A Vocational Training Course for Chinese Volunteers at Faculty of International Studies, Prince of Songkla University, Phuket Campus

Abstract

In March 2010, the Faculty of International Studies, Prince of Songkla University, in cooperation with the Confucius Institute at Phuket, provided a vocational training course to six Chinese volunteers. The course aimed to provide the Chinese volunteers with knowledge of Thai language and culture and foreign language teaching methodology. The training lasted for 10 months: March to December 2010, and the assessment was done through an achievement test and teaching practice evaluation. At the completion of the course, the trainees reached the training objectives with high scores from the achievement test (an average of 86%) and with high performance from the teaching practicum (an average of 85%). Closed- and open-ended questionnaires were employed to investigate the effectiveness of the training. Results from the close-ended questionnaire showed that the training was of high quality since the contents met the trainees educational and professional needs and it was an adequate integration of theory-based and practical-based training. Similarly, the instructors and mentor teachers satisfactorily completed their tasks as the instructors taught step-by-step, gave constructive feedback, and used effective teaching methods and the mentor teachers supervised the trainees closely, provided prompt assistance, and helped improve the trainees teaching performance. Moreover, findings from the open-ended questionnaire revealed that the training course fostered the trainees teaching confidence, knowledge, and methodologies. A recommendation made for the training was that it should be that Thai language courses should be more interrelated with the teaching methodology courses.