A COMPARISON OF STRATEGIES EMPLOYED TO LEARN THAI AND ENGLISH VOCABULARY BY BILINGUAL THAI STUDENTS ENROLLED AT THE MIDDLE SCHOOL LEVEL IN AN INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL: A FOCUS ON DUAL LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT

Abstract

This study aimed to 1) Compare the vocabulary learning strategies used by Thai bilingual students in English and Thai in an international school, and 2) Examine the frequency of use of these strategies in both languages. The population consisted of 120 Thai bilingual students in grades 6 - 8 at an international school, from which a sample of 92 students was randomly selected to ensure equal opportunity for participation. The research instruments comprised two questionnaires designed to investigate vocabulary learning strategies in both languages. A 5-point Likert scale was used, and content validity was confirmed by experts, with all items achieving an IOC ≥ 0.50. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics (mean and standard deviation) and inferential statistics (paired-sample t-tests). The findings revealed that the most frequently used vocabulary learning strategies differed between English and Thai, reflecting variations in learning contexts and language familiarity. For English, students most often learned vocabulary through entertainment media, with a mean of 3.97 ("often"), and placed strong emphasis on attentive classroom learning, with a mean of 3.81 ("often"). In contrast, for Thai, students commonly requested teachers to explain unfamiliar words while inferring meaning from the textual context, with a mean of 3.56 ("often"). Affective strategies were the highest-ranked group, with a mean use of 3.65 for English ("often") and 3.26 for Thai ("sometimes"). This indicates that, in today's pressured learning environments, affective strategies are key in reducing anxiety, sustaining motivation, and managing emotions when encountering unfamiliar vocabulary.