Drama pedagogy as a catalyst for shifting language anxiety in primary school teachers: offering critical engagement within EFL classroom

2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Naoko Araki

PurposeJapanese school teachers are facing challenges under the new curricula reform, and there is still a lack of preparation to guide them to a successful implementation. Dilemmas related to teaching English language in primary schools were seen among participant teachers in a program of professional learning. This study aims (1) to identify a feeling of anxiety and readiness to the new EFL curricula and (2) to offer a professional learning program for shifting their concerns to regain their confidence and agency as educators.Design/methodology/approachThe study was conducted based on qualitative research. Qualitative data was collected from 40 participating teachers in the professional learning program, and later was critically analysed.FindingsInitial findings revealed that the majority of participants felt concerned towards teaching EFL in their school, as they are homeroom teachers, not specialist teachers in EFL. Drama pedagogy helped shifting their language anxiety and repositioning themselves within the new EFL curricular implementation, as it became evident through the reflections of the professional development workshop.Originality/valueThe study highlights current educational issues that Japanese primary school teachers are facing. Failure to fully address their feeling of anxiety underlies the Japanese school culture. Drama pedagogy, despite being quite new to educational pedagogy in Japan, was effective in allowing the participants to freely express their voices.


2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nina Inayati ◽  
Erlyna Abidasari ◽  
Kharisma Naidi W.S.

Although English Language subject is no longer compulsory for primary school level in Indonesia based on the current Curriculum 2013, some regions still consider it essential for their area development and thus making it a compulsory local content subject—Batu Municipality is one of them. Therefore, more efforts are needed to assist English teachers as resources for teaching English is limited due to the lack of support from the national policy level, thus the reasoning for the current project. This paper aims to describe the process of writing and supervising of Bright English Textbook, which is a specifically targeted English textbook for primary schools in Batu, East Java, Indonesia. Qualitative descriptive method was used in this study, involving four primary school teachers as the subjects in the collaborative textbook writing project. The finding presents the step-by-step process from the description during the training process, the actual writing process, until the illustration and lay-outing process. Besides, it also describes the supervision process as well as the problems and solutions related to it. Some highlights and implications of the study are also discussed, with suggestions offered in the form of combined online and face-to-face supervision process and sufficient writing and publication ethics training provided before the writing process begins. It is expected that this study could benefit other teachers and researchers who want to embark on a collaborative textbook writing process to improve their project effectiveness.



2014 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 16
Author(s):  
James Coburn

International trends show the formal teaching of English beginning at an increasingly early age. This presents challenges for national education systems and in particular, for primary schools and for primary school teachers who are not necessarily trained as English teachers. This paper looks at two different responses to the situation in Norway, through research into two different ways of organising, designing and implementing in-service English Training (INSET) for primary school teachers. One is a nationally organised program, the other is a local initiative. The contexts for the two different kinds of courses are outlined and the designs of the courses presented through document analysis interspersed with extracts from interviews with teacher trainers. Strengths and weaknesses of the two different kinds of courses are compared. The study concludes that if English teaching in primary schools in Norway is to improve towards 2030, there is a need for the introduction of new programs and structures for the development of teacher trainers with primary school teaching experience, and for the systematic development of networks of primary school English teachers with the aim of nurturing and sustaining their professional development



2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hamid Ali Nadeem ◽  
Azhar Mumtaz Saadi ◽  
Nudrat Fatima ◽  
Namood-e- Sahar

<p>Language forms the medium of communication through verbal and nonverbal means which help to develop understanding. The communication and pedagogy are part and parcel of each other as well as the teaching process. The aims of teaching could not be achieved without better communication between teacher and students. The present study was thus planned to analyze the effect of PEELI (Punjab Education and English Language Initiative) training on communication skills of primary school teachers. The findings showed that the educators recruited in 2017 and 2018 have found PEELI interesting and innovative. Listening, speaking, reading and writing are the four dimensions of communication. PEELI training has assisted them in enhancing speaking and writing skills of learners. However, they feel difficulty in developing and interacting learners in listening and reading. They look for more modules and sessions to be organized to cover all the four aspects of communication to develop better interaction with learners. It is recommended to overcome the drawbacks in future training policies thus to bridge the communication gaps between teachers and students of primary schools.</p>



2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hamid Ali Nadeem ◽  
Azhar Mumtaz Saadi ◽  
Nudrat Fatima ◽  
Namood-e- Sahar

