Nowadays, at least every field of work requires its individuals to have the ability to speak English, at least for specific purposes. In Indonesia, hospitality industry develops rapidly. In the industry, people from diverse nationalities are often met. As the consequence, English becomes crucial in hospitality industry (e.g. hotels, restaurants, travel agents etc.) for: (1) developing tourism. The success of hospitality industry can be achieved through providing an excellent service and satisfying hotel guests professionally, and (2) facilitating human resources to be accepted working in the industry. Hotels will consider accepting employees who have the ability to communicate well enough with the hotel guests by using hospitality English, particularly the front-line hotel staff who will become hotels’ representatives.
Although English taught in the institutions where they study, many Indonesian students who major in the hotel and hospitality still have insufficient English skills and encounter problems in mastering appropriate English hospitality. In order to improve the English skills, a syllabus that facilitates active learning is needed. This study intends to propose a syllabus design as a solution.
In the realization, the syllabus design requires an investigation of the needs from the students (from Trisakti Tourism Institute and Tourism Academy of Bunda Mulia Jakarta), the hospitality industry (InterContinental Midplaza) and the hotel and hospitality institution management (Trisakti Tourism Institute). After the needs are investigated, this study then aims to create the suitable syllabus based on those needs.
Task-based syllabus is believed to be the syllabus that can facilitate the learners to improve hospitality English. It exposes the learners English through fulfilling certain tasks as in the real world. By so doing, the students can improve hospitality English and as a result, they will become proficient as front-line hotel staff.
Finally, the result of the research is a proposed task-based syllabus design that hopefully will be able to enhance Indonesian front-line hotel staff, so that they are able to perform well in English while providing service, not to mention to facilitate them in acquiring a job easier in the industry that requires English. |