Teaching Large Classes

Lecture notes
Our ELT world…

 The literature on teaching approaches and methods has over the
years been dominated by theories and principles developed in
favourable teaching circumstances with relatively little attention
being given to under-privileged contexts.
 ‘…a huge amount of ELT in the world today takes place in

situations that are far from the ideal world of pedagogical
excitement and innovatory teaching that western ELT researchers
and practitioners would like to think they inhabit’.
(Maley, 2001)
 Smith (2011) argues that most English teaching around the world
goes on in large classes with limited resources yet, paradoxically,
this kind of context remains under-considered in ‘mainstream’
ELT discourse
Holliday, 1994: BANA vs TESEP contexts
 BANA contexts are generally well resourced environments
constituted of small groups of students in small classes,
undertaking intensive language courses taught by highly trained
native speaker teachers, with relative freedom to experiment on
content and methodology.
 TESEP contexts are by their very institutional nature, constrained

by the strong influences of the syllabus, the textbook and the
examination. Classes are usually large, under-resourced with a
limited time for language in the overall curriculum; teachers are
relatively untrained and less proficient in English.
 Where do you situate your context? To what extent do you agree

with this distinction?
Recent trends…
 Recent shift to greater consideration of mainstream
education, with large contextual variations in:
 class sizes
 availability (or not) and nature of resources
 Teacher linguistic competence
 Teacher pedagogic qualification/competence
 Parental expectations vs learners’ abilities
 Pressure from high-stake examinations
 Other problems?
Two classroom contexts you may meet…
 Classes consisting of ‘over 30 pupils (more usually 40 or even
50), congested on benches [...], ill-graded, with a teacher who
perhaps does not speak English well […], working in a hot
climate (West 1960, p.1).
 A classroom of 60 secondary school students who have had

to walk a distance of at least 5 miles after doing their
morning chores, crammed in a dirty classroom meant for 30;
a poorly paid teacher with a rudimentary competence in
English language, using a textbook that represents characters
from an unfamiliar luxurious culture in a classroom with a
pitted and grey blackboard and no chalk at times, and
temperatures of 40 degrees Celsius. (Maley 2001)
Class Size
 What is the recommended class size in your country?
 What to you, is the ideal classroom size?
 What would you call a ‘large’ class?
 What problems may a large class pose for:
 The English teacher?
 The English student?
Defining a large class
 Teachers tend to define large classes not just in terms of numbers
but (mostly) in terms of other variables (Shamim et. al., 2007).
 reliance on the largest class they regularly teach (Coleman, 1989)

 teacher stress and workload due to large numbers,
 teachers' concern about giving equal opportunity to all learners,
 issues of classroom management
 concerns about assessment and giving feedback to learners
 Learners’ perceptions of large classes are shaped by factors that go

beyond numbers (Shamim 1993)
 lack of adequate space leading to overcrowded classrooms;
 inadequate attention from the teacher;
 lack of opportunities to participate in classroom activities;
 higher levels of disruptive noise in the classroom;
 difficulty in getting their written work checked or receiving oral
feedback from their teachers
Does class size really matter?
 Dick Allwright and Hywel Coleman in the late 1980s led

research on large classes: The overall results of this
Lancaster-Leeds project seemed to show that large
classes are relatively less conducive to learning.
 Teachers from developing countries studying in the UK
 Questionnaire-based research
Critiques of the Lancaster-Leeds Porject
 Peachey (1989) argues that the questionnaire design for the
Lancaster-Leeds project presented large classes as difficult in an a
priori manner, thus conditioning the opinions of respondents ,
most of whom, not being directly involved in large class teaching
in their countries could neither be representative of their contexts,
nor, having just completed a short course in the UK, could their
opinions be unaffected by the UK experience.
 It is difficult from the questionnaires to clarify which problems of

large classes were actually the result of the size of the class and not
the outcome of other variables such poor teacher training, lack of
adequate teaching materials, or even the adoption of
unproductive teaching methods (Oladejo, 1992, p. 52).
 Kumar (1992) and Shamim (1993) have argued that a major

shortcoming of earlier class size research was that they ignored
the mediating variables – learner, teacher, classroom process etc –
that impact on and are impacted upon, by the class size variable.
Is a small class better than a large class?
 ‘The evidence [in the developing world] provides no support
for policies to reduce class size. Of … 30 studies investigating
teacher-pupil ratios, only eight find statistically significant
results supporting smaller classes; an equal number are
significant but have the opposite sign; and almost half are
statistically insignificant. These findings qualitatively
duplicate those in the US studies. Class size in developing
country studies are considerably more varied than those in …
US studies and thus pertain to a wider set of environments,
providing even stronger evidence that the enthusiasm for
policies to reduce class size is misplaced.
 (Hanushek et al. (1995) in O’Sullivan, 2006, p. 27)

What do you think…?
 …class size has less effect when teachers are competent; and
the single most important influence on student achievement
is teacher quality. Research shows unequivocally that it is far
more valuable, both in education and fiscal terms, to have
good teachers than lots of teachers (Buckingham 2003, p.71).

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Lecture notes

Our ELT world…

 ‘…a huge amount of ELT in the world today takes place in

 TESEP contexts are by their very institutional nature, constrained

 Where do you situate your context? To what extent do you agree

 A classroom of 60 secondary school students who have had

 reliance on the largest class they regularly teach (Coleman, 1989)

 Learners’ perceptions of large classes are shaped by factors that go

 Dick Allwright and Hywel Coleman in the late 1980s led

 It is difficult from the questionnaires to clarify which problems of

 Kumar (1992) and Shamim (1993) have argued that a major

 (Hanushek et al. (1995) in O’Sullivan, 2006, p. 27)

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