An assessment of the English-language needs of second-year Thai undergraduate engineering students in a Thai public university in Thailand in relation to the second-year EAP program in engineering.

摘要

This study was to investigate the English-language needs of 182 second-year Thai undergraduate engineering students in a Thai public university in Thailand for their study in their second-year English program in engineering. A two-part self-assessment questionnaire was constructed based upon the previous research on the English-language needs of English as a Second Language (ESL)/English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students, particularly in Science and Technology in relation to English for Academic Purposes (EAP). The first part of the questionnaire asks for their demographic variables: gender, specialty, years of studying English in the school(s), and self-reported English proficiency in Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing skills. The second part deals with 45 items of English-language needs in four major areas: Language Structures, Rhetorical Categories, Language Functions, and Language Skills (Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing). The findings of this study determined by the descriptive statistical analyses indicate that the majority of these engineering students seem to show similarity with their perceived English-language needs in those four major areas listed in the questionnaire as being moderately important or very important to learn in their second-year English program in engineering. Generally speaking, their self-perceptions of the English-language needs in the questionnaire in association with these demographic variables: gender; specialty: Chemical, Civil, Computer, Electrical, Industrial and Mechanical Engineering; and years of studying English in the school(s) did not differ statistically significantly at the 5% level of significance (alpha = .05). Recommendations, implications, and suggestions for applications and future research are also discussed.