LLT Journal, e-ISSN 2579-9533, p-ISSN 1410-7201, Vol. 25, No. 2, October 2022, pp. 395-409 LLT Journal: A Journal on Language and Language Learning http://e-journal.usd.ac.id/index.php/LLT Sanata Dharma University, Yogyakarta, Indonesia 395 INDONESIAN EFL TEACHERS TEACHING READING TO ENGLISH YOUNG LEARNERS IN INDONESIA AND THAILAND *Sibakhul Milad Malik Hidayatulloh1 and Sugirin Sugirin2 Yogyakarta State University, Indonesia12 sibakhulmilad.2021@student.uny.ac.id1 and sugirin@uny.ac.id2 *correspondence: sibakhulmilad.2021@student.uny.ac.id https://doi.org/10.24071/llt.v25i2.4515 received 7 April 2022; accepted 22 September 2022 Abstract Among myriad research on teaching reading on English Young Learners, little has been discussed the practice within two different socio-culture settings. Indeed, the success stories of teaching reading to young learners with different social and cultural circumstances will be able to offer insight and new perspectives of teaching reading to EYL for researchers, mainly English teachers. This study aimed at narrating and exploring the process of teaching reading within two different countries, Indonesia and Thailand. This study invited two Indonesians EFL teachers who teach English to young learners in Indonesia and Thailand. Underpinning the narrative research design, this study narrated the experience of the participants from interview process triangulated by their narrative framework and teaching reading materials. From the obtained data, the findings were presented using four major themes: teaching experience, the students, teaching reading, and teaching reading materials. The result revealed that the participants had some similarities and distinction aspects. Teaching technique that the participants used could be said as the similar aspect of the participants. Meanwhile, teaching materials could be said as the integral factors underlying the differences. Furthermore, organizational system and community around participants played significant role in affecting the differences and similarities. Keywords: English young learners, narrative research, teaching reading Introduction "English should be taught starting from junior high school to higher education" (National Education System ACT, 2003). Even though the ACT said so, the need for English for young learners is inevitable (Hestetræet, 2018; Parker & Valente, 2018; Shin & Crandall, 2018). The rapid development and the high demand for globalization accelerate the need to be faster than before. As mentioned by Kachru (2005), concentric circles of world Englishes are divided into three parts: inner, outer, and expanding circle country. Along with Thailand and China, Indonesia can be found as the expanding circle where English is taught and used as a foreign language. Nevertheless, English is commonly used in business and other bilinguals' collaborations among expanding circle countries due to worldwide international competition. Consequently, to prepare its generation, English is taught mailto:sibakhulmilad.2021@student.uny.ac.id1 mailto:sugirin@uny.ac.id mailto:sibakhulmilad.2021@student.uny.ac.id https://doi.org/10.24071/llt.v25i2.4515 LLT Journal, e-ISSN 2579-9533, p-ISSN 1410-7201, Vol. 25, No. 2, October 2022, pp. 395-409 396 starting from primary school as the complementary subject. The following level is accommodated as the compulsory subjects, i.e., junior and senior high school and higher education. In succeeding the English learning, reading plays a crucial role as the macro skill. In particular, young learners, reading and listening skills are strengthening each other to play as an input. Several studies in second language acquisition discovered that 'reading while listening' has a satisfying influence since it contributes to the comprehension and fluency of the learners (Chang, 2009; Chang & Millet, 2015; Mestres & Pellicer-Sanchez, 2018). Consequently, the interest in teaching reading for young learners has been growing as a major issue in English Language Teaching to Young Learners (ELT-YL). Research on ELT-YL persists in obtaining the attention of scholars and has been a scholarly debatable topic among scholars in L2 in last five years; for instance, Inter comprehension focusing on plurilingual proficiency and EF-YL reading skills (Arenare et al., 2021), Self- assessment in development reading and writing EYL (Liu & Brantmeier, 2018), Strategy instruction and clustering in developing EYL reading (Razı & Grenfell, 2020), ICT in Teaching Reading EYL (Spanou & Zafiri, 2019), Metacognitive strategy to teach reading EYL (Teng, 2019), and Multimodality in Teaching Young Learner Reading (Wulan et al., 2019). Reading is currently used not only for expanding language power and vocabulary (Sadiku, 2015), but also for fostering language development in early age (Ismail & Yusof, 2018). Reading activity cannot be presented as a means of learning, but it tends to be a part of the crucial development of learners’ learning process. Reading plays a crucial role to offers entrance places for young learners in experiencing language learning (Scott & Ytreberg, 2004). Even scholars found that Children’s literacy and speech start to develop before schooling stages, the prior condition, children are sensitive to speech since prenatal stages (Moon et al., 2013; Partanen et al., 2013). Consequently, reading is also presented as a tool throughout their cognitive growth development process. Furthermore, the reputation of reading for young learners has gained scholars’ attention. For instance, Teng (2015) mentioned the notion of providing a conducive classroom