DEVELOPING A MODEL OF ESP SPEAKING MATERIALS THROUGH LANGUAGE-CENTRED APPROACH FOR TOURISM PROGRAM

Abstract

The challenge of how to manage and get benefits from the phenomenon of the current and topical issue on the importance of tourism in the global economy and international affairs becomes interesting in the emerging countries in Asia-Pacific, including Indonesia. To face this global challenge, vocational schools particularly the tourism program become one of the efforts and institutions promising in preparing Indonesia to face the phenomenon. In doing so, after they have completed their study, the tourism program students are expected to work in tourism field. The vital consideration of tourism is oral communication which must be underlined. Therefore they need to master speaking skill especially on the topic related to tourism. This research was intended to develop the suitable model of ESP speaking materials for tourism program students through language-centred approach to prepare them with enough knowledge of tourism and speaking skill. The research which was done in one of the vocational schools in Jember through the questionnaire containing students’ needs analysis found that tourism program students’ purpose in learning English was to master English for their future work. Furthermore they expected to have topics/themes relevant to the real situation that they might face in their future job. The activities that they wished to have in speaking class were role-plays, group work, and pair work. Those activities were relevant to the purpose of speaking, both in transactional and interactional purpose, since tourism-workers need to be able to communicate with customers well. In the ESP speaking materials development, the materials were designed in consideration of the results of the needs analysis in relation to the syllabus provided by the school. The materials were taken from the internet, related videos about tourism and from the situations encountered in tourism workplace in order xiii that the materials developed were suitable with the target situation. To match the materials developed with the target situation is the main aim of language-centred approach (Hutchinson & Waters, 1987). Based on the validation process, the materials developed got the total score 26.5 of 28 with the interval of the mean 3.78 which got the letter grade A and was categorized as very appropriate for tourism program since it covered the tourism program students’ needs and the syllabus.