Orientation Training Course for Tourism and Hotel Student Internship on English Listening and Speaking Skills
University of Technology North Bangkok
ABSTRACT
This research aimed to conduct an orientation training course based on needs analysis to develop tourism and hotel undergraduate students at King Mongkut’s University of Technology North Bangkok. The purposes of this study were: 1) to investigate the English communication problems and needs in English communication of tourism and hotel undergraduate students with foreign customers and superiors during internship, 2) to provide database as a guideline for developing the English internship course for tourism and hotel, and 3) to provide orientation training course for tourism and hotel undergraduate students. Questionnaires, an orientation English internship course, and pre- and post-test were research tools to collect data in this study. The samples were divided into two groups, 1) 64 students completing the questionnaire, and 2) 50 students participating in an orientation training course and taking pre- and post-test. It was found that they had fair ability in listening and speaking. Most of them used English for work and the majority groups of them had an internship at the front office of the hotel. To improve their skills, an orientation English internship course focusing on listening and speaking skills was designed and developed. Pair- work and role-plays were employed in the training. The results showed that these methods can help them improve their skills. It can be concluded that the content in this course meets the students’ needs and will be useful to train students in the field of tourism and hotel.
KEYWORDS
English for specific purposes (ESP), needs analysis, training, tourism and hotel internship