Development of A Direct Method Approach for Enhancing English Speaking Skills of B.A. Second-Year Students at The Faculty of Education, Mahachulalongkornrajavidyalaya University, Thailand

Abstract

This research aimed to develop a Direct Method approach to enhance English-speaking skills among B.A. second-year students at the Faculty of Education, Mahachulalongkornrajavidyalaya University (MCU), Thailand. The objectives of the study were: 1) to investigate students’ problems and needs in speaking English; 2) to develop an instructional approach based on the Direct Method; and 3) to evaluate the effectiveness and satisfaction of students toward the developed method. The study followed a Research and Development (R&D) framework with 30 second-year students as participants. The research tools included a needs analysis questionnaire, pre-test and post-test, six lesson plans, a speaking rubric, and a satisfaction survey. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics (mean and standard deviation) and paired sample t-tests.

The findings showed that students initially lacked confidence, vocabulary, and speaking fluency. After using the Direct Method, post-test scores improved significantly in all key areas—fluency, accuracy, and vocabulary usage. Students also reported high satisfaction with the approach, citing its interactive nature and real-life communication opportunities. The study concluded that the Direct Method is highly effective for enhancing English speaking in Buddhist higher education. The results contribute to language pedagogy in religious academic settings and offer practical applications for communicative language teaching at the university level in Thailand.