This study aimed at analyzing writing errors caused by the interference of the Thai language, regarded as the first language (L1), in three writing genres, namely narration, description, and comparison/contrast. 120 English paragraphs written by 40 second year English major students were analyzed by using Error Analysis (EA).The results revealed that the first language interference errors fell into 16 categories: verb tense, word choice, sentence structure, article, preposition, modal/auxiliary, singular/plural form, fragment, verb form, pronoun, run-on sentence, infinitive/gerund, transition, subject-verb agreement, parallel structure, and comparison structure, respectively, and the number of frequent errors made in each type of written tasks was apparently different. In narration, the five most frequent errors found were verb tense, word choice, sentence structure, preposition, and modal/auxiliary, respectively, while the five most frequent errors in description and comparison/contrast were article, sentence structure, word choice, singular/plural form, and subject-verb agreement, respectively. Interestingly, in the narrative and descriptive paragraphs, comparison structure was found to be the least frequent error, whereas it became the 10 th frequent error in comparison/contrast writing. It was apparent that a genre did affect writing errors as different text types required different structural features. It could be concluded that to enhance students' grammatical and lexical accuracy, a second language (L2) writing teacher should take into consideration L1 interference categories in different genres.

<p>The purposes of this research were to study the effects of online peer tutoring on the first-year undergraduate students’ English grammar achievement and to examine their satisfaction towards an online peer tutoring process. The sample used in this study consisted of 53 first-year English major students, registered for the course of English Structure 2 in Semester 2/2017. The research instruments used for data collection were pre-and post-tests, a questionnaire with a reliability of 0.84, and a semi-structured interview. The obtained quantitative data were analyzed by mean, percentage, standard deviation, and paired sample t-test, while the students’ answers from the interview were analyzed based on the qualitative analytical methods. The results  showed that the students’ English grammar achievement was significantly improved at the .01 level after the process of online peer tutoring covering five compulsory grammar points in the course syllabus, comprising conditional clause, indirect speech, causative form, transitional words, and subjunctive mood. Besides, the students’ satisfaction towards the online peer tutoring process was overall rated at a very high level as it, compared to in-class activities and a traditional teaching method, more apparently helped promote not only students’ grammatical knowledge retention, sense of responsibility, and genuine collaboration with classmates but also their motivation and confidence in using English for daily communication.</p>

Mathematics class can cause many problems if students do not organize diversity and habits correctly. Using a sociograph to form a mathematics study group is one way to organize assortment in the mathematics class. Sociograph is a friendship pathway that appears in a math class. In this sense, this study aims to determine the impact of forming study groups based on friendship in a mathematics class on problem-solving abilities. A quasi-experimental research design with 30 students was used. A friendship questionnaire and a problem-solving test were used as instruments. In addition, an independent t-test was used to analyze the data. The study results indicate that study groups formed through friendship pathways (sociograph) have a more significant effect than those formed through other means. As a result, the formation of heterogeneous groups based on friendship can be used as an alternative to the formation of study groups.

In second language pragmatics, the student has long received much more attention than the teacher with the principal aim to examine the former’s pragmatic competence and to innovate teaching in order to increase it. However, reports on students’ poor pragmatic performance have identified the ineffectiveness of this predisposed interest. Therefore, the researchers argue for a closer investigation into the teachers who are crucial in contributing to the latter’s ability. In the present study, a survey and a structured interview were used with a purposive sample of 38 Thai EFL university instructors to elicit in-depth information about their beliefs in the value of pragmatic knowledge, their self-reflection of incorporating pragmatic content in class, and factors that might complicate the relation between the beliefs and actual teaching. Findings show that while participants hold considerable positivity regarding the need for pragmatic content, their existent teaching is relatively less due to certain limitations. Among them, student background and type of course are the most influential factors in their pragmatic teaching knowledge. Moreover, participants’ pragmatic knowledge background and language experience have a significant correlation with their existing teaching (r =.38, p = .01). The inadequate proportion of in-class pragmatic content presents itself as a direct cause for students’ poor performance since they lack both the necessary knowledge and practice. The paper concludes with practical steps to systemize in-class teaching of pragmatic knowledge in Thai EFL contexts and perhaps elsewhere.