A TASK BASED NEED ANALYSIS TO EMPOWER TEACHER IN TEACHING ENGLISH
FOR TRAVEL ARRANGEMENT IN INDONESIAN INDUSTRIES
Dra. Lina Sinatra Wijaya. ,MA Satya Wacana Christian University
Sa)atiga - Indonesia
Abstract
Recent needs for English competence at workplaces encourage Indonesian collc_;ges or universities to train students to achieve such competence. For this reason, the current study addresses what kind of English is needed tor travel an·angement communication in Indonesian industries which use English in their working environment. The purpose of this research is to examine how English for Travel An·angement is commonly practiced in Indonesian industries through a task-based needs analysis: The need-s analysis data were collected through semi structured interviews and questionnaires. The target participants of the needs analysis included 12 practitioners who are involved in travel-oriented English communication. A qualitative approach was used to analyze the data. The findings of this study show that most of the language functions needed in the workplaces emphasize speaking skills in the situations of hotel and flight booking and writing skills, particularly in memo and email writing tasks. The findings provide a sound basis and valuable implications for making creative teaching material on English for travel arrangement and empowering teacher in teaching English for travel arrangement used by Indonesian lndushies.
BACKGROUND
Since the early 1980s, research on English for business purposes has flourished as English has become widely accepted as the primary language for international business ( Byod, 1990; Esteban & Canadom 2004 ). A considerable amount of research has been
ｾ ｣ｯｮ､ｵ｣ｴ･､＠ on business including the analysis of business writings, conversation,
communication skills and strategies. Also many language institutions have offered business English course. In line with the increased interest in business English, beginning in 2005 , a lot of Indonesian industries need to know a certain business English which concentrate in one typical topic, that is an English for special purposes. There are many kinds of English for special purposes that are developed in the business world. After conducting some visits to Indonesian ind ustries, it shows that most of the professionals have some difficulties in communicating in English, especially English for special purposes. In this paper the writer wants to limit the research on the use of English for special purposes which relates to making travel arrangement . Due to this reasons, A research was conducted on 12 practitioners in Indonesian industries, who are involved in English communication in their work. The writer wants to know the use of English
language especially when the practitioner has to make a travel anangement. The tinding of this research will provide a sound basis and valuable implication for material design on English for travel anangec:;ent.
RESEARCH AIMS
The purpose of the current study are
• To examine how English for Travel Arrangement is commonly practiced in Indonesian industries
• To conduct a task-based needs analysis to identify target tasks that the students need to perfonn when they have to make a travel anangement in their work. • To design the materials focussing on English for travel anangement which is
ｾ＠ suitable for the practitioners in the Indonesian industries.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Beginning in summer 2005, there was a move to change the entire focus of the program from skill-based to content based instruction ( Brinton. Snow, & Wesche, 1989; Crandal &Tucker, 1990; Kasper,2000 ). The rationale for the change was that, although skill-based courses such as listening or writing intensive courses were offered, inevitably all of the courses had to incoqJorate other skills as well. Therefore, it was thought to be better to focus on content areas in which students might ｢ｾ＠ interested, while encompassing all four skills in each course. Accordingly, content-based courses were developed in five different areas : (a) business and travel, (b) academic preparation, (c) language in literature, (d) media studies, and (e) TOEFLITOEIC ( Huh Sorin,2006) . Business and travel was a newly created content area in which courses were offered. English for travel arrangement courses were designed to develop students' knowledge of business practices and to improve their communication skills in various business situations especially in making travel arrangement. For this purposes, matetials are developed in this content area: making a reservation, booking a hotel, asking for inforn1ation , writing memo, telephone messages, email etc. This materials are taught as a two-hour teaching class, for eighteen weeks.
The needs analysis unde11aken here was designed for the English for special purpose class, the focus of which is to improve learners· English skills especially for making travel anangement . Target students for this class are those who plan to work in a multinational or national companies in Indonesia, and need to be _able to use English in the work place.
Considering that the material is content bas·ed and focussed on business communication skills especially in the field of travel anangement, a task-based approach. to material design was adopted. Although the content based and task-based approaches were regarded as different approaches to material design, these two seemed to coincide well for the targeted material from theoretical and practical perspectives.
