an EFL elementary school teacher recruited by the Ministry Of Education. Unlike Ms. Chou, Ms. Yin had been working in a trading company before becoming a teacher. She had lived for twenty-two years abroad, including ten years in San Francisco, another ten in Hong Kong, and two years in Thailand.
Ms. Yin said that she wanted to become a teacher because, after years of working in business, she wished to change her working environment. Compared with the business field, she thought teachers should have a much slower and more carefree working pace. However, once becoming a teacher, she became conscious of the fact that a teacher’s work stress and workload were not different from those of a business woman. Similar to the business world, attending training programs, as Ms. Yin reported, is essential for an EFL teacher’s professional development and growth. In order to enhance her professional skills, Ms. Yin was extremely active in attending TEFL programs and seminars held by the British Council and the English Teaching Advisory Group.
Ms. Yin had been teaching the sixth-graders, and the sixth-grade only, since she started working in the current school. This experience helped her become very familiar with the English proficiency of the six-graders in her school. Though she had been teaching the same textbook for over seven years, Ms. Yin remained active in developing innovative teaching practices and had employed various effective teaching strategies to present various teaching contents in the English textbook.
Ms. Yin believed that the key in mastering English, or in any other subject, was to “have the determination in learning it well and constantly finding ways to improve
one’s English proficiency” (TIY, 20080407). Ms. Yin said that if one wishes to learn English well, one had to be sensitive to all the aspects related to English in their daily surroundings, such as American TV programs, movies and songs, or even English billboard signs on the streets.
3.1.2.1 The School Context
The school Ms. Yin taught in was also located in a city in northern Taiwan.
During the study, School B consisted of 106 classes, including approximately 3700 students and 200 teachers. There were eleven English teachers, each teaches nine to ten classes.
Following the Nine-year Integrated Curriculum Guidelines, School B provided two English classes per week for each grade. Similar to School A, to promote student’s English proficiency and to fulfill parental expectations, three versions of English textbooks were used for different grade levels. All three versions were ESL teaching materials used in the States, which were more advanced in level and were rich with American cultural contents.
School B held two English achievement tests each semester to assess their students’ English learning outcome. In addition to the two achievement tests, English teachers were also required to design in-class assessment (pencil-and-paper) tests each month. Besides assessing students’ learning, School B also paid great attention to teachers’ teaching performances. According to Ms. Yin, at the end of each school year, teachers of all subjects were obligated to hand in a copious portfolio to the school as an evaluation of their teaching performances. In the portfolio, teachers were to display handouts, worksheets, and student’s work projects that were accomplished during the semester.
3.1.2.2 The Classes
The present study was conducted in the school year of 2007. During the semester when the study was conducted, Ms. Yin taught English to nine sixth-grade classes. To help the researcher observe different teaching situations in large multilevel classes, Ms. Yin was generous in allowing the researcher to observe three six-grade classes for the present study. According to Ms. Yin, the three classes chosen were different in their learning atmosphere, students’ overall English proficiency and their discipline in class.
Of the three classes, Ms. Yin described the students in Class C as well disciplined but a bit slow in learning. Ms. Yin said the homeroom teacher was a language-art teacher, who was young, energetic, and devoted to her students. Class C was composed of thirty-one students, with sixteen boys and fifteen girls. Among the thirty-one students, reported by their homeroom teacher, some of them came from low-income families and did not attend additional English courses after school; many of the students were raised by their grandparents who were not able to help them with their schoolwork. Ms. Yin noted that due to students’ different parental background and English learning experience, there was an obvious difference in the students’
English proficiency in Class C.
The second class to be observed was Class D. Class D was composed of thirty-three students, with fifteen boys and eighteen girls. Compared with Class C, as Ms. Yin indicated, students in Class D were smart but mischievous. Ms. Yin said that she could teach two times faster in Class D and leave the students with more time in doing group work or individual practices. However, she also pointed out that, when teaching Class D, a lot of class time was spent on maintaining classroom order.
Of the three classes, Ms. Yin said the students in Class E were smart and disciplined. Class E was composed of thirty-three students, with seventeen boys and
sixteen girls. She remarked that Class E was regarded as one of the “model” classes in the school. According to Ms. Yin, the homeroom teacher of Class E was very strict but also very attentive to every student in her class. For example, she would leave short messages in students’ contact books, and students would write their feedback or comments in the contact books, too. Due to the homeroom teacher’s effort in managing the class, the students in Class E showed respect to both their teachers and their
The present study collected data through multiple sources to achieve a more holistic view of the teachers’ beliefs and classroom practices in large multilevel classes (Yin, 2003). To “maintain a chain of evidence” (Yin, 2003, p. 105) and to increase reliability of the study, four methods were adopted, including teacher questionnaire, teacher interviews, classroom observations, and the researcher’s reflective journals.
3.2.1 Teacher Questionnaire
Before teacher interviews and classroom observations, the teacher participants were asked to complete a teacher questionnaire (see Appendix A). The purpose for adopting the teacher questionnaire is to gain the participants’ background information (Gillham, 2000). The questionnaire was constructed with reference to the related studies on teacher’s beliefs and teaching large multilevel classes5. The teacher questionnaire was consisted of two parts: (1) the participants’ personal, academic and professional teaching background, and (2) the teachers’ school-based English teaching policies, such as the numbers of the English lessons per week, selection of the English textbook, and supplementary English teaching materials.
