Game Design to Improve Thai Speaking Skills for Chinese Students

Abstract

Games make learners fun and eager to participate in the learning process. This research study was to improve the Thai speaking skills of Chinese students. The objectives were to design a game-based learning activity (GBL) and to study the developmental effects of Thai speaking skills after the activity experiment. Repeated-measures experimental design was used in this research by using gamebased learning and collected scores on the Thai speaking in test 3 times and homework assignment 6 times. The researcher studied 80 Chinese students in the first year of a bachelor's degree in the Faculty of Foreign Languages at Baise University. The research tool consisted of 1) the GBL activity plan and 2) the rubric assessment criteria. The assessment of Thai speaking skills was divided into 2 areas: a) scores of test and b) scores of homework assignment. Content analysis, mean, standard deviation, and repeated measurement were used to analyse the data. The result of the research showed that the GBL activity design included both practical homework and sticker-based classroom games. The learning goals were to pronounce Thai consonants and words correctly and to construct sentences correctly. After the experimental activity, it was found that Chinese students had a statistically significant increase in their Thai speaking skills.