A study on EFL secondary school teachers’ practices to foster learner autonomy during online teaching

This research was conducted to investigate teachers’ practices to foster learner autonomy and explore teachers’ reasons concerning the technical, psychological, social, and political dimensions. Eight of the upper secondary school teachers in a public school, in Bangkok, were selected by purposeful sampling. This research study was a mixture of both quantitative and qualitative methods, using two main research instruments: questionnaires and interviews. The questionnaire data were analyzed by using Microsoft Excel, to get percentages, means, and standard deviations. Lastly, four teachers were selected by using two criteria, the highest and lowest scores, to be interviewed for more in-depth information to supplement the questionnaire findings. The findings indicate that teachers’ practices regarding the four dimensions, on average, had a high level of fostering learner autonomy. Teachers’ practices related to psychological dimension had the highest mean score to apply in the classroom. It is followed by technical, social, and political dimensions accordingly. Some teachers expressed that some practices could not be employed to foster autonomy in their classrooms because of limitation educational systems.