Thai EFL Teachers’ Experiences and Viewpoints of Using Stories and Themes for Teaching English to Young Learners
Keywords:
English Language Teaching, Story-Based Teaching, Theme-Based Teaching, Young Learners, Teaching English as a Foreign LanguageAbstract
This qualitative research study aims to investigate the Thai English teachers’ experiences and views toward story and theme-based teaching to young learners in Thailand, and also to compare the findings between two groups of teachers with different educational backgrounds. A purposive sampling of four Thai English teachers from four different schools was employed for the study. The data were collected from 10 classroom observations over a period of two months and was followed by a semi-structured interview of each participant. The research instruments include the observation checklist, field notes, and semi-structured interviews which were developed based on the theoretical framework of Cameron (2001). The data were analyzed in the form of the frequency of the occurrences. The findings revealed that all participants are inexperienced in incorporating stories into teaching and have very little knowledge and skills in teaching English through themes. Paradoxically, they are aware of the benefits of both teaching methods. These findings show that teacher training at the universities may be insufficient to prepare good teachers of the English language to teach young learners and most of them still require proper and continual pedagogical training on story and theme-based teaching as well as other teaching methods for young learners at a specific age group.
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