THE DEVELOPMENT OF A CONTENT AND LANGUAGE INTEGRATED LEARNING COURSE TO ENHANCE CULTURAL AWARENESS AND ENGLISH COMMUNICATION ABILITY OF THAI UNDERGRADUATES IN THE INTERNATIONAL PROGRAM

Abstract

This research study aims at developing a Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) course to enhance cultural awareness and English communication ability of Thai undergraduates in the international program. The objectives of the study were: 1) to investigate how a CLIL course can be developed to enhance cultural awareness and English communication ability of Thai undergraduates in the international program, 2) to examine the effectiveness of the CLIL course to enhance cultural awareness of Thai undergraduates in the international program, 3) to examine the effectiveness of the CLIL course to enhance English communication ability of Thai undergraduates in the international program, and 4) to investigate the opinions of Thai undergraduates in the international program towards the developed CLIL course to enhance cultural awareness and English communication ability. The study is a research and development design study involving two phases: course development phase and research phase (a single group pre- and post- test research design). The first phase was processed following Graves (2000)'s eight-stage process and four-stage cycle of course development. The results from the eight-stage in the course development process influenced on what was planned and designed in the CLIL course. It started from defining the context and following by articulating beliefs, assessing needs, formulating goals and objectives, conceptualizing content, developing materials, organizing a course and designing an assessment plan. The samples of this study were 24 second-year Chinese-major Thai undergraduates in the international program, Faculty of Liberal Arts, Prince of Songkla University, Hat Yai Campus. This group of students studied the CLIL course as an intensive course in their semester break. The research instruments in the second phase were categorized into two categories: instructional instruments and research instruments. CLIL course teaching materials were used to teach Thai undergraduates in the international program. To examine the effectiveness of the CLIL course, pre-test and post-test scores were compared. The cultural awareness self-assessment questionnaire was also used to examine the pre- and post-awareness of culture of the research samples. In addition, the opinion evaluation questionnaire and interview protocol were used to determine the research samples' opinions towards the developed CLIL course. Thai undergraduates in the international program were also interviewed to investigate their in-depth opinion towards the developed CLIL course. The findings of this research study revealed that the undergraduates in this study were interested in learning culture, and the developed CLIL course was effective. It was found that the post-test scores of the research samples were significantly higher than the pre-test scores. Moreover, their post-cultural awareness scores were also higher than the pre-cultural awareness scores. Furthermore, they had positive opinions towards the developed CLIL course to enhance their cultural awareness and English communication ability. Based on the findings of the study, it is recommended that more CLIL courses for Thai undergraduates in the international program and in other disciplines should be developed.