Learner-Centredness Learning

An Approach to Enhance Speaking Practices Using Authentic Activities in Thai EFL University Classroom

Abstract

Due to the current situation, many English-speaking lessons seem to have problems in providing initial socio-cultural and individual perspectives to arouse Thai university learners to use their schemas to progress speaking ability for conveying contextual information meaningful for real-world situations. Hence, this research has an objective to enhance the learners’ speaking practices by arousing learning interest, and promote them to use personal schemas in speaking practices from speaking activities designed based on the learner-centredness learning approach. In brief, the learner-centredness learning approach aims on elevating learning arousing force by the learning activities relating to the learners’ lives and developing the learners’ communicative skill by expressing creative ideas derived from the socio-cultural and individual schemas. The participants were two classes of Thai EFL students at a private university. Three instruments, including: 1) the three new speaking activities designed based on the learner-centredness learning approach for the practices of presenting contextual information, 2) a class observation, and 3) opinion journals, were applied for the data collection. To acquire the data which are the participants’ opinions, the data were collected by gathering opinion journals written by the participants. The collected data were qualitatively analyzed by a thematic content analysis to explore: 1) the factors that the speaking activities aroused the participants practice speaking with interest, and 2) the schemas that the participants applied to create information for the speaking practices regarding the speaking activities. Quantitatively, the frequencies in reflecting each arousing factor and schema by the participants were also investigated to demonstrate the connecting factors and the schemas from the majority.

The findings explored that the participants were aroused to practice speaking with interest and use schemas for speaking practices as set up by the objective. In details, the participants were aroused to learn with interests because they had opportunities from a variety of experiences, including sharing problems happening in the real world, and thinking outside the box to present impressive ideas. Furthermore, it was found that the participants had opportunities to utilize schemes, including exploring personal problems happening in daily life, presenting personal inspiration, fantasy, and analyzing the others’ personalities, to create the ideas for the speaking presentations. Overall, the findings of this research implied many useful points for enhancing speaking activities for Thai EFL university learners.