TEFL Training Program for Local and Cultural-based Instruction : Case Studies in Thai Primary Schools

The main purpose of this study is to develop an EFL Training Program based on the combination of three theories: reflective teaching, brain-based learning, and school-based training. The program was voluntarily applied by ten elementary teachers from Surin province, Thailand. The program included competency assessment, EFL competency enhancement, EFL teaching activities development and practices, and program evaluation. The activity created positive impacts to the EFL teaching particularly students in the program asserted that there is a better environment of EFL study than their previous experiences. All directors have assigned their EFL teachers to continue using this model in teaching EFL.


Introduction
English language in Thailand is considered as a foreign language (EFL) which had been instructed in the public elementary school for decades.Recently, in 2001, the Thai government declared an educational reform with a numbers of strategies to raise the quality of education system in Thailand.EFL was stated as one of the major policy of this strategy by setting that EFL has to be instructed from the first year of primary educational level.This policy has affected to the English language instruction systems in Thailand in particular the preparedness of the EFL teachers.The major problem in the preparation of EFL teachers is the limitation of EFL teachers in the existing primary educational system.In this matter, the Ministry of Education assigned teachers in other fields to teach EFL as the Ministry could not employ new EFL teachers due to the constraint in the national budget.By doing this, the Ministry required these teachers to attend numbers of EFL trainings in order to enhance teachers' competencies in EFL instructions.
In the EFL training contexts, the Ministry required these teachers to participate in training programs by providing teachers with knowledge on EFL techniques and methods without linkages or concerns on teachers' contexts (Thongtew, 2007).After the training, most EFL teachers could not adapt methods or from the training programmes to their teaching contexts as most teachers still followed the English textbooks to instruct in the EFL classes (Thongtew, 2007).In this matter, two concerns can be pointed out: the training program and the EFL teachers' behaviours.Most EFL teaching programs are conducted in a training room for a period of a couple of days and are focused on the EFL instruction methods with little pedagogical understanding of the theory or reasons behind the methods (Labmala, 2003).As a result, this training is only a one-shot affair which has no continuity and no connection with the real practices at the school contexts.For the second concern on the characteristics of Thai EFL teachers, most EFL teachers tend to be passive participants in the training contexts.They just listen to the instructors with little attempts to adapt to their real practices (Thongtew, 2007) which is similar to the argument of Buripakdi andMahakhan, 1980 andBallard, 1996 that Thai teachers seem to have limitation of "critical questioning", and are unable to think critically, can only be "reproductive" in learning.
These two concerns have led to a concern in the present traditional EFL training methods that needs an alternative method to overcome these concerns.Many non-native English speaking countries have developed a training program for enhancing their EFL teachers and students' competencies in English language e.g. a 'tailor-made' teacher training for EFL teachers for the Mexico contexts (Cetina, 2007) or the Korean communicative language teaching approaches in second language education (Howard and Millar, 2009).However, most of these EFL training program have its' own contexts which is also similar to the case of EFL teachers in Thailand that each context needs its' own developed EFL training program in order to suit to each country contexts.Thus, Thailand also needs an alternative EFL training program that can overcome the two concerns above which is that the program should be a program that enables EFL teachers to be involved in the program and can adapt or use the contents in the training program to the real practices at their school.In this matter, this study proposes an alternative EFL training program by combining three approaches namely, reflective teaching, brain-based learning, and school-based training in order to develop a training program that not only enhancing teachers knowledge in EFL teaching but also teachers capacities in instructing EFL.This alternative EFL training program would, ideally, link the theory of EFL with the real practices of teachers' instructions at the school level by enabling EFL teachers to acquire knowledge on EFL and develop teaching activities based on the interests of teachers' contexts.This intention is similar to the suggestion of Spolsky (2005) that teacher development in the Asian context needs to find appropriate methodologies in order to suit local needs.Thus, this study aims to explore and describe an EFL teaching program in order to enhance the EFL teachers' capacities.The specific objectives of this study are to explore the EFL teacher training model; to describe the teaching activities based on the application of the training model; and to discuss about the lessons learned from the training programme and the teaching activities.

