Textbook-based instruction

For Cambodian teachers, a textbook is a survival tool for their teaching. Even though the SCA policy advises that there should be enough materials for both teacher and pupil activities, teachers rarely use other materials to supplement the textbook, stating “I don’t have time for developing materials.” The ministry requires them to make their teaching more student-centered, but does not provide them with an effective means to implement it. Only a limited number of teachers receive guidance on the new pedagogy through

workshops and seminars sporadically organized by the MoEYS. Schools do not have facilities and equipment to support child-centered learning. Laboratories, computers, printers, and projectors are completely absent from schools. Teachers do not have access to audio-visual players. Teachers are only provided with textbooks and teacher manuals, without any accompanying materials such as manipulatives. It should be noted that textbook is one of the important indicators of SCA as teachers, and perhaps policymakers too, tend to believe that teachers can organize leaner-centered activities with textbooks. The MoEYS has been so successful in its distribution of textbooks that even at the far rural areas, the principals and teachers reported that they had enough textbooks for their pupils.

SCA denotes an easier role of the teacher in the classroom, but the teacher should spend a lot of time in preparation and planning for the class, which is a requirement Cambodian teachers cannot afford. Some have to teach two different groups of pupils at different shifts and many have to do a second job to supplement their meager salary. So it is not unusual to see teachers going into the classroom without even a book in their hands, let alone other materials. However, the textbook is always there and it is perhaps the only thing that both the teachers and pupils will depend on for the rest of the day. For example, in a reading class, after the teacher asked some questions about the picture at the top of the page to draw pupils’ attention, pupils would read the text in the book in silence, or in loud relays. They then answer the questions following the text and write the answers on their notebooks and put it on the teacher desk for checking. Sometimes, they answer the questions in groups and present the answer to the class. As homework, they have to copy the lesson from textbook to their notebook.

From this example, it can be understood that from the onset of the lesson to giving homework, everything was evolving around the textbook. Teachers tend to narrowly interpret the term ‘pupils’ activities’, a core principle of SCA, as questions or exercises

from textbooks. So, to them, encouraging pupils’ activities simply means making pupils work with textbooks.

Teachers perceive the use of textbooks by pupils as an improvement of rote learning. In the past, when textbooks were less available, teachers would write the lesson on the blackboard, and get pupils to repeat, read and copy it down onto their notebooks. Reading, memorizing, and reciting were the common practices. Now, with the textbooks in their hands, pupils are free from taking extensive notes and have more time for practice. With the textbooks, they are easier to read by themselves and work in groups with little control from the teacher. Though occasionally practiced, this is the most representative form of SCA instruction in Cambodian classrooms: pupil working in groups on problems from textbooks. Teaching in Cambodia is textbook-centered.

Based on interviews with the teachers, the following are some emergent characteristics of their classroom instruction.

- Textbooks as major or sole teaching materials

- A tendency to finish textbook chapters, rather than improve pupils’

understanding of contents

- Little deviation from textbook contents - Textbook-based assignments and assessments

With textbooks being the most accessible materials, teachers have become so dependent on them that they fail to think of other alternatives to provide knowledge and skills to their pupils. Their teaching has become less of meeting the pupils’ needs and interest but more of finishing the book chapters.

Part Two: Teaching and Learning in Action

Chapter Four: Instructional Organization

This chapter deals with instructional process. It describes various aspects of instructional organization which includes arrangement of classroom space, pupils’

grouping and instructional materials, and the organization of mathematics contents into classroom tasks. Unlike the last chapter, which addresses the same topic based on teachers’ report of their classroom practices either through interviews or questionnaires, this chapter examines classroom instruction in action through the analysis of video recordings of 12 mathematics lessons conducted by four teachers. In total, the 12 recorded lessons were about 10 hours in length. The lessons were video-taped between December 2011 and January 2012. The recording schedule was arranged so that there was an interval of one week between one recording and the next for the same teacher.

Before the real recording took place, teachers’ and pupils’ consent was sought and a trial filming was conducted in each of the classrooms to familiarize the teachers and the pupils with the filming process. (see also Chapter 5 for more details of the videotaping procedure)