ijcrb.webs.com DECEMBER 2012 INTERDISCIPLINARY JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY RESEARCH IN BUSINESS VOL 4, NO 8 The Integration of His Majesty the King’s Philosophy of Sufficiency Economy with the Twitter Website for Enhancing the Using of English for Communication Ornsiri Wimontham Assistant Professor Nakhon Ratchasima Rajabhat University 340 Suranarai Road, Muang District, Nakhon Ratchasima Province Thailand Abstract This research is an interdisciplinary research because the researcher integrated 4 aspects in the study, namely- 1. the King’s philosophy of Sufficiency Economy, 2. the teaching of English for communication, 3. the online social network, and 4. the international marketing. The aim of the study was to experiment the application of the Twitter Website for enhancing the using English for communication which integrated the research process with the emphasis on creating the international online market of Dan Kwian local handicraft producers in Nakhon Ratchasima Province. However, for this research article, the researcher presents by focusing on the results concerned the integration of Sufficiency Economy with the Twitter Website for enhancing the Using of English for Communication. The results, Twitter Website was found to be a useful website for enhancing using of English for communication at the high level of 79.43 %., and it also developed the teaching of writing skill. Additionally, it inspired the experimental group to learn English by themselves at the high level of 89.7%. Finally, the experimental group gained the knowledge of English expressions and the culture at the percentage of 65.33. The interesting aspect found from the study was that Twitter Website could be effectively applied for the integration of the modern innovation for the learning of self-study of English for communication outside the classroom which was in accordance with His Majesty the King’s philosophy of Sufficiency Economy in the aspect of education development.The teachers could, at any level of education, develop their teaching by integrating what was the learner’s interest in order to create the highest benefit for the teaching and learning. Keywords : Sufficiency Economy, The Teaching of English for Communication, The Online Social Network and The Twitter Website COPY RIGHT © 2012 Institute of Interdisciplinary Business Research 675 ijcrb.webs.com DECEMBER 2012 INTERDISCIPLINARY JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY RESEARCH IN BUSINESS VOL 4, NO 8 INTRODUCTION It is widely accepted that the online social network has continuously been the popular means of communication and tends to become continuously popular The academic expert and the researcher from various fields of study all agree that online social network makes the world smaller. It enables people from all around the world to culturally interact with each other. Moreover, they can also receive the same piece of information at the same time and can also express their opinion quickly. It is also claimed that the increase of the use of online social network has doubled within the past decade. (Larson, 2000:45) Gralla (1998:134) stated that the beginning of the online social network was developed from the use of e-mail. The e-mail enables people around the world to send message faster by just clicking the mouse. Then, the message is sent to the mail box of the receiver as fast as a second. Two websites which were designed for sending emails are Hotmail Website and the Yahoo Website. It is disclosed that there are approximately 87,000,000 hotmail users and about 62,000,000 yahoo users. From the survey of the two websites, both websites agreed that over 84 % of the users were satisfied with the efficiency of the use of email for sending message much faster. Russell (1997:28-43) stated that the e-mail users were not only satisfied with the efficiency of sending of e-mail, they also were satisfied with additional services provided by the e-mail providers such as the photo attachment, the video clips and the MSN provided by the e-mail provider. Moreover, both hotmail and yahoo websites provide the email users with the additional internet chat via the computer monitor called Web Cam. This abbreviation comes from Website Camera. Through this service, both of the encoder and the decoder of the message can talk and see each other through the operation of the website system. Based on the disclosure of the information, it revealed that over 235,000,000 people around the world could send message to each other. Russell’s thought was similar to John’s (1996: 56-63) in the aspect of the importance and the popularity of the use of email together with other additional services which led to the invention of interesting innovation in the year 1997.That year was the beginning of a new way of online social network communication. There was only a small group of about 3,000,000 email users all over the world. It is noted that the use of online social network had reached its highest popularity from 1997 to 2010. From the survey, it was found that there were over 167,000,000 people using the email. Furthermore, it is speculated that there is going to be an increase of 245,000,000 people using the email in the year of 2114. At present, there are popular websites providing email services such as www.fmacebook.com, www.hi5.com,www.ning.com, www. windowlives.com, www. blogger.com, www. italki.com and www. twitter.com COPY RIGHT © 2012 Institute of Interdisciplinary Business Research 676 ijcrb.webs.com DECEMBER 2012 INTERDISCIPLINARY JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY RESEARCH IN BUSINESS VOL 4, NO 8 Picture 1: Online social network system (Source: Http:// www.th&prmd=imvns&tbm) Musail (2009:36-51) also comments on the reason why social online network has become very popular all over the world because it is a modern way of communication, and each email website was invented with the same purpose; that is, they emphasize on the communicating with other people all over the world; wherever they are, they can receive from their friends through their friend’s email address in the system.If they want to have new friends, they can add new friends to their groups immediately and share their story to others to their friends by posting on the web board or on their webpage. Having finished writing the message, the writer can click the mouse so that the message or information is sent to all the friends in the same group. This process can send the information to other people approximately 60-1,000 people per one mouse click. This depends on the expansion of the group of the online social network. It is used not only for sending personal routine information to others but also the email user can use it for public relation .They have learnt or received such as publishing information on the website front page together with the photographs showing the activities or sending songs or video clips. The modern way of communication enables people or public or government units around the world to publish information in a variety of ways. However, Carrington (2009: 215-234) asserts that online social network websites has become very popular and there is a tendency that they are going to be the most popular website in the world. One of them is Twitter Website. His assertion agrees with Jonathan’s opinion (2008: 76- 80) which states that the Twitter Website has received such popularity because it has been designed to cater for the need of the working and business people much more than other websites. The distinctive feature of Twitter Website is the use of the color and the format of the website which makes it more logical and rational than other websites. Apart from this, the user can look at the statistic of the viewing data and can post the message up to 250 words per one post. There is also space for the user to create blog for expressing his opinion or other information approximately 30% more than other websites. Much more, Twitter Website has added supplementary services for the users who have the same kinds of likes and activities such as going to the sea, cooking, or the same political party. There are pictures of people who have the same likes as you showing. In addition, the users can also follow the activities of the people COPY RIGHT © 2012 Institute of Interdisciplinary Business Research 677 ijcrb.webs.com DECEMBER 2012 INTERDISCIPLINARY JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY RESEARCH IN BUSINESS VOL 4, NO 8 you are interested in. Therefore, it takes less time to search for this type of information. Other than these additional services, Twitter Website’s users can get connected to friends and people they are interested in a variety of ways for example SMS from MSN or from YouTube. The users can directly contact or chat with friends and other people, as well. Due to the popularity of Twitter Website, the researcher decided to use the online social network for developing education in many aspects. Nuan (2009) used Twitter Website for developing the writing skill of 56 EFL Pilipino students who were studying in their third year at the University of the Philippines Diliman. The experiment was 6 months long. Results from the study showed that 67% of the experiment group had improved their writing skill. Apart from that, 71% of the group had learnt about the culture of others from the online social network. Results of Nuan’s study were in accordance with the study of McDonough (2008). McDonough had integrated Twitter Website with the teaching of English for communication. The population of the study was 145 first-year Malaysian students. The experiment lasted for 4 months.