As indicated in the narrative account where the participants’ responses were treated as individual case studies, I have made use of Huang's (2005) analytic frame for autonomy in the observations to differentiate between the participants’ willingness, ability and freedom to undertake the control of personal learning and teaching. From the classroom observations and from the integration of all the sources of data and in the previous analysis, I have merged a summary to discuss all participants’ ability to exercise autonomy, making reference to Huang’s framework to form this chapter’s conclusion.
Teachers’ practises varied from participant to participant and showed different interpretations towards applying the textbook inside classrooms. PT1 was willing and able, to some extent, to be free of the textbook arrangements.
Both PT2 and PT4 used the textbook as the only material inside the classroom, which meant that they were not free to some extent from the textbook arrangements. PT3, PT5 and PT6 however, were completely willing and able to be free of the textbook arrangements. Although, PT1 and PT3 have used the textbook as a secondary source and PT2 used it as a major source inside the classroom, all have shown that their willingness and ability were not enough at a point where all those three participants could have the freedom to undertake their personal learning and teaching, except PT4.
PT4 was unwilling but able, to some extent, to be free of the textbook arrangements. For example, PT4 was able to have the freedom to undertake his personal learning and teaching when his method of using the textbook was with the support of other teaching aids such as projector and audio player in an IT private funded lab (electronic book).
Although, PT4 used more of students’ group work inside the classroom, which helped students be encouraged to exercise learning autonomy, he however, chose to use the textbook as a major and only material inside the classroom.
PT1 and PT3 used more of students’ own experiences and backgrounds and PT2 also tried to engage his students in a group discussion away from the textbook to discover the meaning of every unknown vocabulary. PT2 also engaged in his students’ own experiences and encouraged group work for solving the exercises, which was not part of the lesson plan or the textbook method for teaching as it was not indicated in his textbook (Aim High) description. However, those participants (PT1, PT2 and PT3) were forced to complete their full lesson using only the textbook including PT4, who chose using only the textbook. As for PT5 and PT6, their willingness and ability were enough for them to have the freedom to undertake the control of their personal learning and teaching. For example, both participants have encouraged their students to practice their learning autonomy. PT5 and PT6 tried to engage their students to undertake their own way of learning inside the classroom without the help of the teacher, which encouraged their learning autonomy.
PT5 attempted to involve his students in an unusual method of teaching when he asked if one of them wanted to repeat the lesson with their own words with the help of his classmates. PT6 started his own design of the textbook using the same topics. He was even free of limitation when evaluating the new textbook of Aim High 3 as having too many exercises with no time frame. Moreover, PT6 considered that the new textbook is part of a connected series that has previous parts in that series, which his students were not aware of, which encouraged him to use the old textbook. His methods of teaching were interesting and attractive especially when he spoke about their town and enquired about their families’ farms to relate to the vocabulary of the lesson.
5-3 Summary
This chapter hosts the findings and results of the gathered data of the study. It contained two main methodologies, i.e. interviews and observations to deliver the data and two account designs, i.e. the narrative and grounded theory accounts to analyse it. The differences amongst the data gathered from a variety of sources with each participant does not necessary mean their theories in interviews agree with their practices in observations, it simply means that their views are fairly and properly introduced and analysed from all angles.
This chapter introduced a table of the participants’ professional descriptions and details for their teaching experiences and other significant details regarding the place where their schools are located. The chapter also includes four graphs, which indicate the themes and categories for the grounded theory analysis account. One graph is for the Teacher development and materials reform and another graph is for Teachers exercising autonomy, in order to address those two issues significantly. The third graph contained the aspects and details of the observation proforma. This chapter linked the analysed data with the literature in order to see an outside perspective regarding other countries and different educational policies that agree with the study and rather show more clarification to the current analysis in this chapter. The last graph included Huang’s analytic frame for autonomy, where this present researcher made use of such a frame to analyse the teachers’ practise of autonomy inside the classroom.