Factors Affecting Effectiveness of Communicative English Language Teaching in Thailand

Abstract

English has been served as the leading international language commonly used worldwide and is therefore considered one of the critical 21st century skills. However, it has been reported that the overall English performances of a majority of Thai students are somewhat below standard. Undoubtedly, having unsatisfactory English proficiency can be considered a major obstacle for Thai students and graduates to professional accomplishment. In 2014, the Ministry of Education therefore announced the policy to reform the teaching and learning of English in the basic education level through various methods. One of them was the implementation of the Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) approach in the Thai classroom context. However, it is still uncertain whether the Communicative English Language Teaching approach is suitable for Thailand as the average scores for the English language examination in the Ordinary National Education Test (O-NET) in the 2018 academic year were still as disappointing as in previous years. Thus, the purpose of this study is to critically examine the effectiveness of Communicative English Language Teaching approach in Thailand. Based on a review of the relevant studies, it was found that bringing Communicative English Language Teaching into practice still had some limitations in terms of teachers, students, and educational administration and management. In addition, valuable implications which could be used as the strategies for improvement in the implementation of Communicative English Language Teaching in Thailand are finally suggested.