Teaching by design : understanding the intersection between English teachers' readiness and the implementation of new pedagogical orientation in senior high schools

Abstract

This study explored how English teachers interpreted, designed, and enacted the deep learning pedagogical orientation in senior high school English classrooms. Responding to the disparity between intentions and practice around curriculum reform, the study examines how teacher sensemaking, instructional design, contextual conditions, and teacher readiness shaped the implementation of deep learning in English Language Teaching (ELT). This research used a qualitative instrumental case study design interpretive paradigm. The participants were six English teachers from three senior high schools in Muara Enim, South Sumatra, who were selected through purposive sampling because they had participated in government-led professional development on deep learning and had teaching experience. Using a in depth interview, non-participant classroom observations, and document analysis of lesson plans/teaching modules/instructional materials as data collection instruments. Thematic analysis was applied to the data after codes were organized, and relevant excerpts were retrieved using Quirkos. The results indicate that teachers did not have a unified interpretation of deep learning; rather, they made sense of it in the context of their pre-existing beliefs about teaching and with the professional resources available to them through tensions between reform ideas as new practices and established teaching practices. In instructional design and classroom enactment, teachers attempted to align deep learning principles with meaningful learning objectives, contextualized materials, communicative tasks, and to conduct collaborative activities, while keeping student engagement active. However, the implementation was only partial and sometimes shifted as needed, mostly because of local constraints like uneven professional development, fewer resources available, heavy workload, different levels of student readiness, and this tension that presisten tension between teacher-centered instruction and student-centered instruction. The study also found that teacher readiness is not some fixed state but rather a dynamic, multidimensional capacity showing up in instructional planning, classroom facilitation, and adaptive pedagogical choices. In summary, these findings imply that deep learning in ELT depends not only on teachers having their own comprehension and personal willingness, but also on ongoing professional support, in addition to collaboration at the school level, and a more realistic match between policy expectations and classroom realities. In other words, this study adds to the discussion about curriculum reform, teacher sensemaking, and the overall pedagogical design, since it shows how deep learning is implemented and then carried out in a provincial Indonesian ELT setting.