Thai hotel undergraduate interns’ awareness and attitudes towards English as a lingua franca

The study examines twenty-eight Thai undergraduate hotel interns’ attitudes towards the use of English as a lingua franca (ELF) in terms of its varieties of spoken English. Drawing upon the questionnaire, semi-structured interview, and verbal-guise test based on the eleven recorded voices whose accents obtained were from native and non-native speakers, the findings reveal that the students reflected the most positive attitudes towards American and Hong Kong accents while the Korean one was rated rather negatively. However, the students were well aware of the lingua franca status of their spoken English; and thus, the non-native accents were tentatively accepted. This study suggests that Thai leaners’ awareness and positive attitude towards varieties of English must be promoted in both English classes and on-the-job training. English teachers and trainers of hotel staff should also be aware of the significance of exposure to accents and introduce undergraduate interns to varieties of English in order to enhance mutual intelligibility for effective ELF communication at work

Integrating mindfulness in media literacy: A culture-responsive training programme for older Thai adults

Media literacy is a much-needed competency in the digitalised world, but it is still an unknown knowledge base for older Thai adults. This design-based research set out as an initiative to promote media literacy through an agefriendly and culture-responsive training programme. The design process involved focus groups with key stakeholders and older adult ‘learners’ as well as field observations. This type of research work, in the Thai context, revealed the primacy of integrating media literacy learning with the Buddhist practice of mindfulness. It also highlighted the importance of incorporating certain cultural values and practices - collectivism, a sense of enjoyment, beliefs about the supernatural - into any media literacy programme particularly aimed at older Thais. The findings provide significant insight into the ways in which media literacy - especially as it has developed in a Western context – has to be thoughtfully integrated into specifically located everyday practices and cultural perspectives