The process of acquiring a native language typically occurs naturally and at an early age. Language is essential for communicating in everyday situations and sharing thoughts and ideas in society. As the world has become more globalized, the ability to speak a foreign language, namely English, has become more necessary, especially in politics, science, and technology. For this reason, many countries throughout the world are making changes to their educational policy to include the learning of English in their curriculum. Thailand is currently a member of the ASEAN Community and the establishment of the ASEAN Community in 2015 will inevitably affect Thailand in every aspect. To ensure that Thailand is prepared to be an active and contributing participant of ASEAN, the Office of Higher Education Commission (OHEC) launched the Higher Education Strategies for the ASEAN Community in 2015. The goal of the strategies is for Thai graduates to be equipped
with professional skills, communication skills, and inter-cultural skills that meet international
standards. One aspect of the strategy is a reform of language education in English and other languages used in ASEAN. Currently in Thailand, English is a required subject taught first at the elementary level with the goal of providing students with a basic knowledge of using English as a foreign language and building on this knowledge at the junior and high school levels. At the post-secondary level, English is a required subject for all majors. However, in some universities such as Rajamanagala University of Technology Srivijaya, Songkhla, Thailand, there are few opportunities for students to use English in real life situations. This results in a lack of English ability despite learning English for more than ten years. It is therefore the challenge for teachers of courses such as English Conversation to improve students’ listening and speaking skills. Listening is obviously a necessary skill when communicating with others, but due to lack of real opportunities to listen to and communicate with native speakers, it is the teachers’ duty to provide other learning situations to improve this skill. Traditional ways of listening to and repeating textbook CDs or recordings may not be interesting or realistic examples of communication. Teachers must look to other facets of listening that are typically enjoyable to students such as listening to music and watching movies and TV. Watching carefully chosen scenes and clips from English media can provide students with the opportunity to become engaged in both a visual and audio representation of real life situations with the natural vocabulary, phrases, slang, and intonation used by native speakers. As students become
interested in the story line and characters of what they are watching, their motivation to learn English may increase. As scenes from English movies and TV series are readily found internationally on YouTube, it was the aim of the researcher to investigate a way to enhance her students’ listening skills in the English Conversation course.