An Investigation and Analysis of 7th Grade Thai Students’ Levels of English Sociolinguistic Knowledge, Ability, and Etiquette

Abstract

The goal of English language teaching is to help students become competent communicators; therefore it is necessary to investigate and develop methods of teaching and assessing language competencies. Sociolinguistic competence is a key part of communicative competence. It is necessary to define, measure, and analyze the individual components of sociolinguistic competence, in order to more accurately understand students’ needs and develop effective teaching methods. The objectives of this study are as follows: 1. To investigate the English sociolinguistic knowledge, ability, and etiquette levels of 7th Grade Thai students. 2. To analyze the effects of scenario-based learning on the English sociolinguistic knowledge, ability, and etiquette levels of 7th Grade Thai students. This study focuses on the analysis of the students’ test results data as sorted into three key categories: items testing for sociolinguistic knowledge, sociolinguistic ability, and sociolinguistic etiquette. The results showed a significant increase in students’ English sociolinguistic knowledge (less than the .05 significance threshold), but no significant changes in the ability and etiquette levels. The results of this study reveal a need for more complex analysis of students’ English test results, and a need for more data collection on 7th Grade Thai students’ English language competencies.