A Study of English Speaking Skill Problems of Khmer Krom Students in Faculty of Humanities at Mahachulalongkornrajavidyalaya University

Abstract

The mixed-method research aimed to investigate and proposed the solutions for problems of English speaking skill problems encountered by Khmer Krom students focused on students’ motivations, teachers’ teaching techniques, and environments and students lack time for English speaking. The participants were 20 students and 5 teachers in Faculty of Humanities of Mahachula longkornrajavidyalaya University, Wangnoi, Thailand during the academic year 2018-2019 and selected by the quota sampling techniques. The questionnaires and In-depth interviews were used as an instrument. The statistics used for data analysis were frequency, percentage, mean, and standard deviation. The results obtained from the study indicated that the students had moderate level for Mean = 2.88 (S.D. = 1.06) as they were not confident, they also were poor at tenses and were afraid to speak English because their pronunciation was very poor. The students had high level for Mean = 3.66 (S.D.=0.54) problems as English teachers speak a lot in class. In additional, the students had moderate level for Mean = 3.48 (S.D. = 0.51) problems as most of them spoken in their mother tongue. Moreover, to solve the problems of speaking, the researcher recommended the strategies as follows: students should review grammar and study more vocabulary. The students should read a newspaper and books to improve their pronunciation. The students should often listen to the native speakers’ speaking through using social media, etc. The students should practice English speaking via social networks and attend the activities based on the playing games and speaking tasks those for everyone.