Pedagogical practices of science classrooms at the primary level of an English Medium School in Dhaka city

Abstract

The learning of the students inside a classroom depends a lot on the teaching techniques and methodologies used by the teachers. It is very essential to meet the intellectual demands of the new generation children and address to their interests with proper expertise to ensure effective learning. Through this research, the researcher wanted to explore the teaching techniques and the pedagogy of the science classroom inside an English Medium School. This is to understand the variety of techniques and materials they are using for teaching the students. By this study researcher wanted to find out about teachers’ preparation for science teaching and about their perception. She also tried to discover the kind of trainings teachers receive and the challenges teachers face while executing the planned lessons, using the particular teaching methodologies. Therefore, the participants of this research were the science teachers of the English Medium School. During the research, in order to collect the data, the researcher used semi structured interview guidelines for teachers. Through purposive sampling participants were chosen. They were reached out via Zoom App and Phone-conversation. I analyzed the collected data through thematic analysis. Some of the key findings of this research are- teachers of the English Medium School use progressive teaching techniques that includes visual display, hands on activities, games, experiments. All these teaching techniques make the class more interactive. In terms of assessments they have a different kind of approach and they assess every aspect of a student’s contribution including class participation and their active participation in several activities done inside the class. Through paper pencil assessments the students get analytical questions to solve them based on their acquired knowledge. They also receive several trainings every year to improve their efficiency, skills and increase their knowledge in the fields of lesson planning, classroom management, Information technology etc. Another major finding is that, despite the teachers being very eager to conduct the class with appropriate teaching techniques and methods, it is hard to manage time because of the class duration being 40 minutes and the class size being 25 students or more. Most of the teachers (participants) believe that they could do much more given that the duration of the class is longer.