Muhammad Umar Farooq’s scientific contributions

Development of tailor-made indigenous teaching content, after assessing the target learners’ needs and proficiency, is necessary to address to specific needs of specific learners, ensure optimum learning and motivation. This quantitative investigation attempted to determine the communicative competence of SSETH in English language skills to develop indigenous teaching content. A Likert-scale questionnaire was developed and administered to 289 participants to record their perceived proficiency in English language skills and sub-skills. Independent-samples T-test was run to generate descriptive statistics and determine whether any significant differences exited in their perceived proficiency level. The results revealed medium low English language proficiency by the participants. SSETH reported comparatively higher proficiency in the productive skills of writing and speaking as compared to the receptive skills of listening and writing. The cohort form College of Tourism and Hospitality, Taif (CTHT) reported slightly higher competence as compared to their counterparts from College of Tourism and Hospitality, Madinah (CTHM). Comparative results generated by Independent-samples T-test rejected the null hypotheses as no statistically significant differences were found in the perceived communicative competence of both groups. It is recommended that various stake holders should work in close coordination to develop and implement indigenous teaching content which should be periodically assessed and modified to suit the changing ESP needs of SSETH. This procedure may be followed as a model for other disciplines to develop indigenous teaching material.

Communication skills are extremely important for the tourism industry; they form an integral part of most tourism activities. Using English, as the international lingua franca, is an essential part of these skills, especially for international tourism. Saudi Vision 2030 places a high importance on international tourism as a driving force for economic growth. Since the inception of the Saudi Vision 2030, the tourism industry in Saudi Arabia, along with its workforce, has been growing substantially. Therefore, designing English language teaching materials for the tourism industry workforce in Saudi Arabia is a necessity. The current study firstly aimed to analyze the English language communicative needs of the Saudi tourism workforce, and then propose an English for Specific Purposes (ESP) model for teaching English based on their needs. A nation-wide survey was designed and distributed to sixty-two male and fifteen female workers serving in the Saudi tourism industry to determine their English language communicative needs. Listening and speaking were found to be highly important to their profession, in particular understanding instructions and requirements and providing details about touristic attractions. Reading and vocabulary were found more important than writing and grammatical accuracy. The study concludes with a proposal of an ESP teaching model to meet the English language communicative needs of the tourism workforce in Saudi Arabia.