A Development of Foreign Language Training Course for Local Youth Guides of Dankwian Community in Thailand

Abstract

English language has become increasingly more important as it is used as an international language to communicate with people from other countries, especially in the tourism, which is one of Thailand’s most growing industrial sectors today. Although English is taught at all educational levels in Thailand for general purposes, there is still need for specific use of English in some areas such as local tourism places. This leads to the need for improving the English language ability of people in such areas, particularly young people, who are most likely to have influential effects not only on themselves but also their families and community as a whole. The objective of this study was to develop and evaluate a foreign language training course for Local Youth Guide at Dankwian Community - a famous pottery-making village in Thailand. The course was developed in four stages: 1) Studying background information; 2) Developing the training course of Foreign Language for Local Youth Guide; 3) Trying-out the course; and 4) Evaluating the course. The training course was implemented with a group of 60 junior high school students. The study was designed for one group pretest-posttest, using pre-post tests and a satisfaction questionnaire as study tools. The study revealed the following results. 1) The community members needed a foreign language training course which has both lecturing and workshops. 2) The course consisted of one ice-breaking module and five language modules. 3) While attending the course, participants were enthusiastic, asking questions, and actively contributing to the discussions. 4) After the course, participants significantly improved their language ability at the.05 level. The participants’ satisfaction on the training course was at the ‘very high’ level. They indicated that the course emphasized on the real life applications. These results revealed the usefulness of a short training course for local youth guides in Thailand. It can be applied to other local areas in Thailand that have foreign tourists. A similar training course can be developed by making some modifications to this course to fit their local contents.