Instruments
The FLCAS of Horwitz et al. (1986) was used to measure foreign language anxiety. The
questionnaire contains thirty-three statements which participants respond to in
accordance with their level of agreement or disagreement using a 5-point Likert scale
where 5 indicates the highest level of FLCA and 1 indicates the lowest level. The
FLCAS was translated into Thai by a single Thai faculty member and back-translated
into English by two other Thai faculty members with assistance from a foreign English
teacher who also understands the Thai language (see Appendix). Midterm examinations
from native-speaker ESL classrooms were used to measure performance in English
content among all groups.
In addition to the English exam, the immersion group was administered other tests.
Students in the immersion group completed a bilingual maths exam, which contained
two sections of equally difficult word problems––15 problems in the Thai language and
15 problems in the English language––and a supplementary maths exam consisting of
only numerical computational problems. A grade 6 (P6) pre-ONET test was also
administered to students in the immersion group. Finally, every immersion student was
required to give a prepared speech in English, and later engaged in a question-andanswer
session, each of which was graded with a pass or fail mark.