environment to reading literacy. Three years after his idea, the notion of process-based reading was proposed as the learning process which requires students to read for realistic goals including several stages: reading, reflecting, reporting, and discussing (Teng, 2018). In another sense, Niklas et al. (2016) researched the appropriate time for parents to introduce their children to reading before being pre- schooled. More than a hundred children’s parents were asked when they started to introduce reading and how often they gave the reading. Surprisingly, half of the parents conveyed that they introduced reading to their children from six months old. Consequently, the parents’ habits impact the children’s linguistics competencies. Therefore, the notion of ‘the sooner, the better’ was evidenced by (Niklas et al., 2016). The aforementioned research suggests that introducing books and reading to young learners, even very young learners, indeed contributes to language development and provides an advantageous home-based linguistic setting. Further, the aforementioned research on teaching reading indicates that reading skill is crucial to be taught to EYL. Besides, the number of research on teaching reading to EYL also indicates that finding suitable teaching reading strategy is still going on around the world, in particular EFL context. For instance, LLT Journal, e-ISSN 2579-9533, p-ISSN 1410-7201, Vol. 25, No. 2, October 2022, pp. 395-409 397 in Thailand, Maipoka and Soontornwipast (2021) investigated the post-effect and views of intensive and extensive reading to primary school' students in Thailand. In Grece's context, the use of ICT as a supporting aspect to teach reading to early learners had been researched by (Nikolopoulou et al., 2019). In the Chinese context, Wong (2018) explored the interconnection between reading-writing towards the students' writing ability. In the Indonesian context, Anisa (2019) used folklore as the reading material for fostering extensive reading among primary students. A literature review generates several documented investigations in the Asian contexts. For instance, Wulan et al. (2019) captured a novice teacher teaching reading using multimodality to young learners in Indonesia. By conducting a narrative inquiry research design, the findings showed that multimodality was not only for teaching reading in TEYL. Indeed, it could be used to assist teacher in giving fruitful and various learning experience to EYL for macro skills in English. Teng (2019) researched and described the influence of metacognitive among fifth- grade students in Hongkong toward their reading skill. At the end, this research highlighted the possibility of metacognitive instruction to increase English young learners’ reading literacy. Maipoka and Soontornwipast (2021) did experimental research on the influence of extensive and intensive to young learners reading performance. The result revealed that students perceived benefits of intensive and extensive reading instruction by changing their reading habit. Even though the research and experiment from previous research appeared to be valuable, however, little has been discussed the practice of teaching reading to EYL in different socio-culture settings. Most prior studies further were focused on the finding teaching reading method to EYL which neglected teachers’ experiences in teaching reading in EYL context. Indeed, studies of teachers’ practices in teaching English young learners in EFL countries seems to be valuable and crucial study in the context of teaching reading to EYL. To fill this gap, this study aims to narrate and compare the teaching of reading for young learners used by two Indonesian EFL teachers in two different countries, Thailand and Indonesia. Given this consideration, it is possibly substantial to listen to teachers' voices and experiences of how they handle and form their teaching style to teach reading for young learners within two different setting, condition, and socio-culture. Hence, the research question is presented as follows: 1. What experiences of teaching reading to young learners do Indonesian EFL teachers have in Thailand and Indonesia? 2. To what extent is the difference? By doing so, this study is able to reveal the practice of teaching reading in two different settings. The findings, then, are able to give significant implications for future teachers particularly EYL teachers in teaching reading both in Indonesia and Thailand. Method Research Design The main focus of this study is to narrate the nuanced story from Indonesian EFL teachers teaching reading in the different socio-culture settings. In accordance with its objectives, the narrative inquiry research design is the suitable design since it will capture prominence to people experience and capture both general and specific pictures of life experience (Connelly & Clandinin, 2004; Ary et al., 2010). LLT Journal, e-ISSN 2579-9533, p-ISSN 1410-7201, Vol. 25, No. 2, October 2022, pp. 395-409 398 Furthermore, as mentioned by its name, Narrative inquiry is a qualitative research approach based on which the researcher will be able to capture and present the human lived experience narratively (Abrar, 2019). As a result, Clandinin et al. (2007) authored narrative as “The study of experience as story” (p.22). Besides, the wide range used of narrative among multidisciplinary research underpins narrative inquiry as a broadly accepted research design that engenders understandings and assists numerous interpretations of the phenomenon being explored. In another sense, as the researcher, we understand that