Abstract:
This mixed method research between a quantitative and qualitative approaches aims to study the use of English newspapers such as the Nation, Bangkok Post and Student Weekly to develop English reading ability based on the four main points of Learning Area of a Foreign Language in the Basic Education Core Curriculum A.D. 2008, consist of (1) Language for Communication (2) Language and Culture (3) Language and Relationships with Other Learning Areas (4) Language and relationships with Community and the World. The population of the study was 135 grade 11 English programs for science students conducted in the first semester of 2013 at Assumption College Lampang in Lampang province. There were 4 research instruments used both before and after in the reading activities totally 8 weeks: 1) questionnaires for all students 2) interview with English teachers 3) questionnaires for student participants 4) students writing assignments. The results of this study were analyzed by Descriptive Data Analysis and SPSS. The main findings are as follows: (1) Students chose to read English newspapers at the average of 36.2 percent (2) Based on the opinion of students about using an English newspaper to develop reading activity toward four main points of Learning Area a of Foreign Language is at moderate level and the average score is 3.00. (3) Interestingly enough, 90 percent of students gained new English vocabularies, phrases and idioms, developing and practicing their reading ability and knew what was happened around the world from reading English newspapers.