“An investigation of competence and problems in English verbal communication skills of receptionists who work in guesthouses at khaosan road” By Phenchan Chanphram, the purpose of this research was to investigate competence and problems in English verbal communication skills of 30 receptionists who work in guesthouses at Khaosan road. The two main research questions are 1) How well do receptionists communicate verbally with foreign tourists or guests?, and 2) What are the problems in English listening and speaking skills of receptionists who work in guesthouses at Khaosan Road? All 30 participants are requested to answer the questionnaire. Data were collected in December, 2009, and illustrated in frequency, percentage, description and inferential statistics for quantitative study. The results could be summarized as follows: 1.The findings are distributed that the best competence of receptionists were 1) Direction of places, 2) Hotel services and outside services’ information, and 3) Choice of word respectively. Most of the best competence was interpreted in a fair level. On the other hand, the study displayed that the lowest competence of receptionists was 1) Grammar, 2) Limited vocabulary, and 3) Telephone conversation respectively. Every interpretation of the least competence in English verbal communication skills of receptionists was in a poor level. 2. To specify essential problems in each skill of verbal communication skills these are listening and speaking skills. The findings revealed that receptionists often had problems in both listening and speaking skills. For listening skills, they were unable to catch the words when the foreign tourists speak too fast, could not comprehend some unknown vocabulary, and the technical terms. Moreover, they often had problems in pronouncing English vowel sounds, pronouncing English consonant sounds, and saying basic expression in speaking skills. As the results implied that problems in listening and speaking skills related to the least competence of receptionists in verbal communication skills.