English for Specific Purposes (ESP) for Jordanian Tourist Police in Their Workplace: Needs and Problems

With the rapid development of the global tourism industry, designing ESP-based curricula is now more vitally needed than ever. To work towards this goal, analyzing learners’ problems and needs has become merely unavoidable. Therefore, this study aimed at examining the needs, functions and problems of 46 tourist police serving in different workplaces in Jordan. A questionnaire was used for this purpose and data were collected and analyzed. The results revealed that speaking and listening are the most important skills, followed by reading and writing. Concerning the English language functions, the results indicated that general conversation, answering questions and solving problems, then providing services were the most important functions. The results also showed that speaking too fast in English by foreign tourists is the most serious problem for Jordanian tourist police. The other difficulties they encountered included, using inappropriate English in speaking, lexis shortage and inability to use grammar for writing. Data analysis showed that tourist police faced problems with English language skills especially, listening, conversation and reading respectively. Recommendations and pedagogical implications were suggested.


Introduction
Tourism industry can directly or indirectly provide the host countries with foreign currencies, create jobs in the service and manufacturing sectors and help increase government revenues, including hotels and other types of taxes, tourist taxes, airport exit taxes, income taxes and customs duties on imports (Badri et al., 2014, p. 191).In Jordan, the tourism sector is growing and is playing an integral role in the state's extensive economic growth.According to the Ministry of Tourism and Antique (2014), the data released by the Jordanian Central Bank showed that the total tourism revenues during the first quarter of the current year has accounted for about JD 728 million.Jordan has become a tourist destination and more popular worldwide.As per the statistics of the Tourism Police Department (2014), around 598872 tourists have visited the tourist sites in Jordan until the end of March 2014.Around 41,453 tourists were from USA and Canada, 45,786 from Europe and 23,787 from India.As noticed from the previous statistics, many tourists are either native English speakers or speakers of English as a second language.A lingua franca in this context is a pressing need.The Jordanian Tourism Police Department has divisions in different governorates and helps the tourists in different ways; the lingua franca that the police servicemen would communicate with is English.If a successful communication takes place between tourist police and tourists, more satisfaction will happen and consequently more tourists arrival.Because of the current position of the English language as the main language used for international communication, it becomes essential for Jordanian personnel who are constantly dealing with multicultural tourists in their workplace.
A vast majority of researchers in the field of ESP point out the significance of teaching/learning English for Specific Purposes (Abdel-Ghany & Abdel-Latif 2012;Alhuqbani, 2014;Lin, Wu, & Huang, 2013;Salim, Binti-Ibrahim, & Hassan, 2012;Tsao, 2011;Xu, 2008).English language continues to dominate in different disciplines, for example, in business, technology, media, education, medicine, and research.Due to the international competition, the tourism and hospitality industries have grown significantly (Chang & Hsu, 2010;Chen, Chiu, & Lin, 2011) and English proficiency has become integral part of the globalization and hospitality.In Jordan, the tourist police usually communicate with tourists in different archaeological and biblical sites which makes ESP a core need for the workplace.
Generally, English has been taught in traditional ways at schools where the Jordanian tourist police come from without needs analysis surveys.Therefore, carrying out a formal needs analysis and determining problems facing tourist police in using EFL necessitated investigation.Accordingly, the purpose of this study was to examine the English language needs and problems of tourist police in Jordan.