The Theories: Reflective Teaching, Brain-Based Learning, and School-Based Training
As noted before, the training model was developed based on the combination of three theories: reflective teaching, brain-based learning, and school-based training.The first theory, reflective teaching can be referred as a cycle of thinking process that teachers consciously recall, consider, reflect, discuss and evaluate their teaching and learning in classroom in order to make a decision, plan, and action for the improvement of their teaching performance.In this study, reflective teaching concept was applied from the work of Zeichner andListon (1987 and1996) and was divided into three levels: technical rationality, practical action, and critical action.Technical rationality is teachers' ability to analyse their strengths and weaknesses in teaching and techniques used.The practical action is a reflection of teaching activities in order to improve teachers' competency in teaching EFL (TEFL) without irrational imitation of English teaching methods.The critical action is specifically viewed as an open-mindedness reflection particularly for moral and/or ethical considerations with worth of knowledge.
The second theory, brain-based learning (BBL) which consists of several techniques to allow teachers to connect learning to students' real lives and emotional experiences, as well as their personal histories and experiences (Wilson, 2007).In this study, BBL was adapted from the twelve BBL principles of Caine andCaine (1994 and1997), Jensen (2000) and Christison (1999 and2006).This study grouped the twelve principles into three principles based on the TEFL contexts in Thailand.The first principle is that any activities of this training program must consider the participated teachers' learning styles for the development of teaching activities that match their existing beliefs, knowledge, and learning styles.The second principle is the real life application that outputs of the training must be applicable to the teachers' contexts.The third principle is the novelty that contents of the training must be an innovation or new teaching techniques that attract teachers to apply for their teaching.
The third theory, the School-based Training (SBT) is a training approach that requires participated teachers to assess problems and needs for the analysis and design of their teaching methods that properly suit the school and teachers' contexts (UNESCO, 1986).This study applied SBT in the training program as a condition that the program must i) be based on a real situation and actual needs of participated teachers and schools; ii) include an actual practice; iii) provide varieties of methods, teaching and learning methodologies, and materials for EFL teachers to apply for their real practices; iv) include a monitor and evaluation of the participated teachers in all processes: before, during, and after the training program in order to allow participated teachers to reflect their needs and capacities; and v) aim to enhance both the EFL teachers and the students as the consequence.
Altogether, combining these three theories can enhance the EFL training in Thailand.With the habits and cultures of most Thai EFL teachers that tend to avoid the expression or reflection of their thinking, BBL can be used to develop varieties of methods for EFL teachers to reflect their thinking based on each teacher reflection style.To bring the attention from the trainees, contents of the reflection must be in the real life/experiences or needs of the reflectors in order to enhance the brain to be fully functioned which SBT can enhance this process by providing a scope for the reflection and motivation for the benefits acquired.

Methodology
The research in generating this EFL teacher training model was conducted with ten elementary teachers from four public schools in Surin province, the Northeast of Thailand.In doing this, firstly, the researcher informed about the program to the Surin elementary education board so that the board could announce the program to teachers.Then, the researcher visited all elementary schools in the Surin province in order to informally discuss with the EFL teachers and the directors.At this stage, a numbers of teachers and schools were selected based on the teachers' willingness to participate in the program and the school director's willingness to allow the teachers to participate in the program as the program needed involvement of the teachers for the whole semester.It has to be noted that, apart from the willingness of the teachers, there were no conditions about the EFL degree or the period of EFL instructions in selecting the teachers.Altogether, two teachers were purposively selected from a very large-size school (school A: more than 1,500 students), one teacher from large-size school (school B: 601 to 1,500 students), four teachers from medium-size school (school C: 121-600 students), and three teachers from small-size school (school D: less than 120 students).Among these ten teachers, only three teachers had an EFL major degree.
These ten teachers involved in the training program from the beginning and were asked to provide a reflection of the training and their capacities in instructing EFL.Thus, group discussions were conducted in order to collect data particularly reflections from the participant teachers.Observations were also conducted in order to observe the activities of teachers in instructing the EFL lessons.In addition to this, activities of teachers were recorded for teachers and researchers to evaluate and reflect the instructions in order to correct or improve the EFL activities.Evaluations and monitors of training activities were also conducted to collect data related to performances or capacities of the teachers.Altogether, this study is a qualitative action research based on a case study of each teacher in developing EFL activities with participatory classroom observations, teachers' and students' report, teachers' reflection through discussion and journal writing in order to generate an alternative EFL training model.Altogether, the ten participated teachers involved in the program for one academic year and were given training courses for the period of forty-eight hours during the second semester of 2008 academic year (November 2008 to March 2009).

