Environmental influences on competence in English as a foreign language : A study of Thai undergraduates at an international university in Thailand

Abstract

This study is designed in an attempt to examine the ideal and the actual university learning environment in relation to English language learning and to investigate the actual environmental influence on the students’ English language competence. This is to understand why a number of Thai university students of English-medium instruction programs are still unable to attain high levels of English proficiency despite engaging in an English-medium education system. An interpretive approach was used to conduct interviews with 10 teachers and 15 students of an international university, along with questionnaires which were administered to 175 students. The results disclose some major differences between the ideal and the actual university learning environment, perceived by the teachers and experienced by the students respectively. The major differences are related to the nature and amount of English exposure as well as the responsibilities of the English-medium instruction program’s teachers. Precisely, having limited exposure to English outside the classroom, being exposed to little social English, getting little English-related feedback, and having few native English-speaking teachers were reported to be the major causes of these students’ inability to use English effectively. Overall, with the improvement in all the four language skills, the students reported having difficulty in using English in some aspects, English writing and grammar in particular. Based on this study’s findings, major valuable implications which could be used as the strategies for improvement in the quality of the teaching and learning environments are finally suggested.