Needs Analysis
According to Wannapok (as cited in Prachanan, 2012), needs analysis has been one of the key factors and an integral part of English for specific purpose (ESP) practitioners; i.e. researchers, course designers, material developers, testers, evaluators as well as classroom teachers for many years.Generally, needs may refer to different concepts.Robinson (1991) pointed out the term needs analysis is "influenced by the ideological preconceptions of the analysts" (as cited in Benesch, 1996, p. 724) which implies that needs "do not have of themselves an objective reality" (Brindley, 1989, as cited in Robinson, 1991, p. 7).However, needs as a goal-oriented definition (Widowson, 1981) may refer to "the learner's study or job requirements; that is, what they have to be able to demonstrate at the end of their language course" (Prachanan, 2012, p. 118).Also, Berwick (1989) viewed this type of needs as "objective" (p.55).Richards (2001), indicated that needs analysis as a process of gathering data may be defined "as procedures used to collect information about learners' needs" (p.51).Similarly, Nunan (1988) interpreted needs analysis as "techniques and procedures for collecting information to be used in syllabus design' ' (p. 13).In this vein, Kandil (2009) concluded that the needs of Arab learners are not usualy incorporated in the instructional materials because "needs analysis (NA) has not yet received sufficient attention from researchers and language teaching professionals in the Arab world" (p. 1).
Taking the above definitions into account, needs analysis in the tourist police work in Jordanian context stands for the need for specific communicative functions of English language in the workplace.Further, Jordanian tourist police need English language as a means of carrying out conversations with tourists, giving information, providing services, offering help, answering questions, solving problems, etc. Needs analysis here involves collecting data about the tourist police academic, professional, cultural and language background to provide recommendations and instructions to design an ESP course that appeals to their actual needs in their workplace.
Carrying out needs analysis and determining language obstacles facing tourist police is a crucial process.It is a very critical part of the curriculum planning process in language teaching and learning (Richards, 2001).Therefore, if needs analysis is conducted and language obstacles are determined, the language course material will be relevant and motivating.When talking about those who work in the tourism sector, mastering foreign language skills becomes a very essential need.Obviously, needs analysis is a fundamental factor of ESP.This means learners' needs analysis should be considered as a scaffold for any ESP course or curriculum design (Abu-Zahra & Shayeb, 2011).

Problem of the Study
Communicative and linguistic competence developments are the prerequisites of professional development for those who work in the sector of the tourism industry (Bobanovic & Grzinic, 2011;Prachanan, 2012).In addition, generating income and creating a variety of jobs could increase if good hosts are offered (Prachanan, 2012).As a result, improving English proficiency of tourist police especially in hospitality industry is a pressing need.In Jordan, within the limits of the researcher's knowledge, very little research has been implemented to determine the tourist police needs of English in the workplace, and what problems they face when they need to communicate with foreign tourists in real life situations.

Significance of the Study
The hospitality industry is globally viewed as one of the most important economic sectors of the states.The development of this industry will affect language needs.Employees of the hotel industry, for example, have the same pressure to communicate efficiently with English-speaking hotel clients (Kuppan, 2008).English for tourism industry is one of the most important issues in the fields of English for Occupational Purposes (EOP) as everyone is a stereotype on countless occasions.Reconsidering the case of EFL in the context of tourism industry in Jordan and identifying the personnel needs and language problems such as the present study does, may provoke stakeholders to fight for language programs that meet the needs of the tourist personnel and emphasize the development of EFL skills.Mastering a foreign language, especially English, enables the tourist police to communicate with tourists, understand their cultural differences and increase job opportunities (Leslie & Russell, 2006).
Overall, the studies pertaining to English for tourist police and tourism industry in the Jordanian context are very rare.

Questions of the Study
The present study aimed to address the following research questions: 1) What English language skills do tourist police perceive as the most important for their workplace?
2) What functions of English language do tourist police need to use in their workplace?
3) What problems do tourist police encounter at the workplace in English language skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing?4) What problems do tourist police encounter at the workplace in general?