Jearn the target language through contextualized and meaningful use of the language rather than learning sentence-level usage of the language. Forth, tasks presented with gradually increasing complexity provide rich, elaborated, and comprehensible input for the language acquisition to occur ( Doughty & Long, 2003 )
Task-based Needs Analysis
According to the task-based syllabus proposed by Long and Crooks ( 1992 ), Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT) adopts tasks as the analytic unit of the syllabus and organizes a material around different types of tasks. Principle underlying TBL T also emphasize the importance of developing pedagogic tasks based on real-world tasks that learners need to perfonn using the target language after or during the course. As a result, to develop a TBL T program, it is necessary to conduct a task-based need analysis to identify real-world target tasks and to develop pedagogic tasks based on these. Task-based needs analysis is assumed to enhance the real-world relevance of the material and increase student interest and motivation.
The importance of task-based needs analysis is well manifested in the six steps to develop a TBL T program suggested by Long and NoiTis ( 2000 ) :
I. Conduct task-based needs analysis to identify target tasks 2. Classify target tasks into target task types
3. Derive pedagogic tasks 4. Sequence pedagogic tasks
5. Implement syllabus with appropriate methodology and pedagogy
6. Assess student achievement using task-based, criterion-referenced performance tests.
Teacher empowerment:
T·eacher empowerment is the degree to which a teacher feels he has the ability to affect change in his professional setting. In addition, empowerment is the degree to which teachers feel they have control the ability to make those changes. Components of empowerment have been identified to include self-reflection, control, collegial relationships, confidence and instructional strategies . Teacher empowerment is one aspect of teacher professionalism. To be recognized as a professional, teachers should also be recognized as having some power in their professional settings (Johnston Carl
ｇｲ｡ ｾ ［ ･ｳ＠ II, 2002)
According to Maeroff ( 1988), teacher empowerment consists of i-1:1proved status, increased knowledge and access to decision making. Short and Rinehart ( 1992 ) identify six dimensions of teacher empowerment : Decision making, professional growth, status, self-efficiency, autonomy, and impact. In a study devoted to the concept of teacher empow em1ent, Short ( 1994) describes the six dimensions in detail. Decision making refers to teachers ' participation in critical decisions that directly affect their work, involYing issues related to budgets, teacher selection, scheduling, and cmTiculum. To be effec tive, teachers ' participation in decision making must be genuine, and the teachers need to be confident that their decisions actually impact real outcomes. Self-efficacy refers to the teachers ' perception that they are equipped with the skills and ability to help students learn and are competent to develop curricula for students.
ＭＭＭＭｾＭＭ ＭＭＭ ＭＭＭＭＭＭＭ
DATA COLLECTION METHODS
For this purpose, semi-structured interviews and a questionnaire survey were adopted as the bases for the needs analysis. Prior to collecting data, the literature on business English especially English for travel arrangement was reviewed. Some of the representative people in 12 Indonesian industries I foundations who use English in their work are Kevit, Fonnula Trix, Kayu Arum, International School , Nusantara Tour and Travel, Nayati, Kemasindo , Grand Candi Hotel, Alfa Link , Tyfountex , Satya Wacana Chri stian University, and Forwarding Company. They were then interviewed and ad mini stered the questionnaires.
This paper presents the findings of the study star1ing with the semi-structured interviews and the questionnaires survey. The target English for travel aiTangement tasks identified through the interviews and the questionnaire will be repor1ed in terms of their frequencies , and the experiences and attitudes of some professionals in Indonesian industries ,and also the common difficulties they have found when they have to perfonn the language. ·
FINDINGS
English for Travel Arrangement Tasks pe1:f'or111ed by the 12 business ｰｎｾｦＧ･ｳｳｩｯｮ｡ｬｳ＠ in Indonesian industries
Through the interviews, a variety of tasks were identified and classified into per1inent target task types as shown in Table 1. The target tasks that each interviewee listed were somewhat different from one another, depending on their company types and job responsibilities. All the tasks that the interviewees listed were taken into consideration for the purpose of developing a questionnaire that captured various target business tasks as much as possible. It should be noted that although the identified tasks were classified into the most pertinent target task types, many tasks were in fact integrated and occurred simultaneously with the tasks from other target task types. For instance, when a company wants to make a travel arrangement for the business, it did not involve just looking at the brochure of a hotel I a travel ｡ｧｾｮ｣ｹＮ＠ In addition, we need to call and ask about the things we need for the travel arrangement such as booking a hotel by phone, and also confinning their booking by writing email, etc .
