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In terms of respondents’ experience, the largest group (40 per cent) had beenteaching for more than 15 years. Only 14 per cent had been teaching for less thanthree years. This is interesting data in that it appears to indicate that teaching is along-term career: people who embark on the profession tend to stay with it. Thedata in response to the question How many years have you been teaching English?is less clear-cut with roughly equal numbers of teachers answering 4-8 years, 9–14years and over 15 years. These figures indicate that many teachers probably startedtheir career teaching subjects other than English, but more recently have taken onELT. This may be a reflection of the current global trend for English teaching, andthe fact that English is being taught to ever younger and younger learners.When asked why they had chosen to become a primary English teacher (seeTable 12 for full results) 77 per cent replied ‘I like children’ and 68 per cent ‘It’sinteresting work – there are many varied activities during the day’. 29 per cent ofrespondents said they had chosen this field because ‘It’s a respectable job’; 20per cent responded that primary teaching ‘Offers secure employment’, but onlytwo per cent said they had chosen the career because it offered good promotionopportunities.When asked if they taught other subjects in addition to English, 44 per cent ofrespondents said yes. Some of the subjects they also taught include a varietyof other languages (too numerous to mention all of them here), maths, science,history, geography, PE, religious studies, art, health studies, music, social studies,cookery, ICT, human rights and foreign literature.Participants’ teaching contextsIn terms of class size, 92 per cent of teachers reported that they taught classesof under 35 children. Only eight per cent of teachers taught classes of more than50. Two percent of teachers reported they taught classes of more than 65. Theseteachers worked in Bahrain, Bangladesh, Barbados, Cameroon, Croatia, CzechRepublic, Egypt, Germany, Italy, India, Romania, Poland, South Africa, Sri Lanka,Sudan, Uruguay, the USA and Yemen. In each country, only one teacher reportedthey taught these large numbers, with the exception of India (6 teachers), Sudan(5), South Africa (3) and Italy (2). However, during interviews a different pictureemerged: many teachers reported that they or other teachers in their schoolshad classes of over 65, and one teacher in Bangladesh said he had 150 childrenin one of his classes. Hoque (2009) states that the average teacher:student ratioin Bangladeshi state primary schools is 1:56 and as such, every class would beclassified as large. It may well be that 150 students is an exceptional case.When the researcher visited rural primary schools in Cambodia to interviewteachers, she observed several classes with up to 80 children in them. Some weresitting on the floor in a line under the blackboard as there were no desks or chairsfor them, and the teacher leaned over them to write on the board. The teacher inBangladesh said that the school would not be appointed a new teacher if therewere fewer than 80 children to teach. In this case the additional students wouldbe distributed amongst the other classes. It becomes clear that whilst in somecountries we talk of the maximum number of pupils allowed in a class, in othercountries it is the minimum number allowable.Primary English Teachers | 77