stories and life experiences can be subjective. However, by scrutinizing the perspective, condition, and life experience under phenomenon using in-depth data analysis supported by additional supporting data, will be able to find the meaning among the complexities of the story being shared. Research Participants In selecting the participants, we considered their feasibility and capability. Prior to that, they needed to have been learnt and taught teaching English for young learners. This point becomes crucial since this study's focus is to find out their experience and exploration of teaching reading to young learners. Besides, the participants' willingness is also essential because the research focus will explore their ‘personal’ experience and avoid their inconveniences in sharing their stories. Finally, two EFL teachers were elected in this study. They were Ayu (Pseudonym) and Tio (Pseudonym). The detailed information can be seen as follows: Table 1. Demographic Information of Participants Name Place of Teaching Teaching Subject Number of Teaching Class Experience of Teaching Educational Background Ayu (Pseudonym) Thailand English Six Classes (Grade 1st – 6th) 2 Years Bachelor of English Education Tio (Pseudonym) Indonesia English Six Classes (Grade 1st – 6th) 2 Years Bachelor of English Education Data Collection and Instruments To obtain the data, three data types were used in this study. The data were teachers' stories, teaching materials, and narrative frames (Barkhuizen & Wette, 2008). Teachers' stories were obtained by conducting an in-depth interview for 45- 60 minutes as the primary data. Then, the interview result was supported by the teaching materials and the narrative frame, which the participants filled. Bahasa Indonesia was employed since it provided conformability for them to express their thought and idea. In interviewing the participants, we tried to minimize our mimics, reaction, and empathy to avoid the participants' flow and conformability. To assist the next step, the interview processes were recorded to analyze data. Data Analysis The data were analyzed to find the pattern, relevant event, and expression to construct the several themes. A bottom-up, inductive, and emergent data analysis LLT Journal, e-ISSN 2579-9533, p-ISSN 1410-7201, Vol. 25, No. 2, October 2022, pp. 395-409 399 approach was used to accommodate the analysis process. Then, the obtained data were re-written in the form of a story as the nature of narrative inquiry research approached (Conelly & Clandinin, 2004). Then, to maintain the validity, the retold story was sent back to the participants to check whether the story was in line with their sharing experience or not. As for the teaching materials, it used to see the types of materials such as the text types and the task. By seeing the teaching materials, the possibility activities in the class could be recognized. Lastly, in presenting the finding, the data were presented by providing some themes related to each participant's story Findings and Discussion Within this section, we try to retell the shared story from the participants, Ayu and Tio, regarding their experience in teaching reading to young learners. Since the nature of narrative inquiry of studying the topic being discussed through participants’ narrative views, therefore, each participant’s narrative is presented through the story of each participant divided into several themes. The themes include teaching experience, the students and teaching reading, and teaching materials. Tio’s Story: Teaching experience Tio has been learning English for more than a decade. When he was in secondary school, he never thought about being a teacher. However, time flies and Tio entered an English Education department as the professional stage of learning in Higher Education (HE). Throughout his experience as a student, he had barely dared himself to teach. The first experience of his teaching experience was teaching in Senior High school as an internship teacher from his department’s internship program for a month. As his first-time teaching, he prepared everything, including the material and the lesson plan (RPP), for three months throughout the coaching process. After finishing his experience, he had a chance to teach an English course near his house. He taught a group of young English learners for four months. A few weeks after finishing his teaching in an English course, he got a chance to be an English teacher in the Elementary school where he was in elementary school. Since his starting point of teaching experience, he finally got the position as an official English teacher in a school with its components (principal, vice principals, school- based curriculum, and kinds of stuff). The students Tio was interested on how the students would look like. At the same moment, he was also interested in teaching skills in the English classroom. Theoretically, he knew the fundamental theories of teaching English skills from his lecturers. He knew how to run a class using some approaches in teaching English especially in teaching reading based on the textbook. When he met his students for the first time, he felt slightly stunned because the conditions were far from his expectations. He described his students by dividing them into two big categories: students grade 1-3 and students 4-6. Further, he argued that teaching reading students in grades 1-3 seemed like drawing without a pattern; meanwhile, teaching reading to students in grades 4-6 would like drawing with a pattern. In another sense, teaching reading in grades 4-6 was easier than in grades 