Review of Literature and Related Studies
The area of teaching English for tourism has been given much attention as English became a lingua Franca in the international tourism industry; still there is a paucity of studies in this area (Abdel-Ghany & Abdel-Latif, 2012).Alhuqbani (2014) examined 223 police cadets' English language needs, motivations and attitudes.The subjects were studying at King Fahd Security College in Saudi Arabia.Results revealed that English teaching was confined to the cadets holding degrees in humanities.The subjects rated Speaking and listening the most important skills.Prachanan (2012) studied the needs, functions and problems of English language use.A questionnaire was distributed to 40 employees serving in tourism sector.Results showed that speaking is the most important skill, followed by listening, reading and writing."The three most relevant functions in using English language were giving information, followed by providing services, and offering help.English use problems included; inability to use appropriate words and expressions, inadequate vocabulary, and lack of grammar knowledge" (p.117).Lin, Wu, and Huang (2013) investigated in a non-experimental quantitative research, the relationship between background demographic characteristics, ESP, learning styles, and language proficiency.Results showed that Taiwanese in Taiwan has statistical significance of job position, ESP, and language proficiency; and ESP, learning styles, and language proficiency with spoken task, comprehension, interaction strategies, and writing tasks.The results of the study are crucial to the Taiwanese government, hotel industries, educational institutes, students, and other researchers who may benefit from hospitality students and hotel industries.Albakrawi (2013) identified the English language needs for secondary school students' hotel stream in Jordan.The sample of the study consisted of 146 students, 27 teachers from schools of the Ministry of Education and 24 hotel employees in Jordan.Results showed that there are some real special English language needs and interests of the students in hotel stream in Jordan.
Al-Khatib (2005) investigated the communication needs and attitudes of 30 banking and tourism workers in Jordan.The researcher asked the personnel about their attitudes towards English language and its use in their workplace."A questionnaire, interviews, and analysis of authentic workplace texts" were used to collect data.Results revealed that the personnel's attitudes toward English have a great influence on their "perceptions of their needs, wants and lacks" (p.175).The results of the study confirmed the usefulness of ESP in enhancing the communication process among the personnel when employing it in their workplace.
In a similar context, Coskun (2009) studied the second-grade tourism students' level and their needs to develop a course.The students were studying at a vocational school in Turkey.The researcher used "a needs analysis and an oral interview" to collect data.Results showed "that the level of English in the classroom is A2 according to Common European Framework standards and listening-speaking skills are perceived as the most needed skills at work" (p. 1).Khamkaew (2009) examined 30 Metropolitan Police Officers' (MPOs) oral English skills.The subjects were working at Chana Songkram Police Station.The interview questions and the questionnaire were administered to the subjects.The researcher pointed out that more English training should be given to develop MPOs' listening and speaking skills in the following major language functions: "1) greeting and offering help, 2) asking personal details and problems and wants, 3) giving information about accommodation, tourist information, transportation, and emergency calls, 4) giving directions, and 5) giving advice and instruction in safety, travel, and shopping" (p. 6) According to Khamkaew, the main MPOs' problems were producing simple expressions, saying English vowels, and using complete sentences to communicate with others.Whereas, the listening-related problems were tackling the different accents of English, missing the general thought, and understanding simple phrases.
Chen ( 2009) used 5 open-ended questions to investigate the difficulties that the Republic of China Military Academy Cadets encountered when speaking English.The main focus of the questions was learners' problems when speaking English, the reasons behind those English-speaking problems, how frequently they used English and the mechanism of practicing it, how to enhance their speaking skill independently, and any other relevant issues ROCMA learners may suggest.It was found that the learners faced many problems in speaking English especially, "not confident enough and afraid of making mistakes while speaking", "fluency", and "lacking sufficient vocabulary" (p.119).The results showed that lacking sufficient practice was one of the main reasons for such problems.According to the Cadets, "more authentic English input" and "listen more, read more and read aloud more" should be part of their training (p.119).Dooey (2006) explored 18 students' listening and speaking needs.They were studying one semester's duration English course at Curtin University.Seven English as a decond language lecturers also participated in the study.Despite the differences found between the learners and lecturers' perceptions, both groups indicated the significance of listening skills for educational success.Alhuqbani (2008) analyzed the English language needs of Saudi police officers.103on-the-job police officers responded to the questionnaire developed by the researcher.The findings emphasized the police officers and security sectors' awareness of the significance of English language in police work.Nevertheless, many police officers indicated that they cannot use English in their job because of inadequate training.The researcher concluded that English materials for police purposes should be designed and delivered to the police officers to develop their proficiency in the four English skills (listening, speaking, reading, and writing).
As tourism plays a major role in the economy, Romaya (2009) carried out a study which aimed at examining the needs of the Tourist Police (TP) in Thailand.The problems of English communication faced by the TP officers with foreign tourists were examined, including the e-learning English course.The findings revealed that the TP officers found speaking and listening skills to be the most problematic aspect of communicating with foreigners in English.Foreign tourists perceived that the TP officers used English comprehensibly, even though some barriers in communication were found in terms of pronunciation, grammatical misuse, and inadequate vocabulary.Tangniam (2006) examined the needs of Thai Airways ground staff for English language.Most of the subjects stated that English training courses enabled them to interact with passengers more easily.More importantly, the subjects rated listening and speaking skills extremely needed.According to the results, the researcher suggested that much more attention should be given to listening and speaking skills in designing English training courses.Meemark (2002) investigated the needs and problems of English for Tourist Police.The purpose of the study was to explore the use of English in daily work, the problems tourist police encountered and their training needs.The results showed that all sections of tourist police strongly needed all English skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing).Listening was rated the most important skill.The researcher suggested that listening and speaking skills, in addition to vocabulary should be an integral part of any English training materials.
As the literature review above showed, very few studies have been conducted to survey the tourist police needs and problems in the Jordanian context.Consequently, the rationale of the present research is to determine the English language needs and problems the tourist police usually experience in their work.Hopefully, improving the tourist police communicative competence in English in Jordan can contribute to the tourism industry.

