ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHERS’ PERCEPTIONS AND PEDAGOGICAL PRACTICES IN LARGE CLASSES: A NARRATIVE INQUIRY

Abstract

The modern-day teaching learning activity is more about how teachers strategically facilitate the classroom situations. Class activities depend on the size of classes and availability of the resources associated with teaching. I have been teaching in the large classrooms for the past eight years. Sometimes, I feel that my job as a community school teacher has both painful challenges and hopeful opportunities. Most of the time, I have been teaching in crowded classes where basic resources are not adequate. It is painful to me that I cannot teach my class properly. Though I have practised some motivational strategies in my teaching, the students seem to have listened to me for some time, but as soon as I move to teaching the textbook, they get distracted. In this regard, the main objectives of this study were to explore how English language teachers in Nepal perceive teaching large classes and how they address the hurdles that appear during their teaching. Thus, the study aimed to explore the challenges these teachers are facing and struggles they have been going through while managing large classes. I applied narrative inquiry as a research method and the

iii personal stories of research participants as for the information collection process. My research participants were engaged in teaching over a period of ten to twelve years. I collected the information through teachers’ narratives and classroom observations. I collected the information in six to seven rounds with the participants based on their comfortable time and availability. The information was recorded with a high interface recording system with prior permission. Later, I transcribed the information maintaining the ethics of research for further analysis. I used socio-cultural principle and post-method pedagogy which have three parameters such as the parameters of particularity, practicality, and possibility to construct theoretical foundations in this research. The stories of my research participants indicated how they found teaching in large classes having less resources and the way they addressed diverse strategies to behave equally to the learners though they are in large numbers in one classroom. The stories revealed that the ELT instructors struggled with challenges in diverse areas in their large classes for instance, classroom management, providing feedback, balancing teaching materials, availability of resources. I discovered that teachers’ self-developed teaching materials as well as integration of technologies, conducting initial assessments of students’ needs and desires, peer-feedback, and teaching experiences can maximize teaching effectiveness in large class settings. Furthermore, I explored the study by allowing students to play an active role in the teaching and learning process, involving them in all the decision making about the classroom life, empower the students and motivate them to learn more autonomously inside and outside the classroom. This study contributes to the field of language teaching in general and teachers’-whose sole destiny is to be a professional teacher despite the hurdles

iv associated with large class phenomena. I have derived meaning using interpretive paradigm making the proper analysis and interpretation, and reflection on the concepts, practice, and beliefs presented by the research participants about EFL/ESL teachers’ practices in large classes. The research concludes that teaching to the large classes entails an in-depth understanding of the classroom environment through autonomous learning. As long as the learners are autonomous, the teaching learning activity in large classes is possible for this, teachers’ perfect planning, and attention to the learners seems to be instrumental.