A study of factors influencing Thai students' attitudes towards English accents

Due to recent changing trends in English language learning, English has not only become demanding for communication, but it also faced changes in paradigm such as World Englishes or English as a Lingua Franca. These paradigms could be helpful to understand so that proper learning materials and methods of learning can be implemented. Therefore, it is necessary that we understand the current attitudes of Thai students and the factors influencing them. This research then aims to investigate Thai students’ attitudes towards English accents categorized into Three circle model of World Englishes based on Kachru’s model (1985) and the factors influencing the attitudes by using the questionnaire, verbal-guise test, and semi structured interview where 227 Thai high school students in one private Thai school in Nakhon Pathom, Thailand were chosen for the questionnaire and verbal-guise test and 10 participants were later contacted for the interview. This study revealed that while the participants have positive attitudes toward the Inner Circle English accents, it is not necessary that English should only be taught by native English speakers. Instead, the participants believed that they should be exposed to different varieties of English to become ready in real-life application rather than having only standard English taught in the classroom. The participants also believed that varieties of Englishes can reflect unique cultures and should not be avoided. Moreover, several factors influencing the attitudes of the participants were discovered including the influences from friends, family, communities, teachers, and media such as music, games, or shows.