Methodology
The researcher implemented the descriptive approach as it suits the present study.

Population of the Study
The population of this study consisted of all tourist police serving in northern and middle Jordanian tourist attractions.

Sample of the Study
The study sample included 46 on-the-job tourist police in Jordan.

Study Tool
Based on the literature review (Leslie & Russell, 2006;Prachanan, 2012;Qaddomi, 2013;Soruc, 2012;Tsao, 2011), the researcher developed a five-point Likert scale questionnaire to identify Jordanian tourist police needs of English skills, functional needs of EFL and to shed the lights on the obstacles they face in using English language.

Validity of the Study Tool
To secure the validity of the tool, the questionnaire was distributed to a panel of experts majoring in teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL).The items of the questionnaire were checked.The experts agreed upon 90% of the questionnaire items.The researcher developed the other items according to the experts' observations to ensure their validity and appropriateness for the study purposes.

Reliability of the Study Tool
The researcher used Crombach Alpha to measure the reliability of the questionnaire and the value was (0.96).
The researcher checked the completion of all questionnaires, then, he used the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) to analyze the data.In this study, the researcher used the following statistical devices: 1) Cronbach Alpha coefficient (as stated above).
2) The researcher used A 5-point Likert scale to explain the tourist police English language needs and problems according to the standards below: A: Skills and functional needs

Scale
Skills and functional needs

Findings and Discussion
The following section introduces the tourist police needs and the problems when interacting with tourists in Jordan.Jordanian tourist police were asked to identify their needs and problems regarding English language use.The results were illustrated in the Tables 1-7 below.

