The effects of class size on English learning at a Thai university

Abstract

Large classes are the norm and a cause for concern for many language teachers.  Most previous research into large classes has surveyed teachers’ beliefs about the size and problems of large classes.  Surprisingly, there has been no previous research in English language teaching into the effects of class size on learning.  This study examines the relationship between class size and learning for 984 classes of students ranging in size from 10 to 103 students for four fundamental English courses at a Thai university.  The findings show significant negative correlations between class sizes and grades, both for all students on all courses and for those students who studied in very differently sized classes on different courses.  Furthermore, comparing the grades of students in different classes suggests two threshold levels of 25 and 45 students per class beyond which learning drops off noticeably.

Keywords

• large classes
• class size
• language learning
• grades
• threshold levels