Abstract:
The objectives of this study were 1) to develop the English reading materials, 2) to investigate the effects of the English reading materials on the three southern border provinces students’ English reading ability and 3) to explore the opinions of the students towards the English reading materials. The sample included 30 tenth grade students at Matthayom Sungaipadee School, Narathiwat. The duration of the experiment lasted for 12 weeks. The instruments were the English reading ability test and the English reading materials questionnaire. The data were analyzed using a paired sample t-test, mean score and standard deviation. The findings revealed that 1) aspects of materials development, reading tasks and activities for beginning level readers and local community positively affected students’ reading ability. 2) the post - test mean scores of the students using the English reading ability test were higher than their mean scores of the pre - test at the significance level of .05 3) students reflected positively towards the English reading materials. They demonstrated high level of interests and motivation, and they had good impression for the design of the English reading materials using local context materials in the southern part, such as a topic on local food, holidays and tourist attractions. Furthermore, students viewed that the English reading materials could increase their local community knowledge in terms of their southern Thai cultures and wisdom.
