ESP TEST FOR HOTEL FRONT OFFICE: IS IT A NEED?

Abstract

Expatriates staying in hotels in Surabaya have indicated vast growing in number. Critical question is “how is the staff’s language competence to cope with this?” To make it sure, approach to hotel leaders and staff should be done for further investigation. Thus, this study examines (1) hotel leaders’ perception towards the hotel front officers’ English proficiency, (2) the need of English for Specific Purpose (ESP) test for hotel front office staff and (3) effort done to ensure good command of English of front office staff. For the purpose, a qualitative study employing a case study was conducted involving ten hotels and hotel leaders as well as front office staff. Source of data was derived from results of questionnaire, Focus Group Discussion (FGD), and interviews. Actual needs on front officers’ English proficiency information were obtained from three ways; job-search websites, institutional e-mails and interview with hotel leaders. Results showed that specific English test to measure English proficiency for front office tasks did not actually exist since hotel leaders merely counted on the general interview during their recruitment process. Perceptions on their front office staff’s English proficiency were still below the passing grade for all type of hotels. To establish an ESP test for front office staff, Target Language Use (TLU) for Speaking and Writing can be broken-down into the followings:  18 were extracted as TLUs for speaking and 7 items were extracted to serve as TLUs for writing. Finally, based on the obtained TLUs, 14 questions for speaking and 5 questions for writing were constructed for suggested ESP test for hotel front office staff.