A Study On Chinese Learning Style Of Thai Middle School Students Based On The Practice Of Teaching Chinese As A Second Language

In the wake of spread of Humanistic perspective, the main emphasis of educational research moved from "teaching" to "learning". In the process of practice of teaching Chinese as a second language, how to teach students in accordance with their aptitude comes into focus for all Chinese teachers. Based on the review of relevant theories of learning style, and by selecting students randomly from the ninth grade to the twelfth grade who learn Chinese in Barnhan Jamsai Wittaya No.1 school as participants, the present study employs the methods of documentation, questionnaire, classroom observation and experimentation to explore the learning style of Thai middle school students. In light with the whole tendency of their learning style and individual differences, the study conducts some teaching practice as well.This thesis consists of seven parts. The first part is an introduction, including research background and motivation, the domestic and foreign literature reviews of learning style, purposes and significance of the research. To provide theoretical support for the following study, the second part serves as an overview of related theories of learning style. The third part expounds the design and implementation of the research, including research content, subjects, research methods, instruments such as questionnaire, implementation of the investigation and data processing. The fourth part analyzes and discusses the results of questionnaire and classroom observation, in order to describe the whole tendency and characteristics of each dimension of Thai students’ learning style. The fifth part contains the cases of teaching practice and class observation, bu examining an experimental group and a control group. The sixth part presents teaching strategies and suggestions, while the last part summarizes the conclusion and points out the insufficiency of the study. The thesis ends with suggestions for further study.The results indicate that the characteristic of learning style of Thai students varies with a certain tendency, of which global, visual, field dependent type are salient in each dimension. The sense dimension is mainly represented by visual learning and the cognitive one by global, field dependent and concrete-sequential learning, where as the emotion one by challenging learning. Furthermore, their learning style in environmental dimension, affected by many factors, appears to prefer studying in the morning, with a relatively quiet and cool surrounding, less strong light and sitting position. In addition, boys and girls demonstrate numerous differences in preference of sitting position.Based on the research of Chinese learning style of Thai middle school students, the study further conducts the Chinese teaching practice. Several teaching strategies for different kinds of learning styles and overall suggestions are proposed through the combination of the result of the research and the process of the practice, aiming to provide enlightenment for the further study and Chinese teaching.