PERCEPTIONS OF VIETNAMESE PRIMARY SCHOOL TEACHERS OF ENGLISH ABOUT ACTIVE TEACHING AND LEARNING

the classroom. Moreover, the study discovers that teachers have a basic understanding about ATL, however, they are confused about how to adopt this approach in practice. Barriers prevent teachers from taking ATL into account come from many directions such as pressure from educational system, pressure from students’ parents or the lack of training. Implications of the study are categorized into three main types, which consist of theoretical, practical and policy implications. It is highly recommended that future studies can be conducted to investigate students’ perceptions of ATL to compare with teachers’ perceptions. This will help to reveal if there is any mismatch between teachers’ and students’ beliefs to contribute to the implementation of ATL in primary schools in Vietnam


INTRODUCTION
Active Teaching and Learning (henceforth ATL) has increasingly been supported worldwide by national governments as well as international organizations. In 1990, in the World Conference on Education for all which was jointly held by UNDP, UNESCO, UNICEF and the World Bank, there was a statement that "active and participatory approaches are particularly valuable in assuring learning acquisition and allowing learners to reach their fullest potential". In 1991, a research- In response to this universal trend, the Vietnamese Government decided to renovate the educational system in the form of transforming from traditional teaching techniques to active teaching and learning approach (or can be referred as learner-centred approach in the context of Vietnam). ATL is the kind of teaching and learning methods aimed at "developing activeness, proactiveness and creative of the learners while teachers take on the role of facilitators". This paper will explore teacher perceptions of ATL through concentrating on a case of English teachers in a private primary school in Hanoi, Vietnam. Teachers of English are chosen for this study because English teaching is believed to involve more in ATL than other subjects (Dang, 2006) [13]. Findings from previous studies indicate that teaching methods at private schools such as the one in this research seem to be more active than those at public schools (Nguyen, 2011) [30].
Furthermore, ATL is said to be one of the main focus of the surveyed school. Hence, these are informant rich cases that can enable the researcher to gain in-depth understanding about the phenomenon explored.
The purpose of this case study is to examine the meaning of ATL to teachers of English in this primary school and how it has been integrated in the curriculum.
Accordingly, the research seek to answer the following questions: (1) What are the perceptions of private primary teachers of English about ATL? (2) What are the challenges that these teachers of English face in applying ATL? The findings of this paper are expected to help provide useful recommendations of enhancing the application of ALT with respect to theoretical framework, practice procedures and administrative policies.

LITERATURE REVIEW
Active Teaching and Learning: Definition and Characteristics Active Teaching and Learning is a term used in context of Vietnam and can be referred as "active learning", "learner-centred" or "student-centred" (Nguyen, Do, Nguyen, & Cao, 2010) [29]. Allen (1995) [1] asserted that ATL is an old concept originating from the Greeks and the Socratic method of questioning and the word "active" in ATL does not refer primarily to physical activity, but it refers to the "active mental processes" that involve learners in building knowledge (Allen, 1995) [1]. Meanwhile, according to Dang (2006) [13], ATL involves learners' activeness and flexibility in developing profound comprehension and in accounting for their own learning. Some researchers agreed that ATL consists of a variety of strategies to engage students in the process of learning and facilitate students becoming independent learners by enhancing students' motivation and excitement of learning (Benek-  [32] stated that ATL requires students to be "active participants" rather than "passive observers". Based on the theory coined by Salman (2009) [41], ATL emphasizes students' interaction with the learning content through initiatively generating knowledge and teachers' role as facilitators. In short, it is obvious that all scholars agreed on the facilitating role of teachers and learners' autonomy in ALT. It aims at changing "from teacher-centred approach to student-centred approach". Weimer (2002) [45] proposed a five theme framework to identify the main characteristics of ATL, which includes the balance of power, the function |137 of content, the role of teacher, the responsibility for learning, and the purpose and process of evaluation.

The balance of power
According to (Weimer, 2002) [45], in ATL classes, power is shared between teachers and students in collaborative decision-making process related to the course such as the assignments, course objectives or textbooks, as long as students' experience and knowledge has been appropriately deliberated (Weimer, 2002) [45]. Teacher-student balanced power can bring about win-win situations where students develop both "affectively and cognitively" (Çam, 2014) [11], increase "understanding about the organization and nature of the information" (Allen, 1995) [1], and teachers are motivated in terms of "preparing more, risking more, and be rewarded more by the sheer pleasure of teaching" (Weimer, 2002) [45]. Another important beneficiary of balancing power is that the environment of the classroom is improved because there is a much stronger sense that the class belongs to everyone. Hence, when something is ineffective, students are much more willing than in the past to help teachers fix it.

