ENGLISH LEARNING DEVELOPMENT OF AGRICULTURAL STUDENTS IN AN AGRICULTURAL MACHINERY COURSE

Abstract

This research was designed to assess the development of English ability in agricultural
students in an agricultural machinery course. The participants were second year students in the Crop
Production major of the Agricultural Technology Faculty, Rajamangala University of Technology
Thanyaburi, Thailand in the academic year 2/2014. This research ran from January to April 2015. There were
forty five students studying agricultural machinery. At the first meeting of the class, they were each given a
one-hour pre-test to assess their ability in English. There were 100 questions and pictures. The questions and
pictures of the pre-test and the post-test were the same and both tests were administered by the same
researcher. The questions were recommended by three lecturers who are experts in agricultural machinery,
research and English. For every question, there was a picture with the Thai name of that picture. Students
then had to write the name in English. The questions covered topics such as tillage, planting, crop protection
and fertilizing, as well as harvesting and processing equipment. The questions were divided into three parts:
multiple choice, check list and essay. This class met twice a week for two hours each class. At the final
meeting, participants were given a post-test to assess any changes. After that, the lecturer shared the answers
with the students. The statistics applied in this research were frequency, percentage and mean. There were
forty five students made up of sixteen males and twenty nine females. The all student average mean of the
pre-test was 20.36 and the post-test was 81.6. The all student average improvement was 61.24. The average
improvement for the males was 62.06 and for the females was 60.79. There was a significant difference
between pre-test and post- test at a .05 level of significance.