Existing EFL Pedagogies in Thai Higher Education: Views from Thai University Lecturers

Abstract

Since English is extensively used among linguacultural users to access life opportunities, it has become a requisite foreign language in the Thai educational system. To prepare Thai learners for this new changing role of English and reduce English Language Teaching dependency on the native English variety, this study aimed to explore English lecturers’ voices in Thai universities on existing English as a Foreign Language (EFL) pedagogies at the Thai tertiary level with the research question: how do English lecturers in Thai universities perceive EFL in Thai universities? Data was collected through semi-structured interviews with 25 Thai EFL university lecturers selected from ten different universities in Thailand and analyzed using content analysis. The finding reveals that EFL-oriented pedagogy plays a dominant role in English language teaching (ELT) education in Thai classrooms, illustrating three main salient themes from the study: (1) EFL pedagogies; (2) EFL materials; and (3) EFL curriculums. The result shows that the pedagogy is less responsive in the changing roles of English use and its widespread worldwide, especially among diverse linguacultural interlocutors. Hence, English university lecturers should reconsider, adjust, and made more practical glocal changes in English language teaching for the purpose of language teaching, language planning and predicting language change.

Thai Students’ Awareness Attitudes of Global Englishes Pedagogy and Target Interlocutor

“…According to GE, even in terms of ownership, English is not just a language for one country or group, like the USA or the UK. It actually belongs to all users (Ambele & Boonsuk, 2021a.…”

“…Although studies of Global Englishes (GE) in an Asian English language teaching (ELT) context, especially in Thai higher education, are comparatively rare, there are yet potentials for a new perspective in ELT in this context (Ambele & Boonsuk, 2021a;Boonsuk, Ambele, & McKinley, 2021). Few studies (Fang, 2016(Fang, , 2017He, 2015;Pan & Block, 2011;Sung, 2014Sung, , 2016Wang, 2013) have examined students' perceptions of English from a Global Englishes (GE) perspective, and even fewer have done so with learners who are knowledgeable about Global Englishes.…”