The function of content
Unlike the exclusively central role of content in traditional teacher-centred classes, in ATL classes, content is used "not as a collection of isolated facts, but as a way for students to critically think about the big questions in the field" (Wohlfarth, 2008) [46]. The function of content rotates around two main themes.
The first one is that content serves as the foundation of knowledge improving learning skills such as time management or self-study so that students can thrive in other contexts or disciplines. The focus is on "the process of learning and applying the know-how and other elements in permanent confrontation to meaningful situations, i.e., search for information, analyse information, explain information" (Peyser, Gerard, & Roegiers, 2006) [34]. This idea is what Roegiers (2005) [39] calls "learn to dive before to swim". Teachers in this situation should guide students how to learn and become independent learners. The second point is that content enhances learning in the form of letting students actively involve in it rather than passively listen to what teachers say. This means that students can access and experience the content firsthand to reflect and construct their own knowledge.
This role includes of three components "a knower, an activity organizer and a learning counsellor" (Dang, 2006) [13]. A "knower" defines a person who has a great deal of knowledge in the forms of "the target language" and "the choice of methodology" (Tudor, 1993) [44]. "An activity organizer" not only designs and orients learning activities towards the direction that can motivate student but also gives student feedback on their performance (Tudor, 1993) [44]. "A learning counsellor" refers to the one who is in charge of "preparing learners, analysing their needs, selecting methodology, transferring responsibility and involving learners" (Tudor, 1993). Accordingly, teachers are no longer authoritarian classroom managers, instead, attention is paid to students and the learning processes just like what King (1993) [25] portrayed "From Sage on the Stage to Guide on the Side".

The responsibility for learning
The responsibility for learning in ATL, according to Weimer (2002) [45], belongs to students. If teachers facilitate students in the journey of fully recognizing the responsibility, students can play different roles in ATL.
In the first place, students play the role as the centre of teaching and learning process, which is based on the notion about "multiple intelligences" coined by Gardner (1985) [17], whereby students are treated in different ways suitable for their own interests. This gives students the right to be empowered, which can lead students to "realise their full potential; engaging with their teachers and embarking on the learning process in the manner that will be most beneficial to them" (Attard, Ioio, Geven, & Santa, 2010) [4]. In addition, in ATL approach, students have the chance to participate in the process of designing content, activities, materials and pace of learning through interaction with their peers and their teachers (Jones, 2007) [23]. Hence, students have a feeling of attention from teachers that encourages them to participate more Summative purpose is based on the fact that evaluation generates grades though tests or examinations (Weimer, 2002) [45]. Formative assessment, such as feedback, supports teachers in monitoring current knowledge of students to boost learning or providing additional opportunities for student learning. Formative assessment targets at "help[ing] students learn to think about their own thinking so they can use the standards of the discipline or profession to recognize shortcomings and correct their reasoning as they go" (Bain, 2011) [6]. In a research conducted by Steckol (2007), formative assessment is proved to enhance student learning (as cited in Wohlfarth, 2008) [46]. The process of evaluation includes self-assessment and peer-assessment. Self-assessment means that students develop skills that enable them to evaluate their work accurately and "to identify relative strengths and weaknesses, determine what next needs to be improved, develop an implementation plan, implement it, and finally use an assessment of its effectiveness to position themselves for the next round of improvement" (Weimer, 2002) [45]. Peer-assessment signifies that students are able to gauge other students' work. There is a close link between self-assessment and peerassessment because skills that are used to self-evaluate can become tools for students in peer-assessment. According to this Decision, students from Grade 3 to 5 were expected to develop active learning skills to become independent which Moon (2009) [27] stated that these educational goals were too long and too ambitious. Moreover, the application of ATL in English teaching in Vietnamese primary schools has in |139 fact faced many other difficulties. The first challenge is the lack of English teachers at the primary level both quantitatively and qualitatively. According to Nguyen and Nguyen (2007) [31], there was no standard regulating the quality of teachers of English at primary level, therefore, "their proficiency in English and ability to teach it are far from satisfactory" (p.169).
Furthermore, the number of teachers going through adequate training for teaching English for primary schoolers was limited (Thuy Anh, 2007) [43]. At first, there were fifteen teachers of English in the school volunteering to participate in the study. Their ages ranged from 24 to 40 years old, and they all possessed bachelor degrees in English teacher education. In the first stage of choosing informants, the criteria "teaching experiences" was used to divide teachers into two subgroups because teaching experience is believed to has a strong impact on how teachers perceive and apply ATL (Saito et al, 2008) [40]. The first group, which consisted of eight teachers, had more than ten years of experience, while the other group with seven teachers had less than ten years of teaching. After that, deviant case sampling was applied to select the teachers for the research. In the first group, four teachers who are the most experienced ones in teaching were selected.
In the second group, three teachers who had the least experience teaching were chosen. In order to protect the participants' identities, they are named Teachers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7.
The interview sessions were undertaken online due to the geographical distance between the participants and the researcher, and in Vietnamese because using The fourth level, which is the deepest or the "root" level of the analysis, concentrates on metaphor or myth such as "deep stories, the collective archetypes, the unconscious, often emotive, dimensions of the problem or the paradox" (Inayatullah, 2004) [22]. At this level, exploration tries to "uncover hidden and explicit mythologies, narratives, symbolsand metaphors within the text" (Anthony, 2004) [2].