1-3. Further, he wrote LLT Journal, e-ISSN 2579-9533, p-ISSN 1410-7201, Vol. 25, No. 2, October 2022, pp. 395-409 400 “When the first time I teach them, I got the problem with the vocabularies with students to grade 1-3 since I did not explore their English level” (Tio’s narrative frame). Starting from that point, he tried to map his teaching style. Particularly in teaching reading to grades 1-3, he introduced the way to read and the meaning. For instance, he read the sentence and translated it in Bahasa Indonesia, and then he told the meaning of each word separately. He also invited the students to follow his pronunciation. Besides, he broke a sentence into several words then asked students to read the words one by one. Finally, the words were arranged into the original sentence. Meanwhile, in grades 4-6, he got the problem with students’ ability to read the sentences correctly. He explained that sometimes students could not read a whole sentence, mostly caused by their pronunciation. Besides, students in these grades also got problems understanding the text's context. Consequently, Tio read the meaning and explained the context using the students’ native language, Bahasa Indonesia. However, there was one similarity recognized by Tio. He identified all of his students have focus distraction. Students in grade 1-3 would be distracted by playing in the classroom, meanwhile students grade 4-6 would be distracted by the learning duration. To get around those conditions, he tried to give refreshment to his students by playing games or just sharing story if he recognized his students were no longer focus. Teaching Reading In his teaching process, reading is never stand alone. Tio explained that reading is mostly integrated with writing and sometimes speaking. Since he has mapped his students’ capability and problem, he implemented different way in teaching, especially teaching reading. Further, in teaching reading to students grade 1-3, he tried to ask the students to follow what he has said. Tio would read the sentences word by word then his students will repeat after him. Tio argues that this was the possible way to give students input about English. Besides, students in grade 1-3 are just to start learning how to read in their first language. To some extent, Tio would re-read some difficulties word until his students can read in right way. Throughout the process, he also gave the meaning of the word in Bahasa Indonesia. By doing so, Tio hoped that students were not only know how to read but the meaning as well. Furthermore, distinct teaching reading method was employed by Tio in students grade 4-6. Drilling was no longer used. Moreover, the focus was not only to know how to read and meaning each word, but also know what was stated in text. Tio knew his students’ lacks, therefore, the focus was to boost students reading sentence and context. He would ask his students to read a long sentence under his supervisory. Then, when his students did an error, he would stop them and gave them how to read it correctly. After that, he asked students what the sentence talked about. Finally, Tio and his students discussed the sentence and the text together. In short, he focused on two learning processes in which for students grade 1-3 vocabulary focus and grade 4-6 was the sentence focus learning. LLT Journal, e-ISSN 2579-9533, p-ISSN 1410-7201, Vol. 25, No. 2, October 2022, pp. 395-409 401 Teaching Reading Materials Furthermore, teaching material that he used was the English teaching module provided by the school. Since it was provided, he taught the students using what was mentioned in the book. For reading, the skill was integrated with writing skill namely written cycle. In short, students were given a text then they had to fill the comprehension question and did the following task related to writing. The example can be seen as follows: Figure 1. Tio students' reading section and task In interview process, he said that he never used any additional material except from the module. Even though the topic was not familiar for students, he kept going in using and explaining the content. To bridge students’ confusion towards unfamiliar topics, he used jokes and some assimilation to give students and understanding. “…When I got something which is difficult to be explained, I try to make joke and some connection with the topic being discussed such as connecting with students’ experiences, so they will understand the context easily” (Tio’s Interview excerpt) Furthermore, as the researcher, we had a chance to check the content of the module especially for reading. The topics of content were about family, hobbies, daily activities, special places, food, home, and holiday. Most of the topics were closely related with the Indonesian culture and heritage such as holiday at Taman Mini Indonesia Indah (TMII), Borobudur, and many places in Indonesia. Below is the example of reading section in students’ English module: LLT Journal, e-ISSN 2579-9533, p-ISSN 1410-7201, Vol. 25, No. 2, October 2022, pp. 395-409 402 Figure 2. Tio’s English module reading text Ayu’s Story: Teaching Experience English has been a chosen subject for Ayu since she was in junior secondary school. She decided that English as her higher education major is concrete evidence of her intention. Becoming a part of the English language education department students made Ayu more serious with English. She joined some competitions and internal organizations. Her first teaching experience was not from the internship process. Instead, her lecturer invited her to join community service on teaching young learners