The Determinant factors of Engineering Students towards the Significant of English Proficiency in the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC): A Case of 3rd year TNI Students.
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Abstract
The world economy has been in a wave of structural change due to the growth of international economic interdependence, especially in the notion of ASEAN Economic Community. According to the main goal of AEC, it is to seek regional economic integration by 2015 which includes various areas of cooperation.
Therefore, it might be said that the more liberalized labor market could provide more opportunities for Thai workers. However, it is indicated that Thai students need to improve their weak English proficiency for communicating with other people from other nations. This study, thus, aimed at finding factors affecting prospective Engineering students’ English capacity for AEC.
The purposes of this study were mainly focused on investigating the students’ English learning problems and finding out classroom interaction techniques to help students achieve in learning English in order to apply with the upcoming of AEC.
Research samples were 40 students from Faculty of Engineering: Automotive Engineering, Productive Engineering and Computer Engineering. Instrument used for gathering the data was in-dept interview which consisted of 10 open-ended questions.
The findings from the interview were categorized into 7 groups as follows:
1) Teachers were required to provide students an opportunity to practice four skills of communication (listening, speaking, reading and writing).
2) It was significance for the students to have a learning experience with new and interesting teaching-learning materials outside textbooks.
3) The students were able to speak with Thai and foreign teachers, but were not able to apply knowledge with real industrial placement.
4) The students commented that reading and writing were quite tedious. They needed activities that supported them to understand more than vocabulary and grammar memorization.
5) The students indicated that their English basic were not in tertiary level. The most important barrier was in areas of grammar, then, listening, speaking and reading respectively.
6) The students replied that they lacked confidence to speak English.
7) The students needed learning techniques that employed technology in classroom.
Further, the problems which barricaded the development of students’ English proficiency were demonstrated.
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