A Study of English-Speaking Problems of the Vocational Students at Engineering and Technology Demonstration School

Abstract

This research aims to investigate English speaking problems of the vocational students at the Engineering and Technology School with three main objectives. These include 1) to investigate the English speaking problems of the vocational students at Engineering and Technology Demonstration School; 2) to examine English speaking problems of the vocational students majoring in accounting, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, and civil engineering; and 3) to find out the differences in English speaking problems according to levels of study of the vocational students. The participants were 180 vocational students studying in vocational curriculum, academic year 2022, including 45 vocational students of each field obtained through a purposive sampling method. The research instrument used to collect data is a questionnaire. The data in this study was analysed by percentages, mean score, standard deviation, and analysis of variance. The findings found that: 1) the majority of vocational students have high levels of linguistically-related problems ( = 3.70) and affective-related problems (= 3.62); 2) the vocational students of the four fields have high levels of English speaking problems in the linguistically-related and affective-related problem categories; and 3) there was no statistically significant difference in English speaking problems among the vocational students’ levels of study (p > 0.05).