Teaching phonological accuracy and communicative fluency at Thai secondary schools

Abstract

The purpose of this investigation was to determine the opinions of secondary level Thai teachers who teach English. Their perspectives were collected and compared concerning phonological accuracy practice, communicative fluency activities, authentic teaching techniques and determining appropriate ways to solve the problems of phonological teaching and communicative English language teaching in Thailand. The subjects of the study were 96 teachers from 8 secondary schools in Bangkok, Thailand. The research instrument included a questionnaire with thirty items measured on a five point rating scale plus four open-ended questions seeking descriptive data. The data were statistically compiled according to arithmetic mean and percentage. The results showed that the teachers have very highly positive attitudes towards teaching phonological accuracy and highly positive attitudes towards communicative fluency activities. However, teachers' attitudes do not relate to the pedagogy conducted in their classrooms as highly as expected. It was also found that the teachers considered themselves to have sufficient knowledge of the theoretical content on phonological accuracy and communicative fluency activity, but most of them also wanted to improve their teaching in these aspects. Many problems revealed by the data are discussed to establish appropriate solutions.