TABLE OF CONTENTS Contents Pages STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS LISTS OF ABBREVIATIONS LIST OF TABLES, FIGURES ABTRACT CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale of the study. Research aims and Objectives .6 The organization of the thesis .9 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Definitions of key terms. Communication and communicative competence.3 What is ESP? .1 Definition of syllabus .2 Types of Syllabus .3 Approaches to syllabus design .3 The situation of English speaking in Viet Nam .1 Difficulties in teaching and learning speaking English in Viet Nam .2 English syllabus for Hotel reception .3 English used at hotels in Hue .4 Needs and needs Analysis .1 The meaning of needs and needs analysis .3 Needs analysis‘ models .5 Goals and Objectives Determining .6 Content Selecting and Grading .4 Instruments for Data Collection.3 Authentic Materials Decision and Analysis .38 CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 4.Result of Analysis of Teachers‘ Responses.
Result of Analysis of Managers‘ Responses. Hotel guests‘ analysis. Suggestions for the ESP Syllabus for reception staffs at hotels in Hue. Type of the syllabus .69 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS 5.4 Limitations of the study .5 Suggestion for Further Research .74 3 LIST OF TABLES, FIGURES, DIAGRAMS TABLES Page Table 4.
The language skills/areas the learners use most .2: Students‘ year of learning English .3: Learners‘ expressions comprehensible .4: Learners‘ self- assessment of language proficiency of speaking skill. Learners‘ difficulties in learning speaking process. Learners‘ purposes of learning English. Learners‘ expectations after speaking course.
The learning modes students favor. The teaching modes students favor .10: Learners‘ preference about type of texts in the textbook. The interests of learners in speaking activities .12: The interests of learners in listening activities.13: The interests of learners in grammar activities. The interests of the learners in vocabulary activities .15: Misunderstanding because of lack of knowledge of culture .16: Learners‘ current materials .17: Learners‘ opinion about a suggested syllabus.
Teachers‘ suggestions for a better ESP syllabus. Topics in the speaking course. New topics to be added to the speaking course .57 4 FIGURES Page Figure 2.1: Language- centered approach .2: Skills- centered approach .3: Learning- centered approach .4: The Need Assessment Cycle (Grave 2000: 100).5: Basis Purpose of Need Assessment (Grave, 2000: 101) .6: Necessities, Lacks and Wants (Hutchinson & Water, 1987: 58). Need Analysis within the Curriculum Development Process .8: Cause & Effect Relationship between Goals and Objectives (Grave 2000: 77).9: How goals become instructional objectives (Dubin & Olshtain.1: The frequency of using English in real situations of learners .2: The frequency of four skills in reality of learners (question 7) .3: The importance of English in real work of learners in Hotels .4: Misunderstanding between learners and hotel guests .5: The necessity of learning cultural factors of learners.6: Learners‘ using of authentic materials .7: Learners‘ opinions about their satisfaction with their current material.52 5 ABSTRACT This study attempted to explore the needs of reception staffs at hotels in Hue.
The aims of the study are to focus on: (i) exploring the needs of the learners who are receptionists at hotels in Hue in their ESP course, (ii) selecting appropriate topics in a ESP syllabus, (iii) finding out some elements for a suggested syllabus that meet the learners‘ needs and purposes of learning ESP. The subjects for this study consist of 50 hotel receptionists in Hue, 3 English teachers and 4 reception managers at hotels. The data were mainly collected through questionnaires and interviews. The data collected were analyzed quantitatively according to statistical frequency and percentage.
The research findings pointed out the learners‘ needs in the ESP course, such as purposes of learning, expectation of the course, language skill, learning activities, preference of cultural factors, learners‘ favorite topics. They were found to be interested in successful communication with English speaking hotel guests at hotels in the role of receptionists. In addition, the results from the study revealed the sources of materials and common topics needed to teach in the ESP course and language functions and language forms to be included in the syllabus. From the findings, some pedagogical implications for designing an ESP syllabus were proposed.
Limitations of the study were pointed out and further research was suggested. Rationale of the study Today, English has become the language for communication in over the world and in most fields, such as in science, technology, tourism, and so on. Especially, in the hospitality industry English is widely for inbound and outbound travel. As a tourist city, yearly, Hue has been attracting a number of tourists coming from all over the world.
This requires that the reception staffs at hotels need to have communicative competence in general and English speaking skill in particular to satisfy foreign tourists. Moreover, according to my observation, experience and regarding learners‘ needs, I realize that both teachers and learners as receptionists at hotels have a lot of difficulties in achieving an expectable result because of many factors, and one of these factors is lack of a good and suitable ESP syllabus. The teachers have to spend a lot of time as well as energy to collect materials for their teaching English speaking for hotel reception staffs. However, these materials are presently available, not the one which learners themselves want.
