The Development of the English Content-Based Reading Materianls for Buddhist Students of Mahachulalongkornrajavidyalaya University

Abstract

The study aims to develop the English content-based reading materials for Buddhist  Student of Mahachulalongkornrajavidyalaya University. The primary objective is to find out how to develop the English content-based  reading materials for Buddhist student monks. To do so, the principles of materials  development by Tomlinson  and Six-T’s approach by Stoller and Grabe  were used as the underlying principles. The next objective is to explore the attitude of  student of MCU and teachers towards the quality of the English content-based reading  materials. Thus, there are two main parts in the study – material development and  material implementation and evaluation. In this study, the sampling methods were used in 2 stages: 1) in the needs analysis stage, a purposeful sampling and stratified samplings were used and 2) in the English content-based reading materials implementation stage, a purposeful sampling was used. To evaluate the effectiveness of the developed content-based materials during and after the implementation, 30 students of MCU and 3 English teachers were purposefully selected. After all copies of the needs analysis questionnaires were returned, each item was descriptively analyzed using SPSS program. Mean and standard deviation were used to analyze data regarding student of MCU purposes of reading, needs of academic and physical aspects and preferred task types. Findings were  as follows: 1. In response to the research question 1: How can the English content-based reading materials be developed for Buddhist student of MCU?, the integration between  six stages of material development framework of Tomlinson and six components (themes, topics, texts, tasks, transitions, and treads) of Six-T’s approach of Stoller and  Grabe  could effectively produce physical and academic aspects of the English content-based reading materials. 2. In response to the research question 2 What is the attitude of student of MCU towards the quality of the English content-based reading materials? – the result of x̅= 3.45 from the whilst-use evaluation questionnaire and x̅ = 3.53 from the post-use evaluation questionnaire indicated that student monks had positive attitude towards the  quality of the English content-based reading materials in terms of academic and  physical aspects and the effectiveness in enhancing reading comprehension. The level  of satisfaction of the developed materials was at a high level and the student monks  with higher English proficiency tended to have stronger positive attitude or greater  satisfaction. 3. In response to the research question 3 What is the attitude of teachers towards the quality of the English content-based reading materials? - the result of x̅= 3.78 from the whilst-use evaluation questionnaire and x̅= 3.51 from the post-use  evaluation questionnaire indicated that English teachers had positive attitude towards  the quality of the English content-based reading materials in terms of academic and  physical aspects and the effectiveness in enhancing reading comprehension. The level  of satisfaction of the developed materials was at a high level.