Developing Listening and Speaking Skills in Mandarin Chinese for the Second Year Students, Airline Business Program by Using the Activities of the Confucius Institute, Suan Dusit University, Suphan Buri

Abstract

The objectives of the study were 1) to develop Mandarin listening and speaking skills for Airline Business program student by using the activities of the Confucius Institute, Suan Dusit University, Suphan Buri  2) to compare the achievement of listening and speaking Mandarin skills before and after participating the Confucius Institute's project activities, and 3) to study the opinions of students towards teaching and learning activities of this project. The sample of this study were 35 airline business program students who enrolled in the Chinese for daily communication course, semester 1, 2019. Data were collected using the listening skills assessment and research questionair. The data were then analyzed using mean, percentage and pair sample t-test. It found that most of the students were female (77.15 percent) participating in this project. The student's learning achievement in both listening and speaking skills were improved significantly at the 0.05 level. In addition, overall, the students were satisfied with the teaching and learning management at a mean value of 4.23. The project help them build confidence in Mandarin was rated at the highest score of 4.83, followed by the activites can improve students' listening and speaking skills and the activities made them feel fun at a mean value of 4.63 and 4.60 respectively. It was suggested that the project should add more content relevant to the the airline business profession.