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4. Class advisors or teachers of other subjects should be used to organisestudents for activities such as watching English videos or listening to cassettes(Y. Hu, 2007).Anecdotal evidence suggests that the first option has also been widely adoptedin many parts of the world, although not always with a training component. Othercountries ‘imported’ native-speaker teachers to try to fill some of the gaps (Nunan,2003). The overall result, however, is a lack of fully qualified teachers (i.e. qualifiedto teach in primary schools and to teach English).Many countries did provide some initial training when their policies wereintroduced. In Korea, for example, teachers were offered 120 to 240 hours toimprove their language and teaching skills (Shim & Baik, 2003), while in Italy, aspart of the Progetto Lingue 2000 1 , teachers could undertake either 300 or 500hours of training in both language and methodology.While pre-service and in-service provision has increased in many countries sincethe introduction of primary level English (see, for example, G. Hu, 2005a), lack ofappropriate training is still seen as problematic by many teachers (Nunan, 2003;Prapaisit de Segovia & Hardison, 2008). Its importance is evident in the presentstudy too.Teachers’ level of English proficiencyThe problem of teachers’ low proficiency level in English or their lack of confidencein their English ability is almost universally identified in the literature (see, forexample, Baker, 2008; Butler, 2004; Ghatage, 2009; Hoque, 2009; Kuchah, 2009;Li, 1998; Littlewood, 2007; Nunan, 2003; Prapaisit de Segovia & Hardison, 2008).The perceived demands of CLT, such as teaching in the target language, lead toteachers’ lacking confidence in their English ability, particularly in their speakingand listening skills (Kuchah, 2009).However, the question arises as to what level of proficiency and fluency teachersreally need in order to teach in primary schools. It may be that the real issue isnot the teachers’ lack of proficiency, which may well be more than adequate forTEYL, but rather a lack of confidence predicated on the belief that native-likecompetence is required to teach CLT successfully.One interesting development has been the promotion in some countries, suchas Korea, China and Taiwan, of technological support and multi-media packages,in the belief that these can go some way towards compensating for the lack ofqualified teachers or their low language proficiency. A number of writers haveargued that such resources, used appropriately, can offer much support toteachers (Y. Hu, 2007; Mitchell & Lee, 2003; Nunan, 2003), although there is theissue of unequal access to technology, even within the same country (G. Hu,2005b).The classroom contextThere are a number of classroom-based factors that may militate against teachersfollowing national policy. Large classes are common in many parts of the world (Ho,40 | Global Practices Young Learners