Paper Title
English Communication and Tourism Industry in Thailand
Abstract
Currently, there is an increasing of skilled-workers insufficiency among Thai hospitality and tourism industry. Usually, most of the problem came from miscommunication between employers and employees especially in multinational companies where English is a medium language. Thus, education might be one way to boost employee’s English knowledge and skill. This education should, moreover, apply adult-learning techniques focus on task flexibility; less time consume; and suitable for personal development. This research aims to develop English communication skill using training package as a tool. The objectives consist of; 1) developing of the training package, 2) comparing of learning achievement scores, and 3) studying the opinion of tourism officers regardless to the training package. 38 samples, who are now working as an officer in tourism sector, are obtained by using purposive sampling method from the English training session. The instruments include 1) training package, 2) paper based tests, and 3) questionnaire concerns with tourism officers’ opinions. The data are analyzed using statistical methods, such as average, standard deviation, and t-test dependent. The results of efficiency criterion illustrate that the training package can help to improve communication skill. The efficiency criterions (E1/E2) for both topics are: 80/93 for English for hotel and airline reservation topic and 82/96 for English for tourist attractions and tour operation topic. In terms of learning achievement, the scores of posttest are higher than pretest: the average posttest scores are 9.63 for the first topic and 9.29 for the second. This means that after using training package, learning achievement scores for the sample group is higher. So, it is clear that the training package can help those officers develop their English communication skill. For the opinion part, tourism officers agreed that this training package can improve their skills as well as increase knowledge in tourism field. Furthermore, they also said that they would apply skills and knowledge learnt with their work experience and would recommend this training package to others in this field.
Index Terms - English communication, English skill, training package, tourism industry