in one of orphanages in Yogyakarta. Her teaching experiences were continued by the internship process in teaching Senior secondary school students for a month. Finishing her teaching experience as an internship teacher, Ayu was offered by her senior to teach English young learners in Nakhon Ratchasima, Thailand. She is now teaching in Thailand as a foreign teacher through the Intensive English Program (IEP), the private program initiated by several primary schools in Thailand. As this report was written, Ayu has been teaching in Thailand for more than a half year teaching English for grades 1 to 6 in one of the primary schools in Nakhon Ratchasima Province, Mueang District, Thailand. Along with her teaching in Thailand, she still devotes herself as an English volunteer in an "Islamic boarding house' (Pondok Pesantren) in Riau, Indonesia, online. She teaches English every Thursday night for one and a half hour teaching and learning process. The students In Thailand, Ayu is placed on teaching English for grade 1st until 6th. She shared her students' conditions as sociable and proactive students. Each classroom consists of 20-30 students from around the district. Since the school is located on a military base, the students' parents are primarily soldiers. About the language, Ayu teaches her students entirely using English. She is plotted with one teacher's assistant (TA) from school to help Ayu when her students got the language barrier. LLT Journal, e-ISSN 2579-9533, p-ISSN 1410-7201, Vol. 25, No. 2, October 2022, pp. 395-409 403 "When I teach, I will have one local teacher to help me like managing the classroom, translating my English to Thai, and helping me when I got some difficulties throughout teaching-learning process." (Ayu’s interview excerpt) At first, she thought that the teaching-learning process would ruin her days since she knew nothing about the Thai language. However, the reality is contradicted. She finds her students can follow her teaching even though she uses English most of the time. Still, the language barrier is the main problem that she needs to face when teaching the lower class (grade 1st-3rd). When it comes to teaching grades 4th until 6th, her job will be easier. The role of TA in her class will be decreased since her students have sufficient English capability to follow the teaching-learning process. Another thing she shared about her students is their activeness. For Ayu, providing students' participation is not challenging planning. She described the students as curious, responsive, and polite students. For instance, they often ask something outside the material being discussed. In addition, their curiosity about Ayu, who is a Muslim from Indonesia, also attracted their attention to ask about her life and conditions in Indonesia. When asked a question, Ayu's students respond quickly and sometimes even fight. Besides, Ayu explained that there is one habit that her students always do when asking for something or permission for something, namely Salam Wai, cupping both palms of her hands on her chest accompanied by a slight bow. Ayu admits that the students here can accept her as her teacher even though she is a minority. Her students' warmness makes Ayu have no problem with the adjustment between herself and her students. Teaching reading The school that Ayu is working at now emphasizes improving students' communication skills. Speaking is the main point of her teaching speaking. However, pursuing to be a good teacher, Ayu argued that speaking needs to be accompanied by other skills such as reading and listening. Therefore, she taught reading as a means to support students' speaking skills. Since the main focus of teaching-learning activities is to boost students' communication skills, Ayu decides to focus on the students' pronunciation and understanding in some context. Furthermore, Ayu often gives her students to follow after her speech in the classroom, especially for lower grade class. This way is applied since the students need to be given a general picture of the English word. Besides, she also pays attention to how the students' knowledge on how they know the part of a word. "In the class, I ask my student to spell a word that I have given to them; for example, BOOK is spelt B-O-O-K." (Ayu’s interview excerpt) When the students seemed okay with that way, then Ayu would give another way to teach her students. She would write or show a sentence part by part. Then, she gave her students an understanding that the sentence is constructed using some word. For instance, "I will go to the stadium", then Ayu will break down the sentence into "I-will-go-to-stadium", followed by her students' repetition. Further, for the higher grade, she tried to present reading using incomplete sentences and allow students to complete the sentences. In this way, Ayu assumes LLT Journal, e-ISSN 2579-9533, p-ISSN 1410-7201, Vol. 25, No. 2, October 2022, pp. 395-409 404 that her students will be able to grasp meaning, form sentences, and finally understand what is being discussed in the context of sentences. In addition, Ayu also often teaches reading by asking her students to come forward to the class reading the text in the book. She did this with 5th and 6th graders. While her students were reading, she would pay attention to their students' pronunciation. Teaching Reading Materials As for teaching materials in reading, Ayu directly used the provided book from the school. An international book provided by Oxford is presented as the learning guideline. Furthermore, reading activities shared by Ayu will never be stand-alone