Participants' perceptions of ATL
In general, all interviewed teachers hold positive attitudes towards ATL and support this approach. They agree on the merits of the pedagogy which Teacher 1 believes to "create a friendly environment in which the interaction between teachers and students is enhanced". ATL is also welcomed by these participants because it "is a trend of modern era" which "is supported in the policies" (Teacher 5) and "popular in many developed countries in the world" (Teacher 4). However, they also state that it is hard for them to apply ATL in their teaching practice. More information related to the participants' perceptions is revealed in the following parts which are based on five characteristics of ATL: the balance of power, the function of content, the role of teacher, the responsibility for learning and the purpose and process of evaluation (Weimer, 2002) [45]. The balance of power

The balance of power
Power is shared in class, but teachers play the authoritarian role.
x x Power sharing is only possible for older students Power cannot be shared x x Table 1 shows teachers' opinions about how the power should be allocated in the classroom. Based on the results, there are two teachers who think that shared power could be accepted as long as their role as the authority in the classroom is still guaranteed.
"Teachers can share the power in the classroom with students to the extent that teachers' positions should stay the same. I mean that teachers still have the right and students should listen and respect to what teachers say in class" (Teacher 1).
Furthermore, Teacher 2 states that although it is necessary to create the balance of power between students and teachers, it should be implemented in the higher levels of education such as secondary or high schools because elementary students are not believed to have enough knowledge and experience to take part in the decisionmaking process in class. Besides, some teachers are afraid that sharing power could give way to a lack of discipline in the classroom as Teacher 5 maintains: |141 "If I am too friendly with students, and I let my students know that my role is equal to that of students, how can I bring students back to where I want them in the classroom?" From the analysed data, it can be said that teachers are not ready in sharing the power in the classroom with students. They still hold a belief of the role as an authority figure in the classroom. Teacher 7

The function of contents
The function of content There must be room for teaching learning skills x x experiences, they consider the normal textbook course as "excess and lack of the right level of content at the same time", as well as "should allocate more time for more flexible teaching".
In addition, teacher 5 raises the idea that the content of teaching served as an instrument for teachers to teach children basic skills that could benefit for their lifelong learning. She claims that "content of textbooks should include learning skills that teach the student how to self-teach himself, as learning is continuous and is not a closed process". This view is shared by teacher 2, who thinks that "learning skill is important, and should be integrated into the textbook as well". The role of teacher

