Abstract:
A large class with mixed-ability students causes major problems in language;earning and teaching in higher education. Teachers sometimes a traditional approach for teaching reading skills of English. Hece, this paper aims investigate two types of lanuage teching: Student Teams-achievement Dovision (STAD) and Lecture Method (LM) for teaching reading skills of English within Thai contexts. The subjects in this study were 154 Thai undergraduate students studying an English fundamental course at Burapha in the 2010 academic year. For the STAD group (n=82), the teacher was a facilitator and observer to encourage teams of students to complete reading activities. Students in each team had to work together in the reading tasks in order to win other teams. In the LM group (N=72), the teacher was the most do,inant person in the classroom. In both groups, data were collected and analyzed through comparing pre-post test means, categorizing students' attitudes towards language learning and teaching, and teacher's diaries. The results show that the Englisg reading scores of the LM group were slightly higher than those from the STAD group. However, the results obtained from the teacher and students report positive attitudes towards STAD in terms of class participatopn and collaborative learning. In contrast, even the LM group satisfied with this traditional method, they suggested that class participation and interaction should be improved