Developing English Communication Skills of Local Youth Guides to Increase Tourism Potentials of Ban Pong Manao Archaeological Site, Lop Buri Province

Abstract

The objectives of this study were to 1) investigate the needs and problems in developing the English communication skills of the local youth guides at the Ban Pong Manao Archaeological Site; 2) develop the English communication skills of the local youth guides; and 3) examine the efficiency and effectiveness of the English communication skills development training programme. Youth guides (N = 10) aged 10-13 who volunteer to welcome tourists to Ban Pong Manao, participated in this study. The research instruments were unstructured interviews, a training needs analysis questionnaire, and an evaluation form to measure the efficiency and effectiveness of the English training programme. The findings suggested that: 1) the topics the participants needed to improve were offering help, calling for attention politely, providing information about the dos and don’ts, vocabulary related to the artefacts and expressions used to describe places and giving information about nearby attractions, respectively; 2) the teaching materials for the training programme were designed based on the data from the questionnaires and the interviews; and 3) the statistical analysis using a t-test for dependent samples showed that the post-test scores (M = 37.9, S.D.= 8.14) were higher than were the pre-test scores (M = 10.6, S.D.= 3.8), at a significance level of 0.05. This indicated that the local youth guides improved their English communication skills following the training. Keywords: English Communication Skills, Local Youth Guides, Tourism Potential, Ban Pong Manao Archaeological Site, Lop Buri