This is why exploring learners‘ needs as the first stage to design a good and suitable syllabus for hotel reception staffs is really crucial for me. In addition, I hope to become one of the teachers of English at these hotels in the future. In order to help learners improve their English speaking skill effectively, a good textbook designed based on learners‘ needs is appreciated. For the above mentioned reasons, I boldly chose the topic for study “Needs analysis to help designing a syllabus for an extensive speaking course for reception staffs at hotels in Hue” with a hope to contribute to the improvement of teaching speaking skills for the hotel staffs to be more successfully communicate with the guests who speak English.
In response to the fore mentioned obstacles in the teaching of speaking this research aimed to make small change to the situation In short, this study has been done to document the reality of teaching and learning of speaking English in the hope of finding some possible solutions to help 7 improving English of the reception staffs at hotels in Hue. It is hopeful that students as well as the researcher would get benefits from this study. In response to the fore mentioned obstacles in the teaching of speaking this research aimed to make small change to the situation. It is hopeful that students as well as the researcher would get benefits from this study.
The goals of this study are to investigate and analyze learners‘ needs, background of English and challenges they faced in learning speaking English process in order to understand the learners more and then give a source of inspiration for an appropriate and effective syllabus. Furthermore, the experiences and professional skills gained from years‘ working with speaking learners at hotels will enable the researcher to conduct this research. Some other aims of the study are to present some sample units for teaching and to give some suggestions for teaching speaking English at hotels in Hue to improve the quality of teaching and learning speaking English. Research aims and Objectives 1.1 Aims This study aims to investigate and analyze the needs to help designing a syllabus for an extensive speaking course for reception staffs at hotels in Hue and provide the teachers and hotel staff as learners with practical knowledge to successfully fulfill their respective tasks.2 Objectives To achieve the aim of study, I attempt to fulfill the following objectives: 1.
To investigate and analyze learners‘ needs, background of English and challenges they faced in learning speaking English process in order to understand the learners more and then give a source of inspiration for an appropriate and effective syllabus. To present some sample units for teaching and to give some suggestions for teaching speaking English at hotels in Hue to improve the quality of teaching and learning speaking English. To find out some possible solutions to help improving English speaking skills for the reception staffs at hotels in Hue. Research significance This is probably the first research in designing a syllabus of speaking course for hotel staff.
It is hopeful that this research will be a source of inspiration for designing a syllabus to help teaching and learning speaking English effectively. Because this study has been constructed based on the learners‘ needs, it will be developed to be a good course book which makes it easier for the learners to study. They find the research useful since it addresses some ESP (English for Specific Purposes) teaching and learning issues with solutions. Additionally, doing this study is likely to bring benefits to the hotels, the reception staffs at hotels as well as the researcher.
To hotels and their reception staffs: this suggested ESP syllabus will meet urgent need of the hotels. To the researcher: It is useful and practical for the researcher to analyze learners‘ needs and design a suggested syllabus. The researcher can have more opportunities to gain some valuable experiences and knowledge. Research questions To fulfill the objectives of the study I have tried to seek the information for the following questions: 1.
What are the needs of the reception staffs at hotels in Hue in this extensive speaking course? 2. What sources of materials should be selected for a syllabus for reception staffs at hotels in Hue? 3. What should a suggested ESP syllabus for the reception staffs at hotels be like? 1. Research scope This study focuses on exploring the needs of the reception staffs at hotels.
Learners‘ needs analysis will be the basis for evaluation of the current materials and suggestion for another ESP syllabus for improving speaking skill of English of the reception staffs at hotels in Hue 1.6 The organization of the thesis The thesis report is presented in five chapters as follows. 9 Chapter 1 Introduction provides some reasons why the researcher chooses this research topic and states thepurposes, scope, significance, research questions and the structure of the study. Chapter 2 Literature Review briefly introduces some concepts and key terms used in this study: Communication and communicative competence, Speaking, What ESP is, ESP Syllabus and the prior research related to the issues under investigation. Chapter 3 Methodology presents the methods used to conduct this thesis such as the research design, techniques of sampling and collecting data, and methods of data analysis.
Chapter 4 Finding and Discussion presents the results of data analysis and discusses the findings of the report. Chapter 5 Conclusion and implications provides the main mark of the study and gives some limitations, implication and suggestions for future research. 10 CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW This chapter presents the review of a number of relevant materials, which consists of three parts. Firstly, it mentions some definitions of key terms.
Secondly, it also mentions the situation of teaching and learning speaking English in Viet Nam. Finally, needs and needs analysis are described.1 Definitions of key terms 2. Communication and communicative competence According to Morrow (1977), communication is interaction-based, unpredictable in both form and message, varies according to sociolinguistic discourse context, carried out under performance limitations such as fatigue, memory constraints, and unfavorable environmental conditions, always has a purpose (to establish social relations, to express ideas and feelings), involves authentic, as opposed to textbook contrived language, judged to be successful or unsuccessful on the basis of actual outcomes. There are many definitions of communicative competence.
According to Halliday (cited in Hymes (1971)), "communicative competence" means we are talking of a potential - what we can do, in the special linguistic sense of what we can mean and avoiding the additional complication of distinction between doing and knowing. "Communicative competence" means the mastery of an ideal speech situation (Habermas, 1970).