A case study of an english teacher learning community in Thailand

Abstract

One of the current approaches to improving instructional quality is to form a Teacher Learning Community (TLC), in which teachers collaborate and support each other’s development. In this study, the learning and instructional practices of five English teachers working in public schools in Sisaket were examined over the period of three months while they were collaborating in one TLC that the group established on their own free will. Data from the observations, journals, and lesson plans were then analyzed using the coding method.

The findings revealed benefits of TLC on teacher learning and instructional practices. The English teachers in this study seemed to learn how to improve their instructional practices from the processes in TLC including lesson plan preparation using online resources, lesson plan sharing, and classroom implementation. The findings also indicated that TLC improved the teachers’ instructional practices in a few areas. The findings suggest the promotion of establishing TLC based on the interests of the members, rather than as a requirement. Due to the time constraints for face to face meetings, future research may explore how online collaboration may help overcome this challenge in TLC.