Language Attitudes Toward Global Englishes Among Thai Undergraduate Students

The purposes of the study were to investigate the participants’ language attitudes toward Global Englishes among 330 undergraduate students from the two different faculties at a university in the eastern part of Thailand. It also compared statistically different students’ attitudes toward Global Englishes between males and females, students’ different majors, students’ different IE (International Experience), and different students’ parents’ English ability. A questionnaire was used to collect the data, consisting of two sections: 1). Student’s demographic data; 2). Attitudes of Undergraduate Students toward Global Englishes. The second section was divided into three components: affective, behavioral, and cognitive. The findings revealed that the Thai undergraduate students held medium attitudes toward Global Englishes and they had an inclination to keep open minds about accepting, speaking and using English or varieties of English; they did not have different attitudes toward Global Englishes between males and females. Also the results indicated that the participants from different majors not only had different beliefs and thoughts about Global Englishes , but they also had different inclination to speak and use English or varieties of English. Moreover, the results revealed that the participants whose general knowledge about English or varieties of English had been affected by their international experience more or less; and the participants whose emotional or feeling segment of language attitudes was related to their parents’ English ability.


4.
Were there any statistically different attitudes toward Global Englishes between students who had international experience and those who did not have? 5. Were there any statistically different attitudes toward Global Englishes between the students whose parents can speak English and those who cannot?
3.Literature review 3.1 Undergraduate students In this study, according to different academic requirements, undergraduate students were those who studied relevant subjects in English from the two faculties at a University in the eastern part of Thailand. Some students came from the program in English Language in the Department of Western Languages at Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, and their language skills including listening, speaking, reading and writing were emphasized. Other students came from International College, they studied and used English as a medium of instruction (e.g. IBM (International Business Management), Marketing, HRD (Communication Skill for Human Resource Development), GB (Global Business Communication), etc.). The relevant studies included all the academic programs up to the level of a bachelor's degree.

English Language Teaching (ELT)
Indeed, 'ELT' is not the only name given to the field as a whole-we might also encounter 'EFL' (incorporated into the International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language, that is, LATEFL); 'ESL' (English as a Second Language); and 'TESOL' (both an umbrella term for teaching English to Speaker of Other Languages and the name of TESOL International Association for teachers) (G. Hall, 2016). As Howatt and Widdowson (2004) note, establishing the origins of terminology and expressions is a 'a needle-in-a-haystack task with few clear-cut answers', yet the use of one term rather than another can reflect a particular perspective on the field and its development. Thus, as English in the 21 st century is no longer a single entity and has multiple forms and is increasingly a lingua franca in conversations between those who do not share a first language, 'English as a Foreign language' no longer seems to capture the scope of English and English language teaching in the contemporary world. Similarly, the now widespread recognition of the importance of bilingualism and multilingualism for individual and societal language use suggests that English will not be the second language of a substantial number of learners around the world. Crystal (2003) pointed out that the global spread of English is a process which set into motion and currently being influenced by colonialism, imperialism, capitalism, neoliberalism, popular culture, technological advancements, and so on. The situation has complicated a number of linguistic issues and cultural phenomena. This study adopted the theory of Galloway and Rose (2015) define that Global Englishes includes the concepts of World Englishes, which focuses on the identification and codification of national varieties of English, and ELF, which examines English within and, across the borders, as well as focusing on the global consequences of English's use as a world language. Global Englishes extends the lens of these fields to incorporate many peripheral issues associated with English, such as globalization, linguistic imperialism, education, language policy and planning.

Language attitudes
Language attitude in this study was derived from Garret's study (2010), who divided language attitudes in three components: affective, behavioral and cognitive. With regard to language attitudes, the components were explained as follows: 1.
Affective component concerned the emotional and feeling segment toward a language. Additionally, it was related to the statement which affected a conscious mental reaction in another person, also subjectively dealt with the response or aspect of consciousness that were brought to the surface about something.

2.
Behavioral component referred to an intention of the plan of an action. Furthermore, it meant a person's tendencies to behave in a particular way toward a language, also referred to that part of attitude which represented a commitment to carrying out an action of a person in a short or long term.

3.
Cognitive component referred to the beliefs, thoughts, and values about the language of learners. Moreover, these attributes and elements that people would associate with an object, concerned the opinion or mental representation segment of an attitude which was related in general knowledge of a person.