EFL Training Program
The EFL training program consists of four stages: i) assessment/reflection of teaching contexts and learning styles; ii) development of EFL teaching competency enhancing program; iii) EFL teaching activities development; and iv) EFL program evaluation and improvement.These four stages are practiced based on a continuous basis as a loop of practice (Appendix 1: EFL Training Program).
The first stage, the examination of teaching contexts and learning styles, deals with the assessment of competencies of the EFL teachers which mainly include EFL proficiency, learning style, and EFL teaching activities.The assessment is designed to test for four skills: listening, speaking, reading, and writing.In this study, the assessment of EFL proficiency was adapted from the Cambridge Teaching Knowledge Test (Spratt, Pulverness, & Williams, 2005) which is also used as the EFL test for the Ministry of Education EFL tests.The assessments revealed that most EFL teachers had low scores for all English competencies particularly the non-EFL degree teachers (appendix ii).At the same period, all teachers were also asked to participate in the EFL teaching competencies' assessments (appendix iii).The assessment of teachers' learning style was evaluated through a set of learning styles questionnaires, interviews, and observations to measure the characteristic of each teacher learning style.In this research, a questionnaire of 30-learning-style-questions was constructed which was adapted from Style Orientation Scale for Language Learning (SOS-L) of Rebecca Oxford (1993) and the Dunn and Dunn Model (1998).
The second stage, the EFL competency enhancing program intends to enhance EFL competencies to each teacher based on their requirements and needs.In this study, the enhancing program consisted of EFL competencies and teaching competencies program.The training used varieties of methods: multi-media, case-based discussion, workshop, experimental instruction, and a theoretical criticizing with the existed theories and the real contexts of each teacher in order to enhance EFL teacher competencies.The EFL competencies enhancing program was conducted as modules based on the four EFL competencies: reading, listening, writing, and speaking.Each teacher, through the discussion with the researcher, was assigned to train in the modules based on the results of the assessments.The training intended to provide teachers with EFL knowledge in order to be an EFL basic knowledge for the EFL teaching activities designing.The teaching competencies program intended to enhance the teachers' three main competencies: -abilities to reflect the instruction by identifying classroom effectiveness, problems, strengths and limitations of their own teaching; methods, principles and rationality, strengths and limitations of selected methods; and students' learning styles and teaching methods according to each learning style; -abilities to create the instruction in varieties of teaching methods that reduce their own teaching weaknesses or limitations including an ability to choose teaching methods that properly suit objectives, contents, and students' learning styles; and -abilities to apply teaching methods in real situation including the ability to teach according to the set procedure or curriculum while be able to adapt, modify, or choose alternative teaching methods in order to cope with problems encountered.The third stage involved with the development of the EFL teaching activities.This stage starts with the self-analysis of the EFL teachers' teaching method which focuses on the achievement of the students, teaching problems, teaching methods and techniques, reasons in using these methods and techniques, ability to indicate students' learning style and appropriate teaching style, and analysis of weakness and strength of their teaching.Results from the self-analysis will be used for i) designing and constructing EFL teaching activities to resolve teachers' weak points; ii) selecting teaching style that corresponds with the objectives, contents, and students' learning style; iii) identifying the rational used in the process of teaching style selection; and iv) constructing teaching activities and methods.In the final step of this stage, the teacher will apply the designed teaching activities in the classroom.From these processes, all teachers designed their lesson plan and generated a creative activity based on the processes in the model (appendix iv: Teaching Method and Creative Activity of the Participated Teachers).
The final stage is the evaluation and monitor of the training program which was the performance assessment through observation, interview, and inspection of teaching analysis memo, lesson plan, and after class memo.This stage is both an evaluation and revision stage which will be conducting with the teachers and their school director in order to revise the program and/or improve the training program to suit each school contexts.During this stage, the teachers were assessed through several competencies tests as post-tests.The analyses of the results are summarized as follows: - All participants showed an improvement on all English proficiency; however T7 did not pass the 60 percentage in the listening, speaking and writing competency.An informal interview was conducted for T7 to analyze for the problems.This participant graduated in home economics major and had been teaching in this field for 10 years.T7 just has been assigned for TEFL for first grade students for only a year which T7 admitted that the content was not in the concern as T7 believes that teaching for the first grade students does not require high level of English proficiency, just the teaching method is crucial.
