Essays Writing of the Project of Thai Usage Skills Competition for Southern Secondary Schools to Grab Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn

Abstract

The research was aimed to analyze essays written by the students in Thai Usage Skills competition Project in secondary school level in South Thailand for Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn’s Trophy in 2018-2019. The objective was to analyses the four essay elements: titling, introduction, conclusion, and writing concepts. The essays under study were titled by two phonological strategies: titling 1) use of rhyme with one rhyme and two and over two rhymes identified and 2) use of phonological rhymes including consonant rhymes and vowel rhymes, and lexical strategies with 6 characteristics: use of figurative language, use of homophone, use of reduplication, use of antonym, use of words with similar sounds, and use of advanced terms. Regarding the essay introduction writing, 8 forms were pinpointed: prose or poetry, speech citation, informing content, definition, questions, description, quirk and giving information straightforwardly. With reference to the conclusion of the essay, it involved the following 10 forms: suggestion, thinking stimulation, persuasion, prose and poetry, allusion, description, proverbs, figurative language, questioning, and emphasis placed on main ideas. There were 9 writing concepts: 1) royal grace of Thai kings as well as of royal family towards the Thai language; 2) the creation of Thai alphabet by King Ram Khamhaeng; 3) Thai as a cultural heritage of the nation; 4) Thai as the nation’s identity; 5) Thai language features; 6) Thai as a communication tool; 7) values and significance of Thai; 8) pride of Thailand in having its own language and 9) the current use of Thai.