The Needs for English Pronunciation Learning Center of EarlyChildhood Education Teachers in Rayong Primary Education Service Area 1

Abstract

               The purpose of this study was to investigate the needs for English Pronunciation Learning Center of early childhood education teachers in Rayong Primary Education Service Area 1.

              The research sample consisted of 222 early childhood education teachers in Rayong Primary Education Service Area 1, obtained by stratified random sampling. The employed research instrument was a needs assessment questionnaire.  Data were analyzed using the percentage, mean, and standard deviation.

             Research findings showed that early childhood education teachers’ overall need for English Pronunciation Learning Center was at the high level.  Components of the Center that received the need rating mean at the high level were the following: (1) the philosophy of the Center was for the fun in listening, correctness in accent, and fluency in pronunciation; the policy of the Center was to focus on development of English pronunciation via practice; the objective of the center was to enhance English pronunciation of early childhood education teachers for uses in instruction; (2) types of the Center’s needed classrooms were the English pronunciation skill testing room, the English pronunciation skill practice room, the English pronunciation clinic room, the English pronunciation knowledge retrieval room, the English pronunciation teaching experiment room, and the English pronunciation media production room; (3) the scope of pronunciation contents that the teachers needed were pronunciations of consonants and vowels, single vowels, phonetic symbols, initial sound, medial sound, final sound, stress, and intonation; the learning steps to start with learning registration and followed by pre-testing, classroom selection, study in the learning center, undertaking learning activities, and post-testing; learning evaluation should consist of pre-testing on pronunciation, formative evaluation, and post-testing on pronunciation; (4) the Center personnel should be English teachers; and (5) the benefit that teachers would receive from the Center was that they could apply their obtained knowledge on English pronunciation in their teaching.