STUDY OF THE USE OF MULTIMEDIA FOR ENGLISH TEACHERS IN SPECIAL PURPOSE SCHOOLS IN NORTHERN REGION

Abstract

The study consists of two main objectives: 1) to explore the types of multimedia used in English classroom and 2) to study the use of multimedia in English classroom. The participants were 20 Thai EFL teachers teaching at Special Purpose Schools in Northern region. The data collection obtained from questionnaire and semi-structured interview. The quantitative data was analyzed using mean scores and percentile while qualitative data obtained from semi-structured interview was analyzed using content analysis. The results showed that from 7 types of multimedia used in English classroom, the type of audio and video technologies, teachers used song and movie. For computers, they used Word®, and PowerPoint®. In the Internet type, they applied Google, YouTube, Facebook, Google Sites, BBC, and LINE. For game and simulation, they used Final Fantasy. For small mobile computers and e-book, they used notebook while in MP3 Players, cell phones, and other new technologies, they relied on CD and DVD players. And specialized electronic tools, they pointed out Text Reader. In using multimedia in classroom, they reported using them in warm-up or introduction to provoke students’ interest, present new content, and show language used examples. Few teachers used multimedia in seminar/ conference or talk with students. They created online test using Google Applications. Teachers appeared to use multimedia in all skills activities especially in audio and video technologies, computers, the Internet, and Small mobile computers and electronic books (e-book).