Table 1:
Target Task Types Target Tasks
CoiTespondence Writing Memos, Telephone Messages, Emails Writing document Business letter - booking a room, booking a flight,
booking a flight, Writing itinerary , making a report !>or the an·angement
Business trips Making a reservation, finding suitable flights, finding suitable hotels.
interviewees mentioned that a good command of English was very important to obtain new career opportunities such as getting promoted to higher position.
Throughout the interviews, the importance of the ability in speaking and writing in English was addressed. Most of the professionals in Indonesian company were lack of English language especiaJiy in writing and speaking. They are not really confident to speak and write in English during their work.
A Jl!aterial design mddel
A task-based syllabus is concerned with purposeful actJvJtJes which learners might be expected to engage in real-life situations. As Ellis ( 2003 ) points out, this type of syllabus also puts emphasis on meaning and communication, where students are primarily "users"' rather than "learners" of the language.
Based on the interviews now we can present a model which we have used for \\'riting our own materials. The aim of this pmiicular model is to provide a coherent framework for the integration of the various aspects of learning, while at the same time a llO\\·ing enough room for creativity and variety to flourish . The model consist of five elements:
a. Challenging questions, -where the - students are motivated to answer questions which are related to the topic discuss.
b . Warm up I review activities, is a review of the previous lessons
c. Presentation activities, is language focus, which aims to enable learners to learn and use language, correctly.
d. Practice activities, is a time where students can practice what they have learnt orally and also improve their writing skill.
e. Reflection Activities, is an evaluation to see whether the materials are suitable , well-made and can be understood by students or not.
DISCUSSION :
Through the semi-structured interviews and the questionnaires survey, various target tasks were identified and classified into more abstract and super-ordinate target task types. The tasks identified in this partieular study shows more comprehensive result and at the same time, gives an idea of specified business English tasks focussing on English for travel arrangement.
According to the survey results, most of the respondents seemed to acknowledge the importance of English in performing their work, especially in speaking ability and also writing ability. The credibility of the target tasks identified in the study was triangulated using various sources and methods
From the findings, it can be identified that the most commonly use of the language especially in English for making travel arrangement is writing memos, telephone messages, booking hotels, making reports and also writing emails. Both in the skills of speaking and writing are really important here. Even though reading comprehension skill is also important especially in understanding travel brochures and also hotel accommodation, but they realized that speaking and writing is more important for their work.
By having the new model in designing the materials , the teachers should he creative in transferring their knowledge and emphasizing in speaking and writing. The materials should be taken from the real condition, so that it is easy to understand and absorb the idea what is being taught by the teachers. In this case Empowering teachers is very important , because by empowering the teacher, it will change the classroom and change the teacher·s instructional practice drastically. Teachers can provide differentiated instruction. ln the class the students can work independently ( at the level at which they can ) to convey what they know and understand about the materials gi vcn.
At the same time the aims to teach business English communication skills especially English for travel atTangemcnt, should be comprehensive enough, in terms of business English tasks, in order to meet the needs and wants of the students.
As Hutchinson and Waters ( 1987) pointed out in their distinction among necessities ( what learner has to know in order to function effectively in · the target situation ), lacks ( the gap between vvhat the Ieamer knows already and the attainment goals that the Ieamer needs to acquire), and wants (what the Ieamer wants to leam in the course ), considerable discrepancies were found between the target tasks that the professionals in the Indonesian industries performed at work using English and the task s that they wanted to leam.
CONCLUSION
From this study, it shows that a teacher must leam new ideas and strategies throughout his/her career. It is part of his /her professional development. Professional development is always a never ending process. A teacher is always expected to empower himself /herself with the new concepts in tune with the changing times. There is always scope for further developments. One method may be suitable for one teacher but it may not work for others. The English teacher is responsible to decide on his/her own empowerment. Based on the material design model found in this research, It is hoped that the instruction perfonned by the empowered teacher will give a better result for the professionals who work in Indonesian companies where English is used in their working environment.
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