Enhancing English Phonemic Awareness of Thai Grade One Students through Multimedia Computer-assisted Language Learning

Abstract

This study aims to investigate whether the English phonemic awareness of Thai grade one students can be enhanced through a multimedia CALL program while learning the English language through the whole word approach. It also explores Thai grade one students’ views on improving phonemic awareness through a multimedia CALL program while learning the English language through the whole word approach. The research participants were 50 Thai grade one students who were classified into good, fair, and poor groups according to their English proficiency scores. The students in each group were divided equally into experimental and control groups: 25 students in the experimental group and 25 students in the control group. Then, three participants from each good, fair, and poor group were randomly selected to participate in a semi-structured interview. Three phonemic awareness tests were used to collect quantitative data obtained from the experimental and control groups. These tests were analyzed using descriptive statistics (Mean and SD) and t-test. In addition, a semi-structured interview was used to collect qualitative data with the data being analyzed using content analysis. The results of the study revealed that the experimental group made significantly greater gains in English phonemic awareness than the control group at the .001 level. Moreover, the finding of the qualitative data indicated that the students who were provided with the multimedia CALL program had positive views on enhancing phonemic awareness through this supportive tool while learning the English language through the whole word approach.