<p>Language forms the medium of communication through verbal and nonverbal means which help to develop understanding. The communication and pedagogy are part and parcel of each other as well as the teaching process. The aims of teaching could not be achieved without better communication between teacher and students. The present study was thus planned to analyze the effect of PEELI (Punjab Education and English Language Initiative) training on communication skills of primary school teachers. The findings showed that the educators recruited in 2017 and 2018 have found PEELI interesting and innovative. Listening, speaking, reading and writing are the four dimensions of communication. PEELI training has assisted them in enhancing speaking and writing skills of learners. However, they feel difficulty in developing and interacting learners in listening and reading. They look for more modules and sessions to be organized to cover all the four aspects of communication to develop better interaction with learners. It is recommended to overcome the drawbacks in future training policies thus to bridge the communication gaps between teachers and students of primary schools.</p>



Author(s):  
Kinley Dema T

This study explored primary school teachers’ perceptions on e-learning program during COVID -19 pandemic. A qualitative research project was carried out to seek data. The participants were primary school teachers from five regions. To collect the data, semi-structured interview questions using ‘Google form’ were sent to participants through Messenger and E-mail. The responses from the participants indicated that e-learning was one suitable strategy that could be adopted during the crisis era. It was also effective in the development of content knowledge and skills such as digital, self development, problem solving, collaborating and communication skills in students and also teachers. It also assisted teachers and students in exploring the digital world and updating the information. However, the study also confirmed that the implementation of e-learning program encountered several challenges. Teachers perceived adoption of such method as a problem. They felt that inadequate resources, lack of knowledge on technology, technical issues and limited support from the stakeholders were major obstacles to successful implementation of e-learning. Therefore, there is a need to provide timely training for teachers as well as students and provide cost effective internet services available throughout the country. Further, the stakeholders must work collaboratively to make e-learning more effective.



2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (13) ◽  
pp. 7308
Author(s):  
Soon Singh Bikar ◽  
Balan Rathakrishnan ◽  
Mohammad Rahim Kamaluddin ◽  
Norruzeyati Che Mohd Nasir ◽  
Mohd Azrin Mohd Nasir

The Ranau Earthquake that struck on 5 June 2015, February 2018, and April 2021, were a new disaster in Sabah and caused many Sabahan to panic. The unpredicted disaster also caused a serious impact on all aspects of life in Sabah. The earthquake has caused severe damage to eight primary schools in the vicinity of the epicenter, although no casualties were reported. However, the disaster has deep passing psychological effects among students. In this study, we examine how the primary school teachers enabled the student to be resilient during and after the disaster. Based on the interviews with 16 primary school students, it was revealed that most of the teachers used WhatsApp to support resilience during and after the earthquake. Interviews with 16 primary school teachers revealed there were two main reasons for them to communicate with students, namely, delivering emotional aid and monitoring their stress. Based on student interviews, five content categories of emotional support were identified: caring, reassuring, emotion sharing, belonging, and distracting. The main contribution of this study is that social media can be used as a spontaneous and proactive tool for supporting the student’s resilience during and after the earthquake trauma.



Author(s):  
Sławomir Wawrzyniak ◽  
Krystyna Krzyżanowska

The aim of the studies was to gather the primary school teachers’ opinion about the „School Scheme” and its effectiveness, as well as children’s food preferences and the reasons, why some of the schools didn’t take part in the program. The empiric studies were conducted in 2017 and 6,413 teachers from primary schools took part in them. The results show that students prefer to eat fruits than vegetables. If some of them chose vegetables, they ate tomatoes, radish, carrot rather than kohlrabi or sweet pepper. When it comes to dairy products, they took: milk and cottage cheese. Some of the Polish schools didn’t take part in the program, because they claim not to have enough suitable place to store fruits and vegetables at their entities and children’s parents weren’t interested in that matter.