Setting and participants
In this study, a survey was used to collect the data which were gathered from accessible samples of students by a questionnaire at a university in the eastern part of Thailand. As shown in Table 1, a total number of 330 students Journal of Education and Practice www.iiste.org ISSN 2222-1735 (Paper) ISSN 2222-288X (Online) Vol.11, No.33, 2020 (222 females, 108 males) filled out the questionnaires. All of the Thai university students were older than 18 years (average age of 20.02, ranging from 18 to 25). Among the groups, the participants at the age of 19 and 20 had the first and second highest number. The group consisted of freshmen (N = 59, 17.9%), sophomores (N = 195, 59.1%), juniors (N = 44, 13.3%), and seniors (N = 32, 9.7%). Among the grades, the participants from sophomore had the highest number. In respect to major, participants studied English Language and Literature from Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences (N = 150, 45%), and English for business and commerce from International College (N = 180, 55%). Participants started learning English from 3 years old (average age of 5.02, ranging from 3 to 13). Among the groups, the participants at the age of 5 years old had the highest number (N = 110, 33.3%). A total number of 153 participants who ever had international experience (46.4%). Among them, 132 students who had the experience less than one year (N = 132, 40%) and 21 students who had not the experience more than one year (N = 21, 6.4%). A total number of 270 participants who had the experience of learning English with American (N = 270, 81.8%). Among them, the students who started English with native-speakers at high school stage had the highest number (N = 120, 36.4%). The group consisted of the participants whose parents can speak English (N = 87, 26.4%) and who cannot (N = 243, 73.6%).

Instrument
The questionnaire consisted of two parts. The first section was designed to obtain participants' demographic data, such as sex, age, grade, major, starting age of learning English, mother tongue, international experience (IE), learned English with NS (Native Speakers) and since when, whether parents can speak English or not, and friends whose mother tongue is English or not. The second section was divided into three components: affective, behavioral, and cognitive. By using IBM SPSS Statistics Base 22 program, this part was designed to investigate the language attitudes toward Global Englishes among these Thai undergraduate students, and the participants were asked to rate five Likert scale of agreement, there were: 5 = strongly agree, 4 = slightly agree, 3 = agree, 2 = slightly disagree, 1 = strongly disagree

Reliability
A pilot study was applied to check the reliability of the questionnaire. The objective of the pilot study was to check the items in the questionnaire, decided the survey time, got relevant information from the participants, picked out confounding implications before they would be used to lead the fundamental study. The pilot study process was implemented with 14 undergraduate students at the university during the summer session, 2019. Seven students came from Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, and the other seven came from International College. The Cronbach's alpha reliability coefficient was at .76.

Data Collection
After approval from the Institutional Board Review Board (IRB) had been obtained, the participants were informed of the nature of the present study such as purpose, procedure, benefits, risks, and so on. Then all of the participants were asked for volunteers to take part in the survey. After receiving the permission of the deans of Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences and International College, I asked for help from a faculty secretary to administer the questionnaire to the target students. I left the questionnaire for two weeks, and I later collected them back. The questionnaire was completed in August 2019.

Data analysis
Data analysis was in a quantitative method, following two steps. Firstly, to address RQ1, the descriptive statistics (i.e. mean [M], standard deviation [SD], skewness, and kurtosis) were calculated and used as reference values for determining considerable normality. Secondly, to address RQ 2 to RQ 5, an independent samples t-test was conducted to investigate the students' statistically different attitudes toward Global Englishes between males and females, different students' majors, different students' IE (International Experience), different students' parents' English ability. However, before performing the t-test, assumptions of normality, homogeneity of variance, and independence of observation were also explored.

Participants' Attitudes toward Global Englishes
With regard to research questions, the descriptive statistics results were interpreted as the following: If the score was between 1 to 1.25, that was called a Strongly Disagree (SD) If the score was between 1.26 to 2.51, that was called a Disagree (D) If the score was between 2.52 to 3.77, that was called a Agree (A) If the score was between 3.50 to 4.49, that was called a Strongly Agree (SA) Before performing the inferential statistics, the assumptions of independent t-test were performed as shown below: Journal of Education and Practice www.iiste.org ISSN 2222-1735 (Paper) ISSN 2222-288X (Online) Vol.11, No.33, 2020

