Speaking skills
Speaking skills were also a requirement. From this study, the most frequent
situations in which the students use speaking skills were related to face to face
conversations. It could be seen that participants had to talk to clients mostly at check-
in and check-out, and when dealing with any enquiries that occurred. Most guests
were foreigners who used English as the lingua franca that was to communicate in the
hotel industry. Moreover, participants were frequently required of speaking English to
conduct face to face conversations with customers. Therefore, apart from providing
information about check-in and check-out details, hotel information, tourist
attractions, accommodation, restaurants, and the provision of internet connections.
They also needed to give clients directions and to describe locations in English.
English speaking was a problem for Thai people in communicating with foreigners in
other areas as well. The findings are similar to Aunruen’s study (2005) which found
that speaking was one of the problems that Thai people in travel agents in Chiang Mai
were faced with while working. Also, Malison (2006) indicated that speaking was the
skill that students encountered difficulties with the most during their participation in
the Work and Travel USA Program in 2005.