-All participants showed an improvement on abilities to reflect the instruction.However, T5 did not improve in the second post-test because, at the time of the study, T5 was assigned to teach mathematics at grade 5 and 6 which T5 was very worried and anxious about new assignment.In this second post-test, T5 could reflect the methods of teaching and some rationality but could not reflect the strengths and limitations of the teaching.Nevertheless, after the reflection with the researcher, T5 could improve the competency at the third post-test.(Appendix ii) -All teachers designed and created their own instruction to solve their teaching weakness and be aware of the context.The focus of instructional design is on basic interpersonal communication that suits Surin local contexts and the strands of National Curriculum in elementary level.The participants created situations when students are motivated to communicate with foreigners.Comprehension was facilitated by using multi-sensory and total physical response, visual aids, gestures, commands for action, and real materials.They all agreed that teaching and practice of the four skills are important for their learners.
-After learning through this program, all students passed the 60 percentage in the English proficiency test especially, students in grade 5 and 6 were able to summarize their learning, thought, and acted with their own English based on the EFL activities.It can also be observed that students paid attention to the activities and still discussed about activities after the class.
Altogether, the creative activity of each teacher has made an impact on the EFL teaching which has been observed and perceived by the school directors and school committees as the improvement measures in teaching EFL.Students in the program expressed that learning EFL through this method has created a better environment of EFL study than their previous experiences.Accordingly, all directors have assigned their EFL teachers to continue using this model in teaching EFL.

TEFL Activities
Observing the processes of developing and implementing the EFL creative activity of each participant, this study presented two examples, T5, an active participant, and T7, a challenging participant.T5 did not have an EFL teaching degree which T5 failed both EFL and TEFL competencies in the first step of the model.The interview and discussion between T5 and researcher revealed that T5 is an active teacher with leadership and focuses on the achievement and appreciation.After receiving the training in step 2, T5 adopted the self-directed learning to design the EFL instruction so that students would have their life goals and their own English learning outcome setting.T5 selected issues from students' daily life which are the students' local foods, and applied the Neuro-linguistic Programming (NLP) and spider map technique to develop the learning activity.The students proposed an issue about their local food which cannot be found in any English textbook.The activity generated is "Surin local food for interactive communication".T5 stimulated the situation that a foreigner and a local Thai student are discussing Surin local food by dividing students into groups of four students and asked the students to discuss and generate a dialogue in order to present in the class.T5 also suggested the students to stimulate the real situations that Thai people always use a sign or body language in order to refer to English words.Students were able to learn new words and practice English sentences.Then, T5 assigned students to draw a picture according to the dialogue which is a process to improve the students' listening skills (see appendix v for the processes in developing T5 creative activity).
Another example is T7, first grade teacher, who did not have an EFL degree and failed both tests.T7 reflected that T7 likes learning through listening and does not like reading or studying from documents.T7's learning styles are listening, discussing, and imitating particularly from what others have been doing.T7 has an opinion that students should be in a relax environment and focus on a basic content through listening and speaking skills e.g.greeting conversation.T7 asserted that students still have problems with the Thai language but why the Ministry has to make students be confused with English language since the first grade.After the knowledge and teaching improvement step, T7 chose Total Physical Response (TPR) that focuses on students basic communication skills developing and vocabulary through giving an action and a command in English.However, some students just followed or imitated what other students were doing without paying attention to the activity.T7 also assigned students to imitate the pronunciation of English words with Thai words for students to memorize the words which T7 asserted that this technique suits the principle of the TPR.Students only paid attention for 15-20 minutes, so T7 changed the technique by asking students to count numbers by stimulating the local play e.g.snake tail that students always play during the break.T7 reflected that imitating English words with Thai words might not be appropriate as the students need to memorize twice for an English word.T7 reflected that this program enabled T7 to rethink and adapt the EFL activities to respond to the students' behavior which helped raising the students' attention in EFL learning (see the processes in developing T7 creative activity in Annex vi).

Factors Identification and Strategies Recommendations
During the program, factors for applying this model to the EFL teaching were observed and analyzed.The analysis revealed that gender and age of participated teachers were not significantly related to the model however, times and knowledge played the most important factors for teachers in implementing this model.This means that teachers who want to design their instructions based on this model should pay attention to time requirement which includes their intention and motivation.As for the English knowledge, all teachers feel that they need to further their knowledge as they realized from the reflections that knowledge and the accuracy of Basic English knowledge are very crucial in teaching EFL.They used to follow the procedure in the textbook and avoided to teach beyond the contents in the textbook but after joining the program, all teachers experienced the activeness of students and the improvement of students' English proficiency.All participated teachers feel that they should continue using this method by expanding their knowledge so that students can gain benefits from the EFL course.