Figure 1 Histograms of Attitudes Toward Global Englishes
According to Mishra (2019), for small sample size (n <50), z value ± 1.96 are sufficient to establish normality of the data. However, medium-sized samples (50≤ n <300), at absolute z-value ± 3.29, conclude the distribution of the sample is normal. For sample size >300, normality of the data is depended on the histograms and the absolute values of skewness and kurtosis. Either an absolute skewness value ≤2 or an absolute kurtosis (excess) ≤4 may be used as reference values for determining considerable normality.  Table 2 As shown in Figure 1, based on histograms, it could be concluded that all data were normal. Therefore, it was legitimate to run the t-test. This section reported the answers to the research questions by using descriptive statistics. Before running the Independent t-test, histograms were used to determine the normality of the data.

Findings of Research Question 1: What were the learners' attitudes toward Global Englishes?
This question reported the answers to the first question by using descriptive statistics. The means and standard deviations were reported to measure the categories of these relevant participants' attitudes toward Global Englishes.  Table 3, the data indicated that the participants held medium attitudes toward Global Englishes (M = 2.87, SD = 0.20). Specifically, compared to the other two categories: the affective (M = 2.51, SD = 0.41) and the cognitive (M = 2.70, SD = 0.24); the category of behavioral (M = 3.40, SD = 0.38) scored the highest, which indicated that these participants held medium attitudes toward Global Englishes on behavioral component.

Findings of Research question 2: Were there any statistically different attitudes toward Global Englishes between male and female students?
Based on the histograms, it was revealed that all data were normal. Therefore, it was legitimate to run the t-test. This section reports the answers to the second research question by using an independent t-test as indicated in Table 4. To answer the research question regarding gender differences in perceptions of faculty mentoring, an independent samples t-test was used. The test was conducted at an alpha of .05. Table 4

Findings of Research Question 3: Were there any statistically different attitudes toward Global Englishes between Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences and International College students?
Based on the histograms, it was revealed that all data were normal. Therefore, it was legitimate to run the t-test. This section reports the answers to the third research question by using an independent t-test as indicated in Table  5. To answer the research question regarding different majors in perceptions of faculty mentoring, an independent samples t-test was used. The test was conducted at an alpha of .05. Table 5

Findings of Research Question 4:
Were there any different attitudes toward Global Englishes between students who had international experience and those who did not have? Based on the histograms, it was revealed that all data were normal. Therefore, it was legitimate to run the t-test. This section reports the answers to the fourth research question by using an independent t-test as indicated in Table  6. To answer the research question regarding international experience differences in perceptions of faculty mentoring, an independent samples t-test was used. The test was conducted at an alpha of .05. Table 6 presented statistically different students' attitudes toward Global Englishes about their international experience. For overall, there was not a significant difference between "Students had IE" (M = 2.88, SD = 0.16) and "Students did

Findings of Research Question 5: Were there any statistically different attitudes toward Global Englishes between students' parents who can speak English and those who cannot?
Based on the histograms, it was revealed that all data were normal. Therefore, it was legitimate to run the t-test. This section reports the answers to the second research question by using an independent t-test as indicated in Table 7. To answer the research question regarding the "Parents' backgrounds" differences in perceptions of faculty mentoring, an independent samples t-test was used. The test was conducted at an alpha of .05. Table 7 presented the different attitudes toward Global Englishes between students' parents who can speak English and those cannot.

