This research aimed to investigate if the application of the virtual learning (VL) platform, developed VRChat in teaching and developing students’ English listening skills is highly effective. Other different variables namely genders, majors of study, and the number of hours the students spent on the screen were also investigated. The VRChat platform has been employed as a research tool in the study for developing undergraduate students’ English listening skills. The forty students themselves have been purposively randomly selected. They were from different majors of social sciences and sciences, divided 24 females and 16 males. They were studying English course at the university as a compulsory required subject. The students took the test of english for international communication (TOEIC) Listening test as the pre-test at the beginning of the semester and participated in the English language classes to practice for developing their listening skills by typically interacting with the English contents, having discussion in the VRChat platform virtually followed the instructional design with the teacher as a facilitator. The students were later asked to take the TOEIC Listening test again at the end of the semester as the post-test. The data has been analyzed through the t-test and ANOVA. The findings showed that students with different backgrounds have developed their English listening skills. Therefore, applying the VL platform of the VRChat for developing students’ English language skills was highly recommended.
This research aimed to (1) study English language anxiety of Thai graduate students based on different age groups, field of study, and type of higher education institution, (2) analyse the relationship between English language classroom anxiety and English language proficiency of Thai graduate students, (3) develop an instructional model to reduce English language anxiety and improve productive skills in English, and (4) propose practical guidelines for reducing English language classroom anxiety. The participants comprised of 270 graduate students from public higher education institutions, private higher education institutions, Rajabhat universities and Rajamangala universities of technology. The research instruments were the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS), semi-structured interview form, ten lesson plans based on the instructional model to reduce English language anxiety and improve productive skills in English, and productive skills in English tests. Mean and standard deviation, one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA), Pearson's correlation, and Dependent Samples T test were used to analyse quantitative data. Thematic Analysis was used to analyse qualitative data. The results revealed that Thai graduate students had a moderate level of language anxiety. Students in private universities have a significantly higher average foreign language classroom anxiety level than those in Rajabhat universities, while there was no meaningful difference in language anxiety between different age groups and fields of study at .05 level of significance. The results also revealed a significant negative relationship between English language classroom and English language proficiency, whereby the lower the language proficiency, the higher the language anxiety. The English language classroom anxiety post-treatment mean score of the participants was significantly lower after receiving the treatment based on the instructional model, while the productive skills in English post-treatment mean score was significantly higher at .05 level of significance. The proposed practical guidelines for reducing English language classroom anxiety were highly feasible, and highly suitable for implementation.
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