An Investigation on Listening Proficiency Levels in English for Service and Hospitality of Thai Students in Public and Private Universities

Abstract

The objectives of this study were (1) to investigate graduating students’ listening ability in English for service and hospitality industry, (2) to find the cut-off scores for eight levels of the listening ability, and (3) to find ability descriptors for each level of the listening ability. The subjects in this study included the interviewee group and the test taker group. The interviewee group consisted of three hotel personnel from selected hotels, four Heads of Tourism and Hotel Industry Department and teachers from selected public and private universities, two specialists in ESP test Development, and three hotel guests. The test taker group consisted of 250 graduating students, majoring in tourism and hotel industry or related fields. These students were randomly selected from Selected four public and private universities. Research instruments included (1) Test of Listening proficiency in English for Service and Hospitality Industry (L-PESH Test), (2) students’ attitude questionnaire, written in Thai, (3) the standardized test (Test of English of International Communication, TOEIC), and (4) interviews. The design of this study was a “research and development” model. Descriptive statics were used to compute frequency, percentages, mean scores, standard deviations, reliability and validity indexes of the test. An item analysis program (Classical Model) was applied in test item analysis. The research findings were that the new test could measure the students’ ability along the continuum of proficiency levels very much like the TOEIC did. This result supported that the L-PESH Test could differentiate graduating students’ listening proficiency in English for service and hospitality. The students’ listening ability in English for service and hospitality could be classified into eight ability levels namely “Distinguished”, “Superior”, “Advanced-High”, “Advanced-Low”, “Intermediate-High”, “ Intermediate-Low”, “Novice-High”, and “Novice-Low”. It was found from the investigation that the majority of the listening ability of the students who took the L-PESH Test was in the levels of “Intermediate-High and “Advanced-Low”. Ability descriptors were established to describe listening abilities of the eight levels.