Abstract:
The purpose of this qualitative study were 1) to investigate how the teacher-students of English Program in Savannakhet Teacher Training College perceive and de-velop their knowledge, 2) to find out how and why they carry out their self-study and 3) to discover how they prefer to be encouraged to carry out self-study in order to helpthem develop their knowledge. The samples of this study consists of 6 students in grade3 of English Program (final year), 2 of whom were from the low-study performing capac-ity group(low-grade students), 2 of whom were from the fair-study performing capacitygroup(averaged-grade students)and 2 of whom were from the good-study performingcapacity group(high-grade students). In each sampling group, 1 from grade 2 ; and 1 is from grade 3. The samples were selected through a purposive sampling method. The data is collected through interviews and discussion with the 6 sampling students and 1 teacher. The results point out that the samples create different views between generaland school knowledge; they see general knowledge as something concrete, sociallyacquired and widely used in daily life, but see school knowledge as something specificin school, theoretical and learned from textbooks and teachers. The samples from the low-gradeand fair-grade groups have different insights from the good-grade students on how and why to carry out self-study, and self-study encouragement. The low-grade and fair-grade students carry out self-study to repeat learning things in the previous lessonsthey have learned and preparing for coming lessons, but the good-grade students carryout self-study for understanding deeper and more detail about things they have learnedand creating new knowledge. The good-grade students need self-study encouragement by being given tasks that match or even a little bit higher than their levels, and given scoresby teachers for completing the tasks, but the fair and low-grade students need self-studyencouragement by being given easy tasks with clear instructions and assistant, and alsoprefer to be given scores for completing the tasks. At the same time, the fair and good-grade students like to carry out self-study in the quiet place and without people talkingwith, while the low-grade students still need someone to talk with for their self-study.