3.2.2 Teacher Interviews
Among the various data collection methods, interviews can best investigate the teachers’ thoughts, beliefs, and emotions when encountering issues that happened in their teaching process (Nien, 2002). To yield a more comprehensive view of the teachers’ beliefs and practices, semi-structured interviews and post-observation interviews were employed in the study (Hsu, 2003; Liu, 2004; Nien, 2002).
3.2.2.1 Semi-structured Interviews
Semi-structured interviews consisted of a set of open-ended questions formulated based on the literature related to teachers’ beliefs and practices and about teaching English to large multilevel classes (Y. M. Chiang 2003; Y. Z. Chiang, 2003; Liao, 2007; Liu, 2004; Nien, 2002; Richards & Lockhart, 2000). These questions were designed to elicit the participants’ opinions, beliefs, and practices in teaching English
5 The questionnaire is constructed with reference to Y. C. Chen (2004), Y. H. Chen (2004), Hsu (2003), Huang (2003), Lin (2003), Liu (2004), and Nien (2002).
to large multilevel classes, to explore how the teachers interpret and overcome the problems they encounter in the teaching contexts, and to identify the effective teaching strategies recommended by the teachers in teaching large multilevel classes.
The researcher structured and subsumed the semi-structured interviews into three sections: (1) teachers’ beliefs and practices towards teaching English; (2) difficulties the teachers have encountered; and (3) the effective strategies the teachers have adopted when teaching large multilevel classes (see Appendix B).
Six semi-structured interviews were conducted with each teacher in the spring semester of the school year of 2007. Interviews were scheduled at a time convenient to the teacher. The average length of the interviews was about 30 to 40 minutes;
however, sometimes interviews lasted longer if the teachers were willing to share more thoughts in their teaching.
3.2.2.2 Post-observation Interviews
After each teaching session, if the teachers had free time, a 10 to 20 minutes post-observation interview was conducted to probe and clarify the participants’ beliefs and practices towards the class just observed. Teachers were to recall on certain classroom events occurred during their teaching. The purpose of these interviews was for the teachers to reflect upon particular events, such as teacher-student or student-student interactions, and problems they have encountered. In addition, teachers were encouraged to remark on the teaching strategies they have used in the class observed or to talk about what other activities they will try to present in their future teaching.
3.2.3 Classroom Observations
According to Yin (2003), video recorded evidence can capture details which might not have been noticed by the researcher during the teaching process. Also,
through non-participant observations, the researcher will be able to gain a full exploration of the classroom atmosphere to conduct a better descriptive observation (Gillham, 2000; Yin, 2003). In order to understand how teachers relate their beliefs with their practices when instructing large multilevel classes, video recorded classroom observations were also used as valuable evidence of the study.
Classroom observations of this study were conducted for three months, starting from April of 2008 to June of 2008. Both teachers in the present study agreed to be observed beginning in the third month of the school year (April), considering their heavy workload in the opening months of the semester. Both teachers were observed and interviewed according to their convenient time. A total of six class periods for each teacher were observed, recorded, transcribed, and analyzed.
In addition to video recorded evidence, the researcher also took notes during observations to enhance the quality of transcribing the observed lessons (Gillham, 2000). The researcher’s notes contained both (1) descriptive information of the class such as the classroom setting, significant events, classroom activities, teacher-student interactions; and (2) subjective information including the elements particularly related to teaching English to large multilevel classes, as well as the researcher’s questions and reflections which needed to be later clarified by the teachers (Gillham, 2000; Kuo, 2007; Nien, 2002 ). The researcher’s observation notes served as supplementary data for each classroom observation to ensure that all usable evidence were retained for future reference (Gillham, 2000; Kuo, 2007; Nien, 2002 ).
3.2.4 Researcher’s Reflective Journals
Researcher’s reflective journals were used to record the researcher’s (1) thoughts about the teachers’ teaching process and (2) extended questions for post-observational interviews. Reflective journals were either recorded and transcribed or directly typed
out soon after interviews or classroom observations. Researcher’s reflections included detailed information of the researcher’s impressions, feelings, problems and questions relevant to the four research questions of the present study (Gillham, 2000; Hsu, 2003;
Nien, 2002 ).
3.3 Data Collection Procedures
The present study is a qualitative study of EFL elementary school teachers’
beliefs and practices in teaching large multilevel classes in Taiwan. The data collection procedure is described in detail below.
Select and contact the participants. To build up a trusting and friendly relationship with the participants, the researcher was introduced to the participants through the connections of her graduate school professor. Before meeting the teachers, the researcher made telephone conversations with each teacher (1) to introduce herself and to explain the focus of the study to the teachers, (2) to gain a brief understanding of the teachers’ background, and (3) to schedule time for the interviews and observations.
Complete the consent form and teacher questionnaire. Before conducting the
Complete the consent form and teacher questionnaire. Before conducting the