The role of teachers
Facilitator Lecturer x x Regardless of teaching experiences, all participants highlight the important role of teacher as facilitators because "teachers cannot know everything" (Teacher 1) and "modern pedagogy focuses on training students become autonomous learners based on the guiding of teachers" (Teacher 2). Teacher 6, an experienced teacher, claims that teachers acted as both "lecturers" whose mission is "to deliver knowledge for students" and "facilitators" who "instruct, suggest and design attractive teaching activities to involve students' participation in the process of discovery new information to absorb knowledge for themselves".
She adds that these two roles are equally important and teachers should play the role as "lecturers" and "facilitators" in a "flexible" and "creative" way.  that students are the only ones who take account of their learning because "learning is students' duty and the primary reason why students go to school" (Teacher 3).
Teacher 2 also reveals that she lets her students realise their responsibility for learning by creating motivation for learning. To achieve this goal, she offers rewards for her students such as presenting them stickers of their favourite anime characters. Teacher 6 mentions a different way to raise students' intrinsic interest of studying, which is through helping them set targets for their learning.
On the other hands, two teachers think that both teachers and students are responsible for learning. Teacher 4 states that students take responsibility for their learning and teachers should have a sense of responsibility for teacher's learning because "teachers should learn to improve the quality of teaching, teachers should learn to obtain more knowledge". Teacher 5 believes that "when students don't study well, parents may blame teachers for that, so learning responsibility should also belong to teachers". eager at class, [the] teaching is efficient" or they "teach in the right way". For these participants, students' attitudes, students' growth through grades are used as benchmarks to evaluate their teaching. Teacher 6 also adds that the effectiveness of teaching relies not only on students but also on feedbacks of their co-workers and students' parents. However, when asked about the most important element to assess her teaching lesson, she still emphasizes the factors related to students.  Likewise, Teacher 6 uses "written tests and observation to assess students". If a student has good grades, he or she is hard working and owns positive attitudes of learning. Others instruments that teachers apply to evaluate students are through "cooperation with members in a learning group" or "feedbacks from students' parents about how students study at home".

Participants' evaluation of their students
Peer evaluation is the idea of only Teacher 2 to assess students because other teachers asserted that students did not obtain enough knowledge to evaluate each other. This idea is supported by the study of Jones (1995) [24]. It is noticeable that teachers focus a lot on grades because high-stakes examinations determine reputation of schools and teachers. This leads to the impact on teachers' notions about teaching methods so students can get good marks in examinations.

The gap between perceptions and practices
In general, teachers of English in Doan Thi Diem Primary School have a basic understanding about ATL because they all perceive themselves as facilitators, the key characteristics in ATL. Furthermore, they support ATL and think that ATL is significant for both teachers and students. However, casual layered analysis reveals that there is a gap between teachers' perceptions and practice as they reveal. Additionally, teachers still hold the authoritarian attitudes to students by stating that the power in the classroom still in the palms of teachers and somehow refuse to share it with students. This is supported by the research of Saito and Tsukui (2008) [40].

The paradox between ATL support and authoritarian attitude toward students
Although the teachers support ATL and perceive their role mainly as "facilitators", they still hold authoritarian attitudes towards students. This can be explained by the notion that the Vietnamese teachers struggle with assumptions that attach to them. Being a teacher of English means that the teacher have to perform like a facilitator while to become a good Vietnamese teacher require he/she to fulfill his/her traditional duty as imparter of knowledge (Phan, 2004) [37]. This can be explained by challenges that inhibit teachers from implementing ATL effectively. This is also a matter of the research question of this study. The challenges appearing in this part mainly rotate around the word "pressure". The participants claim to have to stand a variety of pressure which can be categorized into two main types: pressure from parents of students and pressure from educational system. In addition to that, from teachers' perspectives, other constraints also exist which hinder the application of ATL.

Pressure from students' parents
One of the challenges that teachers mention in the interview sessions is associated with students' parents. This study is believed to be significant for the management board of the surveyed primary school to reflect on its teachers' experiences in applying ATL, thereby designing methods and procedures to help teachers effectively integrate ATL in their classrooms.
Extensive teacher peer support, regular professional meetings, and enhanced rapport with students' parents should be taken into consideration.
The research brings about practical implications for the teachers of English in this particular school in terms of recognizing the hidden beliefs that underpin in their views. Hence, changing the negative parts of their mind that hinders the application of ATL is a matter of urgency. To materialize this goal, it is necessary for these teachers to improve their professional capacity and obtain a great deal of knowledge related to ATL by researching information on the Internet or reading books or thinking critical about the feedbacks given by their colleagues. It is also essential for them to create a stimulating environment that encourages learning and enhance the relationship with their students. By doing that, they can boost intrinsic impetus of students, ''hold their interest and imagination", thus, reduce the number of students who are "lazy and less motivated" as they stated in the interviews (Carr, 2005) [12].
This study also provides a chance for policy makers of the Vietnamese Government to encourage deep reflection on the practice of ATL in reality. The biggest challenge is teachers' perceptions, which can be hard to change but it does not mean impossible (Nespor, 1987 [28]; Peacock, 2001 [33]; Raths, 2001) [38]. It is advisable that policy should play the role as key change agents in transforming teachers' perceptions, which can be said as the biggest constrains to the implementation of ATL.