Development of English Listening and Speaking Skills for Communicative Purposes on Health Tourism Through the Integration of Design Thinking and Communicative Language Teaching

Abstract

This study aimed to develop English listening and speaking competencies in the context of health tourism through the implementation of a Design Thinking learning process integrated with the Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) approach. The participants were 23 sixth-grade students at Bannako School, under the Loei Primary Educational Service Area Office 2. Employing a Classroom Action Research (CAR) framework, the study designed and administered a learning sequence comprising five stages: (1) Empathize, (2) Define, (3) Ideate, (4) Prototype and Test, and (5) Reflection. These stages were systematically integrated with situational communicative tasks grounded in CLT principles. The results indicated a substantive enhancement in learners’ English listening and speaking skills following the intervention. Students demonstrated increased accuracy, fluency, and confidence in communicating about health tourism. Moreover, they exhibited more positive attitudes toward English learning, engaged actively in instructional activities, and demonstrated an improved ability to transfer classroom learning to authentic communicative contexts. The findings suggest that the integration of Design Thinking with CLT constitutes a pedagogically viable approach for fostering communicative competence in young language learners.