A development of community-based English course to enhance English language skills and local cultural knowledge for undergraduate students

Abstract

This thesis proposes the development of a community-based approach to teaching English and demonstrates the value of utilizing authentic community resources to enhance English language skills and local cultural knowledge. the objectives of this study were to: 1) develop an English course using a community-based approach; 2) investigate learners' English laguage skills through a community-based approach; 3) investigate whether the community-based approach can enhance local cultural knowledge; and 4) evaluate the effectiveness of an English course using a community-based approach. Nineteen undergraduates, who majored in English at the Faculty of Education, Rajabhat Rajanagarindra University, were chosen as the sample group. The study was a single group design using qualitative and quantitative methods. It took 16 weeks for data collection. The findings revealed that: 1) data derived from needs analysis and perceived as important were proved to be necessary for designing the community-based English course; 2) the scores from posttest were higher than the pretest scores because the relationships between contextual factors, individual learner differences, learning opportunities led to the development of learners' English language skills; 3) using local cultural materials as learning activities and experiences was found to be beneficial to enhance learners' local cultural knowledge; and 4) the course was found effective because the participants could achieve the learning goals in terms of Taxonomy of Significant Learning (foundational knowledge, application, integration, human dimension, caring, and learning how to learn). Learners perceived their English language skills had improved after taking the course. The study indicated that a community-based English course focused on both academic concerns and social issues. It is recommended that future research should extend to investigate a broader sample of students whose majors are English and non-English to gain better understanding of the process of second language learning.