Needs of Kiriwong People to Study English for Tourism Business

Abstract

Kiriwong community is well known for tourism management. However, the Kiriwong people are not able to communicate in English. Thus, this research was aimed at investigating the numbers of people who want to attend an English training program, the types of language skills and functions necessary for their real situations. Moreover, the relation between the influence of personal factors such as sex, age, occupations and experience on their English to the learning needs were also investigated. The survey was done by interviewing 151 Kiriwong people in four villages in June and July 2006.  The SPSS for Windows package was employed as the statistical analysis. The results revealed that most of the Kiriwong people (86.8%) wanted to learn general English related to their village contexts. The listening and speaking skills are most needed (86.8%) while the most needed functions are greeting (86.1%), thanking (83.4%), introducing and welcoming guests (81.5%), and asking and giving information (79.5%). Regarding reading and writing skills (74.2%), the people preferred to read and write the social do’s and don’ts in the community (69.5%). The results from the Chi-square test showed that 18-to 40-year-olds (93.8%, p value = 0.01) and people who have experience in using English (92.4%, p value < 0.0001) are more enthusiastic to learn English than other groups. In conclusion, most of the Kiriwong people wanted to learn general English particularly in listening and speaking skills in order to express international courtesy. This information will be very useful for arranging  an appropriate English for Tourism Curriculum.