Development of Self- Access Computer Assisted Language Learning to Improve English Writing Skills for Undergraduate Students at King Mongkutûs University of Technology Thonburi

Abstract

Studying English is not limited to classrooms or language labs but students can autonomously learnlanguage with electronic materials on the Internet that are accessible conveniently by computers at anytime and place. For this reason, the researcher developed a self-access computer assisted language learning(CALL) material to improve English writing skills entitled “Tips for writing a good paragraph’’ for undergraduatestudents at King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi.

This material is composed of 5 lessons: mind mapping, structure of a paragraph, sentence structure,sentence conjunctions, and tips for writing a good paragraph. Each lesson provides explanations, examplesand exercises which are in three levels of difficulty for each topic and a comprehensive exercise at the end.Each exercise is presented with answer for the learner’s self evaluation. Each lesson ends up with extra testgame.

The above material was tried out and evaluated by 100 students, volunteered from several faculties.The results from the questionnaire revealed that from 29 characteristics of the material evaluated, thestudents considered 22 characteristics as very desirable (X = 3.54 - 4.46). For example, there were exercisesin levels of difficulty, explanation of grammatical rules and examples, vocabulary games, authenticillustration, test scores, homepage and Thai description, etc. The other 7 characteristics were consideredmoderately desirable (X = 3.12 - 3.48). As a result, in developing a CALL material, especially for Englishcourses, these desirable characteristics are recommended to be included to satisfy the learner’s needs.

Keywords : Computer Assisted Language learning (CALL) / English Writing Skills / ParagraphWriting