Effects of communicative competency in English by using project based learning of undergraduate students in Thailand

Abstract

This The purposes of this research were 1) to study effects of communicative competency in English by using project based learning of undergraduate students at Thai-Nichi Institute of Technology, 2) to compare communicative competency in English before and after using project based learning of the students, and 3) to investigate the students' satisfaction towards project based learning method. The subject consisted of 30 first year undergraduate students at Thai-Nichi Institute of Technology during second semester of 2016 academic year which derived through simple random technique. The instruments used in this experiment included lesson plans, a project evaluation form, a communicative competency test, a student's self- assessment form and a satisfaction questionnaire. The experimental process and data collection were conducted as follows: The subjects were given a communicative competency pretest. Then, the 5 English communicative projects were used 45 hours in 12 weeks. After the completion of each project, a project evaluation form and a student's self-assessment form were administered to measure the subjects' English communicative achievement, and a questionnaire was used for investigating the subjects' satisfaction towards project based learning method. The t-test was employed to compare the subjects' English communicative achievement before and after using project based learning method. The mean and standard deviation of scores from the project evaluation form, the student's self-assessment form, and satisfaction questionnaire were used to measure at the end of instruction. The experiment lasted 45 hours. The results were 1) the students' communicative competency in English by using project-based learning was at high level, 2) the students' communicative competency in English after the project-based learning was significantly higher than before, with projects constructed at 0.05 level and 3) the students' satisfaction towards project based learning method was at high level.