Abstract:
The objective of this research was to analyze the needs of tourism personnel
for English communicative innovation in Sai Yao Community silk village,
Thalunglek sub-district, Muang district, Buriram province.The sample group included
34 tourism personnel of the silk village in 2017. They were asked to complete a
questionnaire, and 11 from the sample group were asked to participate in a focus
group discussion. They were selected by using a purposive sampling method. A
questionnaire and focus group discussion form were utilized in data collection.The
statistics used in data analysis were percentage, mean, Standard Deviation, and
content analysis.
The results showed that among the four skills, the questionnaire respondents
thought that listening was needed at the highest level (4.91). The samples viewed that
English for Specific Purposes (ESP) covering both vocabulary and conversations were
needed at the highest level (4.82). They needed the English communicative
innovation in the form of a booklet for practicing their English at the highest level
(4.73). The topics they needed at the highest level (5.00) included greeting and
welcoming, telling history of the community, describing the community’s products
details and bargaining. The results obtained from focus group discussion revealed that
the topics they needed were telling the history of the community, talking about
community’s products, talking about thecommunity’s learning stations (silk, organic
rice, and cane sugar processing), and talking about the tourist attractions near the
community. The suitable innovation they needed included a booklet and sound clips
as well as products vocabulary with phonetics and translations. Moreover, they
suggested that the youth in the community should be able to join the workshop for
using the innovation and the topics in the booklet should be arranged from the general
topics to the specific topics.
