Singhanat Nomnian

Argumentative writing is problematic for Thai EFL learners. This study aims to determine the effects of an argumentative correspondence writing course in an ESP for Science classroom. The course was designed from the genre-based approach, including stance and engagement by Hyland (2005) and ESP material design by Hutchinson and Waters (1987). The experiment involved 40 participants studying in a science field in a public university in Thailand. The study used a one-group pretest and posttest design. The research instruments were a knowledge test and a writing test for scientific argumentative correspondence. The results revealed statistically meaningful differences between the pretest and posttest scores, indicating that the students increased their abilities and gained higher test scores through completing the course. The findings suggest that instruction of writing scientific argumentative correspondences is effective and should be included in ESP science courses, especially as a foundation for writing longer texts in scientific genres.

This paper aims to investigate how coronavirus-related fake news as a result of translation is perceived in the Thai context. Using the framework of truth criteria to guide the online questionnaire and focus group, the researchers gathered the different perspectives of three age groups: Group 1 aged 19–38, Group 2 aged 39–54, and Group 3 aged 55 or above. The findings reveal that:(1) Group 3 agrees that translated news should be compatible with their existing, verified knowledge;(2) respondents in different age groups have significantly different opinions when assessing the coherence of news translations;(3) Group 1 is the most critical when looking for the credibility of news sources;(4) Group 1 is more likely than older groups to make time to verify translated news through social consensus; and (5) Group 1 is the most active in their search for supporting evidence. The decision to verify the news translation is influenced by time constraints, family relationships, technology, and the ease of information processing. This paper sheds light on the basic understanding of fake news from translation and its impact on interactions between news services and audiences of different cultures.© 2023 Kasetsart University.

There has been an increasingly dominant presence of Filipino ESL/EFL lecturers in Thai higher education; yet, few studies explore the intercultural communicative practices between these Filipino lecturers and pre-service teachers in science teacher education. This study examined Thai pre-service science teachers’ perceptions of their Filipino lecturers. The theoretical framework of this study consists of intercultural communicative competence (ICC), tensions between native and non-native English speakers (NES-NNES), and Thai students’ perceptions of English and its varieties. Using a qualitative research paradigm, this study employed focus-group interviews with 15 pre-service teachers from biology, math, and general science majors at a Rajabhat University in Thailand. The findings suggest three key issues: 1) Filipino lecturers’ teaching styles and methods, 2) classroom communication, and 3) their English accent. The implications of this study promote not only the integration of cross-cultural exchanges and translanguaging practices into classroom interactions between NES/NNES lecturers and Thai learners but also awareness of World Englishes and Global Englishes to envisage multicultural/lingual realities in social and professional contexts. This study sheds new light on the pragmatic benefits of enhancing Thai learners’ intercultural communicative competence as part of ESL/EFL pedagogy in Thai higher education.

This article aimed to provide new insights into critical factors to consider when developing a scenario-based mobile application (SBMA) for dual-language learners (DLLs). It is intended to investigate the factorial structure of the SBMA for young students in an elementary school context using exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). The convenience sampling method was used to recruit 1,040 in-service teachers to complete the internet-based questionnaire. For half of the respondents, exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was conducted to identify the factors for SBMA design for young DLLs, and CFA was used to ascertain the model fit. The EFA identified five factors from 32 items, and through CFA, the results indicated that the five factors obtained from the EFA were validated: 1) application attribute; 2) lesson content; 3) immersive environment; 4) learning strategy; 5) instructional use. The findings shed light …

This mixed-method study aims to investigate science students' motivational orientations and their self-perceived experiences contributing to self-determination in EFL reading at a secondary school in Thailand. Drawing upon the questionnaire and semi-structured interviews, the findings revealed that the overall science students' EFL reading motivations were moderate. Each of their motivational orientations was ranked as follows: identified regulation (ID), intrinsic motivation (IM), external regulation (ER), introjected regulation (IJ), and amotivation (AM), accordingly. ID, a motivational orientation with regard to autonomous motivation, seemed to best correspond with the science students' perceptions. They also valued the influence of social-contextual variables (i.e., families, peers, and teachers) as relatively important to their behavioural control toward EFL reading (ER and IJ). This study offers pedagogical implications to improve science students' EFL reading motivation.

Consumption practices related to desserts can be based on and influenced by many factors, including religious and spiritual beliefs, local wisdom, traditions, politics, economy, and sociocultural identities of communities. This article presents research findings on a group of special desserts used in the Tenth Lunar Month Festival in Nakhon Si Thammarat province in southern Thailand. The study drew upon ethnographic fieldwork related to the production, consumption, and use of these traditional desserts in ceremonies during this festival. The findings reveal that the community’s positive perceptions, values, and attitudes, as well as the evolving practices related to these desserts are linked to their sociocultural spirituality, way of life, and local economy. Recently, there has been a concerted effort to revive and maintain the festival and its related dessert culture through public and private partnerships. In addition, there is a need to support local tourism and local businesses in integrating cultural events, so that this festival and the dessert culture will continue to be sustained and appreciated by generations to come.

Facebook has not only opened up new opportunities for social networking, but has also been recognized as an educational tool for language learning beyond the classroom. However, little is known as to what extent Facebook can promote learner autonomy among English as a foreign language (EFL) pre-service teachers (PSTs). This study explores the voices of EFL PSTs with regard to their use of Facebook as a tool for promoting their autonomy in learning English, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing upon Betts and Kercher’s (1996) Autonomous Learner Model (ALM), this study gained deeper insights into the EFL PSTs’ attitudes, perceptions, and ideas concerning the opportunities and challenges Facebook offers them. This qualitative study was based on a purposive sampling of twenty EFL PSTs from a university in northern Thailand. The findings reveal that Thai EFL PSTs experienced all five dimensions of ALM, namely, orientation, individual development, enrichment, seminars, and indepth study. They also viewed learning English on Facebook positively during the lockdowns since they simultaneously acquired English and enjoyed edutainment resources despite some limitations concerning this platform. Pedagogical implications of this study suggest that Facebook is a suitable platform for ELT professional development and life-long learning, particularly amid the global disruption caused by COVID-19.

This paper aims to explore how and the extent to which faculty staff and postgraduate students perceived and responded to the transformation from face-to-face to emergency remote teaching and learning during the “new normal” circumstances in higher education due to the unprecedented impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic globally. This case study focused on a group of ten faculty staff and fourteen postgraduate students in a Master of Arts Program in Language and Intercultural Communication at a research-based university in Thailand. Drawing upon the data from the open-ended questionnaire and semi-structured interviews conducted virtually, the findings, informed by Akabana et al.’s (2021) emergency remote teaching (ERT), revealed four key components, including faculty staff, postgraduate students, instructional practices, and institutional support. Faculty staff put efforts into adapting themselves to the “new normal” teaching environment without hesitation to upskill themselves in educational technology in order to meet the postgraduate students’ learning needs. Although these four components of ERT are interlinked and overlapped with one another, they play a crucial role not only in postgraduate studies, but also research in the fields of language and intercultural communication studies. The “next normal” future for higher education in a post-pandemic era is to consider the positive solutions of the “new normal” experience during the emergency response period as a basis for reimagining and redesigning curriculum and instructional practices, as well as institutional support in terms of academic, social, and psychological dimensions for …