Curriculum Development for Training English Teachers in Learning Management to Enhance Thinking Skills of Grade 6 Students

Abstract

The objectives of this Research and Development were: 1) to develop the curriculum for training the English teachers in learning management to enhance thinking skills of Grade 6 students, 2) To study the efficiency and effectiveness of the curriculum, terms of efficiency by comparing the English teachers’ knowledge and Comprehension between pretest and posttest, and the effectiveness of the curriculum by comparing the experimental group students’ thinking skills between pretest and posttest. There were 3 phases of this study: In Phase 1, the context, problem situation and need for developing the training curriculum, were studied through document analysis, survey with teachers and focus group discussion with the participants. In Phase 2, the curriculum was constructed and developed. It was validated and criticized by a focus group discussion comprised of 9 curriculum experts. In Phase 3, the curriculum was used with 30 teachers by using Action Research as SchoolBased. The efficiency was evaluated by comparing the teachers’ knowledge between pretest and posttest. In addition, the curriculum effectiveness was evaluated from 51 students’ Thinking Skills in 3 schools. The samples were selected by Purposive Sampling. The research instruments were: 1) the Handbook for Training, 2) the Handbook for Supervision, Following up and Evaluation, 3) the Teachers’ Knowledge and Comprehension Test, 4) the Teachers’ Competency in Learning Management Evaluation From, 5) the Teaching Observation Form, 6) the Record Form in Reflection of Learning Management, and 7) the Students’ Thinking Skills Test. The statistics included the Mean ( ̅ ), Standard Deviation (S.D.) and using t - test dependent. For Qualitative Data, they were analyzed by Content Analysis. The research findings found that: The Curriculum Development for Training English Teachers in Learning Management to Enhance Thinking Skills of Grade 6 Students consists of 1) Principles 2) Objectives 3) Contents 4) Roles of the participants. 5) Methods of the training and 6) Measurement and evaluation. For application of teacher training curriculum, the research found that the evaluative findings of knowledge and comprehension in learning management to enhance thinking skills of grade 6 students, the posttest was significantly higher than the pretest at the .01 level. Furthermore, the evaluative findings of English Teachers’ competency in learning management to enhance thinking skills of their students, in overall, was in the “Good” level. The findings of Grade 6 students’ knowledge and comprehension in thinking skills, overall, found that the mean value of the students’ thinking skills posttest scores after studying under the teachers being trained in learning management to enhance the students’ thinking skills was significantly higher than the students’ thinking skills pretest at the .05 level.