Stories of Exploratory Action Research in Thailand
The British Council in Thailand, in partnership with King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi (KMUTT), Equitable Education Fund (EEF), Regional English Language Office (RELO), the Association of English Teachers in Thailand (Thailand TESOL), The Office of the Basic Education Commission (OBEC), has been supporting Thai schoolteachers to engage in exploratory action research (EAR) projects since 2022.
From the reports submitted by 2023 and 2024 EAR-Thailand teacher-researcher participants, 29 have been selected and edited by Professor Richard Smith, Sonthida Keyuravong and Rachanee Dersingh for publication here. This collection adds to a growing ‘bank’ of stories from contexts worldwide (see Camtree), which attests to the usefulness of EAR in helping teachers of English understand and address challenges they face. Being based on practical issues identified by teachers themselves, they also provide insights into the problems such teachers believe they are facing, which are often neglected in academic research.
The 29 chapters here, all of which describe 2023 or 2024 projects mentored in one of the ways described above, have been organised into three sections according to main area of focus: Student engagement (Part I); Pronunciation and speaking (Part II); and Reading and writing (Part III). Teachers were encouraged to decide for themselves an issue of interest or importance to them in their own classrooms, and it is worthy of note that so many focused on 1) basic issues of pronunciation and reading aloud and 2) writing, both to an extent not in evidence in projects in other countries. On the other hand, issues of perceived lack of motivation or engagement on the part of students, as addressed in Part I of the book, are matters of concern to schoolteachers in many worldwide contexts, as for these teachers.
An important stage in the process towards writing the reports contained in this book was the online sharing event organised for the end of each year’s programme, where teachers shared posters and brief oral presentations of their work. They were then invited to submit written reports for consideration for this publication, according to a provided structure reflecting typical stages of the EAR process:
- My teaching situation
- The problem I faced and my exploratory research questions
- What I did [to explore the issue]
- What I found out and learned
- What I changed [to address the issue]
- What I found out and learned
When selecting and editing stories, the editors were conscious above all of the need to try to achieve a clear and reader-friendly style of presentation, so that the chapters can serve as models for engagement in EAR by future teachers. For the same reason, they encouraged writers to provide examples of the research tools used.