6.Discussion
This section provided a discussion of the research findings in the present study which was focused on investigating language attitudes toward Global Englishes among Thai undergraduate students from the two different faculties. And the study attempted to compare students' language attitudes toward Global Englishes across socio-cultural variables, such as sex, major, international experience, and parents' English ability. The following discussion was based on the analysis in the previous studies.
Compared Sung (2015) who used a mixed method and found that the GE (Global Englishes) component seemed to have little impact on changing Hong Kong students' perceptions regarding the superiority of native English speakers and their negative insight of 'non-standard' and/or 'non-native' varieties of English. Although some students claimed that they had the inclination to accept the diversity of different Englishes, including nonnative English varieties, they still regarded some non-native English varieties as containing 'errors' that were in need of remediation. The present study demonstrated the different results that the Thai undergraduate students had an inclination to keep open minds about accepting, speaking and using English or varieties of English.
Compared Mtawaa (2017) who used a mixed method and set out the study to examine male and female Saudi students' attitudes towards English and the attitudes and perceptions of parents on the importance of English. The findings of the study indicate that both students and parents have positive attitudes towards English. Means and standard deviations show that male students have more positive attitudes towards English than their female counterparts. The findings also reveal that parents perceive English positively as the international language of science, technology and business. The results of the present study indicated that there were not any statistically different students' attitudes toward Global Englishes between males and females within the three language attitudes' components.
Compared Lee and Lee (2019) who used a mixed method and set out the study to examine EIL perceptions by Korean English and non-English-major students, also investigated factors that influenced the students' perceptions. These results indicated that an EIL experience that occurred in a formal language classroom could positively influenced students' perceptions. Furthermore, students' engagement in IDLE (Informal Digital Learning of English) activities might also have a significant impact on their perceptions of EIL, even though the teachers' instructional intervention was absent. The present study indicated that the participants from different majors not only had different beliefs and thoughts about Global Englishes, but they also had different inclination to speak and use English or varieties of English. Compared Bunch, Rampold, Cater and Blackburn (2018) who set out a qualitative method to develop a deep understanding of the lived experiences of agricultural education undergraduate students participating in a shortterm international experience. As a result of the short-term international experience, students did not progress fully through all levels of development needed to be considered proficient in cultural competence. However, students demonstrated significant gains in cultural awareness and some gains in cultural understanding and cultural sensitivity. Finally, participating students verified some progress toward building cultural communication competencies as a result of their experience. The present study indicated that there was a significant difference in cognitive component, and revealed that the participants whose general knowledge about English or varieties of English had been affected by their international experience more or less.
Compared Petchprasert (2014) who used a quantitative method to set out this study in order to investigate parents' backgrounds and their beliefs about English language learning, and compared the receptive English vocabulary development of three-to six-year-old-Thai children before and after participating in a parent-child reading program with the dialogic reading (DR) method. The results showed that parents' beliefs about English language learning affected expectations on their children's language success. In addition, the children's achievement was related to the use of DR method. The children yielded significant greater gains in knowledge of vocabulary and their ability to infer the meanings from pictures after engaging in the reading program. The present study indicated that there was a significant difference in affective component, and revealed that the participants whose emotional or feeling segment was related to their parents' English ability.
In summary, compared with the previous studies, the present study illustrated the important relation between the social-cultural variables (i.e. sex, major, international experience, and parents' English ability) and students' English learning and usage, either. Furthermore, the results of the present study suggested that the Thai undergraduate students held mixed language attitudes toward Global Englishes: on the one hand, some students still wanted to speak or use Standard English and remained their Thai-English at the same time. On the other hand, some students still focused on speaking or using Standard English especially American English all the time. The consequences proved that linguistical hierarchy still existed that American English was still at the top.

7.Implications
This study aimed to generate a better understanding of the students' attitudes toward Global Englishes. In light of the contributions of this study above, the most crucial finding was that the attitudes of the Thai undergraduate students toward Global Englishes were basically Standard English especially American English bound. Their attitudes might be reflections of what they believed as models that they wanted to learn and use. This in turn enhanced their belief that inner circle varieties especially American English was the best model to learn. Furthermore, this understanding was helpful for teachers to plan instruction that aimed to incorporate Global Englishes in the classroom. Without this understanding, teachers might not be able to find ways to help students become aware of the global spread of English and its impact on their English learning.
Some scholars had suggested that increasing exposure of learners to different English varieties could raise their understanding. Also, there needed some important approaches which could raise students' awareness and familiarity with different English varieties so that they can prepare for international communications. More importantly, this study contributed to the current literature on students' attitudes toward Global Englishes. To elaborate, the present study attempted to undertake a new research line, which had not been conducted in previous studies, by comparing attitudes toward Global Englishes across socio-cultural variables, such as sex, major, international experience, and parents' English ability. This understanding contributed to the theoretical discussion on students' attitudes toward Global Englishes.

Recommendation for Future Research
This study provided limited understanding of Thai undergraduate students' language attitudes toward Global Englishes because of the major limitation in quantitative research was that the study would not get specific details as it might achieve in qualitative research. Nonetheless, the study has generated some new perspectives which deserved further investigation. With respect to these, relevant future research should involve quantitative and qualitative methods and combine them in a mixed method approach in order to capture both aspects of the phenomenon for the purpose of deeper understanding.