This study reveals a possibility of applying a social pedagogy to the Thai EFL writing classroom at the tertiary level. It serves as an alternative for Thai EFL teachers in particular and teachers of writing in general who want step beyond current-traditional rhetoric, which for a big part teaches language and writing as rule-governed, and thus which is believed to suppress student agency. Based on Paulo Freire's assumption that knowledge is social, emerging from human beings interacting with others and the world, the social pedagogy developed in this dissertation makes use process and social-epistemic pedagogies in helping students to acquire knowledge from others and from different social discourses. By using process and social-epistemic methods, the social pedagogy could be thought of as releasing student agency better, which is beneficial for teaching and learning.

The main purpose of liberating student agency, in this social pedagogy, however, is to prepare Thai students as active subjects who will become part of the social power that helps improve Thai society, maintain the good values and customs inside it, and solve the ills that inevitably come with the development of the society. This social pedagogy, therefore, is useful for Thai society, especially in this age many call “postmodernity,” in which there are uncountable chaotic, ephemeral, and unpredictable changes in the society.

The study, which has grown out from an internship in a Thai EFL writing classroom at Nakhonsawan Rajabhat University, Thailand, in 2006, reports a possibility of teaching agency and power in Thai EFL writing classrooms as a bridge for students to perceive that knowledge is socially constructed. By respecting students' agency, we teachers of Thai EFL writing teachers are ready to move away from the traditional way of teaching, the kind of education that dumps knowledge into students, to the kind of education John Dewey describes as “progressive,” the kind that encourages students to learn widely and variously. By teaching power, we help our students to understand human power relations that affect writing in the classroom and ways of living outside the classrooms. Students will learn to adapt their writing to fit the rhetorical situation. Teaching agency and power, which utilizes process and social-epistemic pedagogies, can help prepare students for the society. The analysis of the data reveals positive signs of teaching the two textual qualities of agency and power.