A Comparison of Japanese for Hotel Business Textbooks: Topics and Structures of Textbooks in Thailand

Abstract

          The objective of this research is to compare the general characteristics, topics, and structures of Japanese for hotel business textbooks written for higher education learners and for the general public. The target group comprises 11 Japanese for hotel business textbooks, which were written in Thai and released between 1999 and 2022. 3 textbooks for higher education learners and 8 textbooks for the general public were published during that period. The conceptual framework of Kikumoto (2020) is applied to analyze topics, while Gagne's 9 Events of Instruction is used for structural analysis. The most common topics in textbooks for higher education learners focus on reception activities (check-in, check-out, and telephone services) and tasks requiring direct communication with customers (room and restaurant services). On the other hand, the most common topics in textbooks for the general public are Japanese for emergencies and speech acts (welcome, goodbye, and refusal sentences) for learners to quickly memorize and put to use. This finding indicates that textbooks for higher education learners prioritize teaching learners to work as receptionists or in other positions that need to directly communicate with customers, whereas textbooks for the general public provide knowledge covering all hotel tasks. In terms of structures, both groups of textbooks organize learning processes according to Gagne’s 9 Events of Instruction. However, both groups fail to inform learners of objectives and to stimulate recall of prior learning.