Enhancing English language learners’ conversation abilities via CA-informed sitcom lessons: A case study of Thai high school students

The study investigated the effectiveness of Conversation-Analysis-informed (CA-informed) sitcom lessons in enhancing conversation abilities of Thai learners of English. The participants included 42 high school students enrolled in an English for Communication course at a public high school in Southern Thailand. Through 15-week sitcom lessons, they were taught how to construct conversation sequences to accomplish such sequential actions as greeting and leave-taking, (dis)agreement, new announcement, compliment, invitation, and request, as well as to collaboratively analyze conversations from the sitcoms and role-play them at the end of each lesson. Before and after the series of lessons, the participants were engaged in role-play conversations that were videotaped for subsequent assessment of their conversation abilities. The findings from both comparative statistical and close single-case analyses revealed significant improvements in all of the aspects assessed, especially regarding grammar and appropriacy. Therefore, it is recommended that EFL teachers should implement CA principles to the teaching of English conversation and integrate conversations from authentic materials such as sitcoms to strengthen English language learners’ conversation abilities.