A survey of teachers' perceptions of active learning activities at public schools in Bangkok

This study investigated Thai English teachers’ perceptions of using active learning activities in the English classroom. The participants were selected based on their shared characteristics and availability. All the participants, 50 Thai English teachers who had been working in highly ranked public schools in the Secondary Educational Service Area Office Bangkok 1, Bangkok, had at least one year of experience and taught the English subject. They taught different grades of students, from grade 7 to 12. They were both male and female teachers of different ages. Twenty-five participants were females and another twenty-five were males. Convenience sampling were used to select the participants. The study was a quantitative research design. To investigate the perceptions and frequency of using active learning activities in the English classroom by Thai English teachers, an instrument for collecting data was a questionnaire. The information obtained from the questionnaire was analyzed using descriptive statistics, which took the form of percentage and mean. Overall, the findings showed that mean scores of Thai English teachers’ perceptions of using active learning activities were high (mean = 4.07, Agee). However, perceptions varied between experienced and inexperienced teachers. It was found that the students would study more effectively and improve their learning skills when teachers used active learning activities in the classroom. Most of activities were used with a moderate degree of frequency between “sometimes” and “frequently”. The activity most frequently used in class was individual homework (mean = 4.28, “frequently”), followed by lectures/explanations (mean = 4.00 “frequently”). Group work and cooperative learning also had high mean scores. Furthermore, the respondents believed that active learning activity is very useful for students. They had opportunities to use language and felt free when they use English in the classroom.