Another factor that affects the design of EFL activities is the number and diversities of students in the classroom as the number of students can affect the interaction between teacher and students while the diversities also affect the simplicities or difficulties of activities.For this factor, the participated teachers resolved the limitation by applying the group process so that students as a group can help each other.On the other hand, size of school does not affect application of this model.
For the school contexts, school director can become one of the key success or failure factors of this model as this model requires teacher attentions in all processes of the model.If teachers are assigned with activities that are not related to teaching, teachers might not be able to continuingly precede all processes of the model.As for the role of the researcher, this model requires the researcher as supporter and advisor.Researcher must not intervene in the reflection and design processes i.e. researcher must not dominate the creativity in designing the EFL instruction of the teachers.
Overall, this study proposed three sets of strategies, strategies for getting started, strategies for improving the EFL teaching competency, and strategies for sustaining the EFL teaching competency.
For getting started strategies, it is crucial to introduce this model to EFL teacher community.This can be done through various approaches ranging from voluntary, comparative, and assignment basis.Firstly, this model should be little by little incorporated with the existing training program (incorporated-training) so that teachers can absorb the principles of the model and might be able to adapt to their instructional design.This can be referred to a little-by-little strategy.Secondly, in order to change to a new method in designing instruction, many teachers might need to be experienced or see examples of this new method therefore; there should be a comparative study between the impacts of this model and other models that EFL teachers have been using.Voluntary teachers in a school can apply this model and compare with others that still use their existed approaches which can be referred as an experimental strategy.Finally, director of school can assign this model as a measure to evaluate performances of teachers for teachers' promotion and rewards.
For improving the EFL teaching competency or the medium term strategy, after EFL teachers have ideas about the model, it is also crucial to expand and support EFL teachers to apply this model.Firstly, as English knowledge is one of the most important factors in applying this model therefore, Ministry of Education or any academic institutes should create a set of basic knowledge English that is matched with EFL contexts in Thailand so that EFL teachers can access and easily apply to the instructional designs.Secondly, Ministry of Education or other academic institute should also support a creation of problem solving toolkits that teachers can apply to suit the needs of EFL students.Thirdly, as varieties of students require varieties of methods therefore, teachers need to create a set of activities that all students in the class can actively participate and can have a role which will encourage students to take part in the activities.
For sustaining the EFL teaching competency, Ministry of Education might need to review the evaluation and promotion policy by requiring teachers to report the processes of developing their instructions instead of showing the final instruction.At the first stage, the change might be started from the school level and further developed to the national level which might be referred as an engagement strategy.Secondly, school director or Ministry of Education should encourage other fields of study to adapt this model in designing their instructions.This has to be incorporated with an ownership strategy that the school and the Ministry can accredit the creative activity as the ownership of that teacher and as measures for the career promotion.

Concluding Remarks
Altogether, the importance of this work lays in the construction of EFL teaching competency enhancing program by applying three theories: reflective teaching, brain-based learning, and school-based training.The program sets that all activities must be designed based on local contexts and learning styles in order to gain attention from students and enhance students' EFL competencies.This program is coherent with the intention of student-centered approach and the teacher proficiency development of the recent education reform.
In contribution to the EFL research and education, this TEFL development program can be an alternative model for developing teachers.This is because most attempts in developing a training for EFL teachers are not in consensus of what should be the most appropriate technique for EFL teacher development and as this model is an initiative in combining three theories: reflective teaching, brain-based learning, and school-based training, thus researchers might use the methods in developing this model as an alternative method to develop training programs that related to teaching contexts.Moreover, in future work in this area, researchers might consider developing what this study has found about the importance of Basic English knowledge for TEFL by developing a multimedia toolkit or supported-kit that can be easily accessible and understandable for EFL teachers.In addition, knowledge in developing teaching methods and creative activities would be one of the most important assets in term of human assets in this area therefore, researchers might consider to develop a knowledge management system to capture tangible and intangible knowledge to be another supported toolkit for EFL teachers to learn and apply to their teaching contexts in order to enhance the EFL proficiency of their students which should be the most important goal of the student-centered of TEFL.