A STUDY OF TEACHING QUALITY EVALUATION SYSTEMOF THAI LANGUAGE MAJOR IN UNDERGRAD LEVEL IN REGULAR HIGHER EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS: YUNNAN PROVINCE AS AN EXAMPLE

Abstract

There is a scarcity of literature on evaluation – particularly in the field of language teaching and learning and educational evaluation – that addresses the quality evaluation system of undergraduate-level Thai-language teaching programs in the context of mainland China. Therefore, this study aims to fill this research gap by proposing an evaluation design including evaluation concepts, guiding principles, and required information to underpin a more effective evaluation system for the undergraduate-level Thai language program. Based on the evaluation of teaching quality, the fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method is used to construct a more efficient undergraduate Thai teaching evaluation system, and a perfect index system is formed. Thai teaching at nine institutions in Yunnan province were selected as the sample which were investigated via questionnaire surveys and interviews to reveal the problems in the Thai language teaching quality evaluation system of higher-level undergraduate colleges, analyze the causes and find ways to improve the quality of teaching which can be used as a basis to improve other Thai majors. The conclusions are: 1) the Thai language teaching quality evaluation system constructed in this study is more reasonable; 2) the evaluation of teaching quality has different scores in different evaluation subjects with the student group's evaluation of teaching quality being different to teachers' peers and teaching supervisors, and with significant differences; 3) there are differences in the evaluation results of teaching quality in different Thai language content teaching; 4) the teaching design and organizational skills of Thai language teachers are not high; and 5) the outcome of the reform of Thai language practice teaching is more obvious. According to this research, the existing teaching quality evaluation system can be improved and revised; the teaching quality evaluation guarantee mechanism can be established and improved; school-enterprise cooperation can be further promoted; and the effective connection between talent and society can be realized.

Keywords: Undergraduate teaching; Thai major; teaching quality evaluation; evaluation system construction; teaching quality reform