Abstract—In response to the influx of English influence
which potentially leads to national identity subjugation,
coupled with the prevalent importance for a nation’s citizens to
be competent in English, this paper highlights the role of
English education in Thailand as an appropriate channel to
address the imminent need to not only develop English
competence but also maintain and preserve Thai national
identities. Given the pivotal role of elementary education as the
grassroots of the entire educational paradigm, this study has
the objective of developing a set of English instructional
materials for Grade 4 students. Specifically contextualized in
southern Thailand, prominent and distinguishing features of
the teaching materials created lie in the focus placed on
southern Thai features. To assure that the constructed
materials reflect the actual needs of the community, a
questionnaire consisting of a list of 46 tourist attractions in
southern Thailand was administered to local residents to elicit
the top eight most popular tourist attractions in Southern
Thailand. The list of eight attractions in turn provides a basis
for the construction of the eight English lessons. Conforming
to the same format, individual lessons begin with 10 vocabulary
items associated with each lesson topic, followed by 6 to 8
sentences integrating all of the 10 words. Finally, the entire set
of lessons was validated by English school teachers in southern
Thailand for content accuracy and the appropriateness of the
English for Grade 4 students. This study represents one
pedagogical attempt to ameliorate young Thai learners’
English and whilst inculcating into them Thainess features.
Index Terms—Teaching materials, elementary students,
preservation, English lessons, southern Thainess.
Budsaba Kanoksilapatham is with the Silpakorn University, Thailand (email:
kanoksib@gmail.com).
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Cite: Budsaba Kanoksilapatham, "Constructing Local Thainess-Based English Teaching Materials: Southern Thailand," International Journal of Languages, Literature and Linguistics vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 241-246, 2019.