Abstract
Over the past decade, agripreneurship has emerged to increase the potential of agricultural sector. Many universities have advanced the vision of agripreneur development for students. There is still a limited number of English for agripreneur textbooks worldwide. The aim of this study was to critically investigate the needs analysis of Thai students in higher education to develop English language skills for agripreneur. This study was carried out on a group of thirty agricutural students at Maejo university, Phrae campus, in Northern Thailand. The research instruments included a questionnaire and interviews for developing the six skills of English language learning. Descriptive statistics and the modified Priority Need Index (PNImodified) were used for the needs assessment. The results indicated that the students had moderate level of English language proficiency. Most students ranked reading as their best skill (X ̅=3.13) and grammar as their weakest skill (X ̅=2.53). Another important finding was that the students extensively needed to improve the English skills, especially in speaking, with pitching identified as the most critical task to be an agripreneur (PNImodified=1.70). This was followed by listening, writing, vocabulary, and reading, respectively. An unanticipated finding was that the students still rated grammar as the least skill needed, particularly regarding relative pronouns (PNImodified=0.52). The results of this study will contribute to the course syllabus for the development of an English for agripreneur textbook tailored to the needs and knowledge of Thai agricultural students with Thai-context culture, enhancing sustainable learning in English for specific purpose.
Author Information
Alisa Injan, Maejo University Phrae Campus, Thailand
Paper Information
Conference: ACE2024
Stream: Foreign Languages Education & Applied Linguistics (including ESL/TESL/TEFL)
This paper is part of the ACE2024 Conference Proceedings (View)
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