Browsing by Author "Chayada Thanavisuth"
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    A comparative study of attitudes toward learning Chinese as a foreign language of Grades 3-4 students at an International School in Samut Prakarn, Thailand
    ( 2020) Chang, Ting-Jung ; Suwattana Eamoraphan ; Chayada Thanavisuth
    This study was conductedto investigate 63 Grade 3 and66 Grade 4 students’ attitudes toward learning Chinese as a foreign language (in terms ofaffective, behavioral and cognitive components) at an international school in academic year 2018-2019 in Samut Prakarn, Thailand. It was designed as a quantitative and comparative study. An adopted version of The Attitude toward Learning Chinese as a Foreign Language Questionnaireby Abidin,Pour-Mohammadiand Alzwari(2012)was used for data collection. The questionnaire included three subscales (attitude in terms of affective component, attitude in terms of behavioral component and attitude in terms of cognitive component) to discover the students’ attitudes toward learning Chinese as a foreign language. The data collected from the 129 questionnaires were analyzed by means and standard deviations, a multivariate analysis of variance(MANOVA) and independent samplest-tests. These were used to determine whether there was asignificant difference between Grades 3 and 4 students’ attitudes toward learning Chinese as a foreign language(in terms ofaffective component, behavioral component and cognitive component). The study suggestedthat there was a significant difference between Grades 3 and 4 students’ attitudes toward learning Chinese as a foreign language.
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    Students’ perceptions of online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic: a study of undergraduate students from an international university, Thailand
    (Bangkok : Assumption University Press, 2021) Chayada Thanavisuth
    The outbreak of COVID-19 had an impact on educational systems worldwide. This study was aimed at investigating the perceptions of students towards online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. Two hundred fifty-five undergraduate students from a private international university in Thailand participated in this study. Data were collected using the adapted version of Students’ Perception Questionnaire (SPQ) items from Bączek et al. through an Google Forms online survey. The research objective was examined by basic descriptive statistics (percentage, means and standard deviations). Results showed that student participants prefer both online and onsite learning. The most strongest advantage of online learning is allowing participants to stay at home (72.15%) whereas the participants chose technical problems (73.33%) and lack of interactions with friends (71.37%) as the major disadvantages. The participants perceived that online learning was effective that helped increase knowledge (35.29%), active classroom activities (33.33%) and enjoyable (30.2%). Based on the research findings, suggestions and recommendations to improve the higher education online learning in the future and pedagogical implications are provided.
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    Teachers' Attitudes towards Asian Students' English Accented Speech
    ( 2016-06) Chayada Thanavisuth ; Korakote Natiladdanon
    While previous research studies examining the students’ attitudes towards certain English varieties/accents are great in number, none of these studies was focused on how teachers perceived students’ foreign accented speech. Thus, the present study aimed to investigate how native and non-native English speaking teachers comprehended students’ accented speeches. Twelve teacher participants and three Asian students at an international university in Thailand participated in the study. The recorded speeches of three Asian students whose first languages were Chinese (Mandarin), Korean, and Thai were used as stimuli. The teacher participants consisted of four native English speakers (three Americans and one Australian), four native Thai speakers, two native speakers of Burmese and two Indians. All teachers were asked to listen to the stimuli and later to provide answers in the questionnaires. Informal interviews were also given to some teacher participants to get clarification of their answers. The results of study demonstrated the teacher participants had different perceptions of the three foreign English accents. The teachers’ familiarity with a certain accent played an important role in their accent evaluation and recognition. The most familiar accent, Thai English, gained the highest level of positive evaluation and was considered the easiest one to understand. Although the three students’ English accented speeches carried some phonological features that were deviated from those of the so-called native English accents, these features did not prevent the teachers from understanding the students’ statements. The implications of these findings for teaching English pronunciation and communication were also discussed.