Per Linguam ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 28-44
Author(s):  
Anna Johanna Hugo

The teaching of reading is not as easy as it may seem. It requires specific knowledge and the use of reading methods by teachers. Learners’ reading needs and learning styles also have to be considered. According to the Progress in International Reading Literacy (PIRLS) results for 2016, the reading abilities of South African learners are far below the international standard as set out by PIRLS. There is a lack of research about the strategies and methods that primary school teachers use to teach reading. In this article, the feedback regarding reading methods – gathered from 36 primary school teachers in three provinces – is discussed. The data revealed that most of the Grade 1 to 7 teachers who participated in the research knew and used some of the six reading methods under discussion. However, the results did not indicate how well the teachers applied these methods and how versatile they were in using the different reading methods. The data revealed that Foundation phase teachers used some of the methods statistically significantly more often than the comparison group of Intermediate phase teachers in a nonexperimental static-group observational design study. According to Spaull (McBride 2019:1), a well-known researcher in South Africa, one of the three main reasons why Foundation phase readers are struggling with reading is that their teachers do not know how to teach reading systematically. Teachers do not know how to change and adapt the methods that they use to teach reading and not enough research has been done to address the problems with the teaching of reading in the classroom specifically. Often the reading problems experienced in the Foundation phase are carried over to the Intermediate phase.



Author(s):  
Basem Essa Abozeed ◽  
Zakia Toma Toama ◽  
Amina Ahmad Mohamed ◽  
Alyaa Farouk Abd El-Fattah Ibrahim

Background: Disasters are a global problem, concern every community and no community is immune from it, schools all over the world suffer from disasters, which affect children health and safety. Teachers play essential roles in child protection so, teachers’ training is very significant for effective school disaster management. The study aimed to evaluate. The effectiveness of implementing a training program on the performance of primary school teachers in Al Malikeyeh regarding disaster management. Methods: Design: Quasi-experimental design. Setting: the current study conducted in six primary schools at Al-Malikeyeh distracts. Sample: 78 school teachers. Tool of the study: Teacher's knowledge and practice about disaster management structured interview questionnaire which contained three parts: part (I): Socioeconomic data, part (II): knowledge of the teachers, part (III): practice of the teachers .Results: about 35.8% of teachers had good knowledge pre program; meanwhile post and follow up the program this percent was increased respectively 87.2 % and79.5%. Also the findings observed that 30.8% of teachers had satisfactory practice, whereas, respectively 84.6% and 76.9 of them gained satisfactory disaster management practice post and follow up the program,. Conclusion: Implementing the training program had statistically significant improvement on knowledge and skills of primary school teachers in Al-Malikyeh regarding disaster management. Recommended: Training programs and workshops about disaster issues should be organized for the school teachers and key teams on regular basis, in addition to, awareness campaigns should be implementing with employing mass and social media technologies.



2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 32-53
Author(s):  
Harriet Isaboke ◽  
Maureen Mweru ◽  
Gladwell Wambiri

Globalization and demand for twenty first century skills has led countries to adapt Competency Based Curriculum (CBC). Kenya embarked on curriculum reforms from content based to CBC in 2018. Studies have reported minimal use of CBC teaching-learning approaches in pre-primary schools in Nairobi City County. Teachers are the key implementers of the Curriculum, yet their preparedness to implement the Curriculum in public pre-primary schools remains unknown. Therefore, this study purposed to establish the preparedness of pre-primary school teachers in implementing the CBC in public pre-primary schools in the County. The Concern-Based Adoption Model by Hall, Hord and Rutherford (2006) was used in this study.  The study targeted a population of 900 comprising of 450 pre-primary school teachers, 225 ECD Center Managers and 225 head teachers in all the 225 public pre-primary schools in Nairobi City County. Twenty percent of the target population was sampled to participate in the study; therefore the study had a sample size of 180, which comprised of 45 head teachers, 45 center managers and 90 pre-primary school teachers. A Questionnaire, interview schedules, observation checklist and a document analysis guide were used to collect data. Pilot study was conducted in two public pre-primary schools in the County, validity of the research instruments was determined through expert judgment whereas reliability of the questionnaires was determined through split-half method and a Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of 0.799 was obtained. Qualitative data was analyzed thematically whereas quantitative data was summarized using percentages and frequencies and Chi-square test was used to test the hypotheses. This was facilitated by the Statistical Package for Social Sciences Version 21. Findings showed that majority (65.9%) of the teachers had not received any training on CBC, whereas 34.1% of the teachers were trained. The study established a significant relationship between the teachers’ extent of training in CBC and their ability to implement the curriculum with a significance value of p=0.000<0.05. The study concluded that the teachers were not adequately prepared to implement the Curriculum. Thus, recommended that the Ministry of Education in collaboration with the Nairobi City County Government should adequately create a regular in-service training program to equip teachers with necessary knowledge and skills that will help them implement the curriculum effectively.



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