Learning activities

In order to contextualise the study’s findings, this section will explain the context of the fifteen science lessons organised by the fifteen teachers. This includes the details of the participants, types of tasks, class sizes, and teaching topics.

 Participants: teachers and children

As stated in the methodology chapter in Section 3.4, fifteen early primary teachers teaching at seven state government schools were involved in this study. The schools were located in the same province in the South of Thailand. They were all female and all graduated with a minimum of a bachelor’s degree, which is the minimum qualification for teachers who are normally recruited by a central organisation under the Department of Education in Thailand. The children in the fifteen classes observed were of two age groups and mixed gender in all classes observed. Five teachers were teachers in “Anuban 1” (children aged about 4 years) and ten teachers taught at “Anuban 2” (children aged about 5 years). According to the post-lesson interview data, all teachers reported that most children had low socio-economic backgrounds due to poor living standards, low-paid jobs, educational backgrounds, or the careers of their parents, as perceived by the teachers. Many teachers claimed that one reason why children participated less in terms of answering questions is because they had little prior experience. Sylva et al. (2004) pointed out that the learning activities parents carry out with children at home is a key factor in their intellectual and social development rather than the parent’s demographic profile. As Teacher 10 said, questioning about land animals is relevant to their prior experience as they live near the sea and also the nature of palm trees and their experience of their pets at home (T10, post-lesson interview).

 Types of tasks

According to the information written in the lesson plans and the teachers’ handbook, the fifteen teacher participants organised the learning activities as four types: 1) experiment, 2) demonstration 3) hands-on experience and 4) group discussion (see a description of each activity in Table 4.1). These activities are called “experience enhancing activities” where teacher-led teaching is used. Eight out of fifteen activities involved science experiments in terms of demonstrations or the pupils doing them themselves. For example, Teacher 2 was

teaching a lesson on the dangers of vinegar by putting a chicken egg into vinegar and showing the class how it compared with another egg which had been prepared the previous day. Hands- on experience activities were designed by two teachers, and five others organised group discussions in their lessons. Another type of activity was group discussion, which had a focus on speaking and listening with regard to a particular topic. Teachers appeared to questioning the children to enhance their knowledge and understanding of the topic.

A description of the fifteen activities observed in this study is described in Appendix J. Table 4.1: Types of learning activities

Type of activity Description Teachers

1. Experiment An activity involves hands-on experience

because children experiment themselves, observe the change, practise observing and problem- solving and promote curiosity and self-discovery

T8, T9, T14, T15

2. Demonstration An activity requires children to be involved in observations and learn according to the steps of the activity. Sometimes teachers involve some children who have volunteered to demonstrate with the instructor, leading to practising

T1, T2, T6, T7

3. Hands-on experience

An activity involves hand-on experience in which children use the five senses

T4, T5 4. Group

discussion

An activity aims to promote language development in speaking, listening, giving opinions and listening to others’ views. Materials used in teaching can be real objects, models, pictures or other things

T3, T10, T11, T12, T13

 Class size

In terms of class size, the mean was 23 children. Teachers have large groups of children between 19 and 37 children. The highest class size of 37 children may have been because School 3 is located near the town. Whole class teaching was implemented by the teachers in the ten classes observed, and five classes were organised as a combination of whole and small group teachings. In the middle of each of these five lessons, small groups were mostly formed as the children were involved with objects to enhance experiences using some of their five senses, e.g. taste. Working in small groups encouraged them to do activities on their own whilst the teacher took the role of facilitator.

 Teaching topics

An analysis of the pre-lesson interviews revealed that teachers shared a common understanding of the areas of teaching in early primary education. The teachers explained that the teaching topics in all the observed lessons were related to children’s lives. These teachers working for state government schools were obliged to follow a Thai early childhood curriculum (The Ministry of Education of Thailand, 2003), adapted to the local context of the school. The topics of the fifteen lessons taught can be classified into ‘myself’ and ‘nature around me’, which are two of the four content areas of the curriculum (more details in Section 1.3.2). Related to lessons about ‘myself,’ four teachers gave reasons for teaching: ‘eating healthy food’ (T1, T2 and T3) and ‘understanding your body organs’ (T5). Teacher 5 mentioned that “A tongue is part of their body’s organs, so they learn about themselves” (T5, pre-lesson interview). In the content area of ‘nature around us,’ another eleven lessons included content about trees, burning, air, animals, and water.