An Appraisal Analysis of the Discourse of Foreign English Teachers: a Case Study at a Private School in Ratchaburi, Thailand.

Abstract

In recent years, many Thai schools have started to hire foreign English speakers to teach Thai students the skill of speaking English. This study aims to investigate how the foreign English teachers express their attitudes about teaching English in Thailand, and further explore the teaching beliefs, culture and language ideology implicit in these teachers’ attitudes. An ‘Appraisal’ system (Martin 2007& Rose) was applied to analyze the attitudes, such as affect (people’s feelings), judgment (people’s character and behavior) and appreciation (the value of things), being conveyed in the discourse of the foreign English teachers in Thailand.

The findings of this study indicated the similarities and differences in these foreign English teachers’ attitudes about their motivation, challenges and future aspiration of teaching in Thailand. Furthermore, this study revealed that different culture background and language ideologies influenced the teachers’ teaching beliefs and classroom teaching approaches.