PRIMARY TEACHERS' INSTRUCTIONAL STYLES: ADAPTING GRASHA’S MODEL ALONG A CONTINUUM OF LEARNING RESPONSIBILITY TRANSFER

Abstract

Teachers’ teaching styles reflect how they use their professional knowledge, organize learning activities, and interact with students during the instructional process. This paper aims to synthesize the theoretical foundations of teaching styles and at the same time apply Grasha’s teaching style model to propose teaching-style clusters appropriate for primary education context. The study employs a theoretical research approach by means of a literature review, content analysis, comparison, and synthesis of relevant studies on teaching styles. Based on Grasha’s five teaching style, namely Expert, Formal Authority, Personal Model, Facilitator, and Delegator, the paper analyzes four broader teaching-style clusters: Instruction and Control; Instruction and Modeling; Guidance and Exploration; and Facilitation and Responsibility Transfer. The findings indicate that teachers rarely employ a single teaching style in isolation but they tend to combine and adapt multiple styles in accordance with lesson objectives, content characteristics, students’ competencies, and specific classroom contexts. Utilizing Grasha’s model provides a comprehensive framework for describing the transition of teachers’ roles from transmitting knowledge, maintaining control, and modeling practices to guiding, supporting, and empowering students in the learning process. The proposed theoretical framework may serve as a foundation for teacher reflection, professional development programs, and future empirical studies of teaching styles among primary school teachers.