A needs analysis of tourism English in Penghu as perceived by the learners of the course English Conversation for Penghu Tourism Employees

Abstract

A review of the needs-analysis (NA) literature on English for tourism revealed a scarcity of categorizations of English needs guiding questionnaire designs as well as data classifications and analyses This study is an attempt to respond to this gap by identifying the types of occupational English needs required of Penghu tourism employees The needs were probed through the employees’ target situation needs types of communication problems and uses of communication strategies all of which were hypothesized to reflect tourism employees’ practical needs and to vary with the nature of the employees’ jobs and/ or the four language skills This study discussed each issue from two perspectives the number of occasions each issue occurs and the types of issues Data were collected through an NA questionnaire group-administered to 50 participants recruited from a course called English Conversation for Penghu Tourism Employees Statistical analyses of the collected data indicated that the hypotheses were partially supported Specifically the number of occasions in which English is used communication problems occur and communication strategies are used interacted with Penghu tourism employees’ use of the four language skills with listening and speaking outnumbering reading and writing The types of target situations were only found to vary with the employees’ jobs where listening and speaking are required The types of communication problems and communication strategies did not vary with the employees’ jobs for any of the four language skills The findings carry with them important academic and pedagogical implications Academically future studies may need to take into account the identified types of target situations communication problems and communication strategies in their questionnaire designs data classifications and analyses as well as the interpretations and discussion of the findings of this study Pedagogically designers or instructors of English for tourism courses may need to contemplate what content and materials should be tailor-made for common-core or domain-specific courses

Date of Award	2016 Jun 20
Original language	English
Supervisor	Aleck Shih-Wei Chen (Supervisor)