Phonological and Writing Systems of English and Thai

In the second style and foreign wording (FL) classroom belles-lettres, it has been claimed that several variables related to the interface betwixt L1 and L2/ FL, i. e. psychological aspects, contribute to language learners perception and deed of a foreign language. A study of these variables could scram important implications for the teaching of foreign languages. More recently, the place of spoken and written L2 input (e. g. Bassetti, 2008 Moyer, 2009) has been studied in greater detail, and there is an abundance of such studies.In this chapter, the applicable literature will be illustrated and critiqued, with get outicular forethought to the works on phonological systems and writing systems crosswise languages and the interaction between the two systems. In addition, the put to work of emotive factors on the generative skills of Thai learners is look intoed. The origin section of the chapter is a discussion of the relevant literature on the differences between phonol ogical and writing systems crossways languages and the resulting language learner output, followed by a review of the framework to be used in this study.The lowest section is a review of the effects of the affective factors on the learners language achievement and language mathematical operation as well as on language learning. 1. The related literature The findings reported in the literature that the majority of Thai learners of English demonstrate a low degree of proficiency, especially in the productive skills (speaking and writing) reflect the fact that English language command in Thailand is still in its infancy (Wongsothorn, A. , Hiranburana, K. & Chinnawongs, S. 2002 Laopongharn & Sercombe, 2009, among others). As reported in the national survey (1999) conducted by the Office of Educational Testing of the De disassemblement of program and Instruction (in Khamkhien, 2010), high school sstudents productive skills were largely below 50 per cent, i. e. below average, lead ing to the testimony in the report for immediate improvements of writing powerfulness in all educational institutions in the unsophisticated (Wongsothorn et al. , 2002 112). There ar several factors that could prevent Thai learners of English from aining a sthrong command of productive skills in English. In terms of the phonological system, Yangklang (2006) investigated the improvement in orthoepy of English final l in 40 Thai sstudents in Matthayom Suksa 4 at presumption Convent Lamnarai School who had used the Computer-Assisted Instruction (CAI) computer programme she was testing. The CAI in the study, as described by Yangklang contained drill and dedicate exercises. Drill and recitation activities aimed to provide learners with adequate practices and in kindred manner to review items that were new to learners.The goal of the drill and practice activities was to teach sstudents to pronounce words with final /-l/ accurately and automatically. These practices and exercis es were, therefore, provided by the computer programme as part of the post-lesson activities. The participants were divided into two groups according to their competence of pronunciation of English, one with good pronunciation and the other with short(p) ability. Prior to the experimental task, each participant had interpreted a placement test to classify their pronunciation competence.Subsequently, they all took three pronunciation post-tests every calendar week for three weeks. It was found that both groups of sstudents improved their pronunciation significantly after they used the CAI programme. In general, both groups had positive reactions to the use of the CAI programme for improving their pronunciation. Obviously, the programme helped the participants improve their pronunciation, given that they had intensive facts of life on pronunciation practice of specific English consonant vocalizes, and the post-test of pronouncing the sound was administered immediately after the programme training.As whole wheat flour (1997) and Macaro (2006), among others, have pointed out, effective language learning is about mastering communicatory skills, i. e. speaking, writing, listening, and reading. This indicates that the more learners practise, the better their communicative performance in a language. In pipeline with this, the results did not show anything unexpected. The point at issue, which I shall leave for future study, is how can accurate pronunciation, e. g. of the /l/ sound, be maintained after short-term, intensive training?In Yangklangs findings, the English consonant sound /l/ which constitutes the coda, i. e. word-final ending in /l/, (see physical body 1 below) could be realised as l, n, and w by the participants. The participants with good pronunciation appeared to produce the l, whilst the participants from the poorer group appeared to buzz off n and w instead of l or ? . The n was produced more frequently than w by these participants, however . Yangklang did not discuss why n and w constitute allophones of /l/.In the study, it was the poorer group who produced such allophones, and it was reported from interviews that the participants had not merely been exposed to an environment where English is used as a medium of communication. In the word list, part of the research instrument which consisted of pronunciation tests contained words like ball, mile, etc. which are English loanwords. I assume that there is some cart of segmental alternation with regard to English loanwords.As /l/ is not available at coda position, the notion of final consonant phoneme alternation appears plausible. That is to say, n and w appear to be alternatives. Paradis (1996) in Kentowicz & Suchato (2006), claimed that the position of such segments in tout geometry and prosodic coordinate was relevant in dealing with segmental alternation in loanwords. Based on the data, /l/ and /n/ come to into the same natural class, in that both of them are so norant consonants, which can be represented by the feature matrices