ENGLISH USED IN SOUVENIR SHOPS: A NEEDS
ANALYSIS APPROACH
1 | KhonKaen University |
Online publication date: 2018-05-17
Publication date: 2018-05-17
Eurasian J Anal Chem 2018;13(3):emEJAC04020
KEYWORDS
ABSTRACT
Due to a greater number of tourists visiting Thailand each year, one important business
that helps boost the tourism industry is souvenir shops because people like to be reminded of
special moments in their lives and to hold evidence of those special moments, so they keep their
memory by collecting something that remind them to think about those places again. The main
purpose of this study is twofold: to examine English language needs, problems, and functions that
salespersons need in to order to communicate with foreign customers, and to examine how the
souvenir employees solve problems when encountering communication problems. The data were
collected with 20 souvenir sellers through semi-structured interviews and the data were analyzed
adopting content analysis. The results reveal that employees in the souvenir shops needed English
skills to help them better perform their professional works. The English language functions that
they needed to better serve their customers included thanking and gratitude, giving product
information, and taking money and giving changes. The findings of the study can be used as
guidelines for teachers, course and material developers, as well as any lay people who are
interested to learn about English language functions used in souvenir shops.