A DEVELOPMENT OF A CONTENT AND LANGUAGE INTEGRATED LEARNING (CLIL) COURSE TO ENHANCE ENGLISH LANGUAGE ABILITIES, AGRICULTURAL CONTENT, AND CULTURAL KNOWLEDGE OF UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS

Abstract

This research involved the development of a Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) course to enhance English language abilities, agricultural content, and cultural knowledge of undergraduate students. The main objectives of this study were to investigate the extent to which the CLIL course improved English language abilities, agricultural content, and cultural knowledge of undergraduate students, as well as to explore the opinions of undergraduate students toward the developed CLIL course. This research study employed a one-group pretest-posttest design. The sample consisted of 27 undergraduate students from the Faculty of Agricultural Technology, at King Mongkut’s Institute of Technology Ladkrabang, who were enrolled in the English for Academic Purposes course. The instruments used in the present study were namely 1) the CLIL course consisting of six units, 2) the CLIL test which contained the four sub-parts in reading, writing, agricultural content, and cultural knowledge, 3) the opinion questionnaire, and 4) the CLIL course interview protocol. After the 12-week CLIL implementation, the post-test mean scores revealed that that the students’ English language abilities in both reading and writing, agricultural content, and cultural knowledge improved with statistical significance (p < 0.05). The findings also indicated that the students had positive opinions toward the course. Based on the findings of the study, it is could be concluded that the CLIL course could enhance English language abilities, agricultural content, and cultural knowledge of undergraduate students. Therefore, it is recommended that more CLIL courses should be developed.