as an independent skill. She shared that mainly reading will be accompanied by productive and less receptive skills. However, in some cases, Ayu tried to refresh her students by providing other sources such as the passage from the Internet, songs, videos and PowerPoint presentation. "For grade 1 until 3, I use some simple texts in the textbook, for grade 4, I prefer to add some reading materials from internet, while for grade 5, I try to give them with more complex reading materials followed by filling the blank for grade 6" (Ayu's Narrative Frame) Even though Ayu is from Indonesia, she has no problem with understanding the materials presented in the textbook. She shared that the reading materials tended to be general discussion and topic. The book's topics are mostly 'western-oriented", proven by the discussion about the big bang, Eiffel, Liberty, New York, and several European iconic landmarks. The book that the school uses is English Time by Oxford University Press Figure 3. Ayu’s materials for teaching reading Above is an example of a reading activity that is integrated with listening skills. Recognizing the pattern of reading activity, vocabulary mastery also will be included in the reading activity. Towards the presented example above, Ayu LLT Journal, e-ISSN 2579-9533, p-ISSN 1410-7201, Vol. 25, No. 2, October 2022, pp. 395-409 405 mentioned that she would read the text then follow with her students. Then, she would try to give some new vocabulary to her students by collaborating with the TA. Figure 4 Ayu’s students' reading materials To this point, we have narrated two EFL teachers teaching in Indonesia and Thailand. Spotting the response from Tio and Ayu, they are distinguished by their interest and motivation on teaching. In some studies, motivation on teachers plays a significant role in their teaching and learning in terms of experience and process. For instance, learners’ motivation, self-directed learning, and willingness to learn are influenced by teachers’ cognition (Glas et al., 2021) and teachers’ closeness (Fallah, 2014). Nevertheless, it can be used to generalize facets since Thommen et al. (2021) found that teachers’ motivation and teaching quality had blurred interconnection. Besides, the different atmosphere of teaching between the participants leads into different quality of learning. There was a positive relationship between classroom atmosphere and its factors which influence the learning quality (Ofoghi et al., 2016). Another distinction point found in the teaching materials between Tio and Ayu. Tio’s students’ reading materials tended to be authentic materials in which the topics discussed were related to students’ lives. The topics are closely related to the Indonesian context. In another sense, Ayu’s teaching materials tended to be general with worldwide scope as the discussion or even abstract (i.e. solar system). Theoretically, Tio’s materials should provide better results in teaching reading since Arikan and Taraf (2010) and Mara and Mohamad (2021) found that authentic materials can positively impact students reading and vocabulary improvement. However, abstract materials can also improve students, proven by Ayu’s experience. Recognizing their distinction, organizational culture became integral factor in the materials and teaching-learning process (Fitria, 2018). Despite the distinctions, the similarity between Tio and Ayu can be noticed from their technique of teaching reading. The findings found that drilling became the most used technique for teaching reading to EYL. The following techniques were keyword approach, read aloud, and fill in the blank. Drilling, furthermore, has been a wide discussion in terms of reading skills by some scholars (Hempenstall, 2009; Muchlisin, 2015; Swanto & Din; 2014). The current findings seemed to strengthen that drilling, among massive technology used, still exists as a preferable teaching technique, particularly in reading to EYL. As the alternative, keyword approach and read-aloud can be applied to give students refreshment throughout LLT Journal, e-ISSN 2579-9533, p-ISSN 1410-7201, Vol. 25, No. 2, October 2022, pp. 395-409 406 their teaching-learning process. Another similarity can be recognized when the use of technology is less used. Even though EYLs tend to be ‘digital native’ nowadays, both teachers decided not to expose technological use due to some reasons, including lacks facilities, organizational system, and community agreement. Lastly, we believe that teachers’ beliefs as the internal factors of teaching play an integral role in distinguishing the teaching process. TEYL teachers’ beliefs control teachers’ teaching practices which may be affected the effectiveness of lesson design and contextual teaching practices (Hadiyanti & Yolanda, 2020) Conclusion The current research aimed at finding and exploring teaching reading to EYL within two different countries in southeast Asia, Indonesia and Thailand. This study undergone using retrospective, narrative frame and teaching materials from the participants. The different socio-culture was noticed as the factors different teaching reading. Students and teaching materials are recognized as the noticeable factors in teaching reading. However, the most used technique between teaching reading in Indonesia and Thailand have same tendency. Drilling is still becoming the most-used technique followed by keyword approach and read-aloud. Furthermore, this study offers a novelty for future teachers particularly teaching reading for EYL both in Indonesia and Thailand. 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