First: Results related to the first question
The present study attempted to answer the following question: "What English language skills do tourist police perceive as the most important for their workplace?"The researcher used Means, standard deviations and percentages to address this question as shown in Table 1.  1 shows, most tourist police rated all EFL four skills as important.What is so exciting is the rank of speaking skill since it was ranked as the most important among the skills where the mean was (M = 4.30, 86.09%), followed by listening skill (M = 3.89, 77.83%), then writing skill (M = 3.76, 75.22%), and finally reading kill (M = 3.61, 72.17%).For the total score, it ranked as important for the tourist police (M = 3.89, 77.83%).This indicates that the majority of tourist police expressed a pressing need to master the speaking skill since they feel its importance in their workplace.This may explain the fact that the stakeholders in Jordan promote tourism industry, consequently, many foreigners visit Jordan every year.As a result, one can assume with confidence that the tourist police use English speaking skill more in their daily work to communicate with the foreign tourists.The result of this study agrees with the studies of Alhuqbani ( 2014), Akyel and Yalcin (1991), Abo-Mosallem (1984), Coskun (2009), Keyoonwong (1998), Lin, Wu, and Huang (2013), Prachanan (2012), Romaya (2009) and Tangniam (2006).The results of these studies indicated that most tourism employees coded the four English skills as highly needed, especially listening and speaking.
Second: Results related to the second question When tourist police were asked what functions of English language do they need to use in their workplace?, they rated them as shown in Table 2.  2 shows, according to the tourist police, the most English language functions needed were general conversation (M = 4.56, 91.2%), answering questions and solving problems (M = 4.10, 82%) and providing services (M = 4.06, 81.2%) respectively.The data indicates that the fourth language function the tourist police perceived essential is asking for cooperation (M = 3.86, 77.2%), followed by the function of giving information (M = 3.84, 76.8%), and the final rank is offering help (M = 3.76, 75.2%).As for the total score, and based on tourist police responses, it was ranked as very important (M = 4.03, 80.6%).
It is obvious from the results of Table 2 that tourist police use English in general conversations with tourists, providing services to foreigners, and answering questions and solving problems if they meet on resorts or any other destination.Those communicative functions of English are very important in the language of the tourism industry and require that tourist police should be highly trained and good at language."Hospitality and Tourism is often described as 'the pleasure industry' or 'the welcome industry'.It's an industry where communication is the key feature.It's also an international industry and will involve a range of inter-cultural encounters.The language of this industry is quite clearly English in an international context, but it is also the language of meeting needs, of providing high levels of service, of understanding people, of delighting people, of solving problems" (Harding, 2011).
These findings agree with the results of Simion (2012) who pointed out the importance of learning language communicative functions for the tourism industry and personnel.In contrast, Prachanan (2012) results showed that the highest rank was giving information, whereas the lowest rank was for the general conversation.
Third: Results related to the third question What problems do tourist police encounter in the workplace in English language skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing?The results were illustrated in Tables 3, 4, 5, and 6 below.It can be seen from the table above that speaking too fast in English by foreign tourists is the most serious problem for Jordanian tourist police (M = 4.13, 82.6%).Whereas, being unable to understand foreign accents was reported as the least problematic area (M = 3.45, 69%).As for the total score, it was high (M = 3.72, 74.4%).
To my best knowledge, in Jordan, listening is a neglected skill at schools and universities where students have to take certain obligatory English courses that focus on grammar, vocabulary and reading.Such courses do not handle listening at all.These results are attributed to the lack of exposure to listening genres and lack of continuous interaction with foreigners, although a good chance for tourist police is available if seized well in their workplaces.The study of Clarvie, Charles and Hassan (2013) showed the same results.In contrast, Prachanan's (2012) results showed the opposite.Notably, English for Specific Purposes (ESP) courses can curb the problem if instructed using Communicative Language Teaching approach (CLT).
The next part deals with problems that tourist police encounter in the workplace in conversation with tourists.4 shows that using inappropriate words and expressions in speaking (M = 3.80, 76%) and lacking knowledge of grammar and structure (M = 3.60, 72%) were acute problems to tourist police in Jordan.Generally, it is very clear from the total score above (M = 3.57, 71.4%) that tourist police face a major problem in speaking and conversation with foreigners in attraction/recreation sites.
English is a foreign language in Jordan.Jordanian schools teach English as any other course where students do not use outside the classroom.They lack the real opportunity to practice English outside the class or even read in English in their daily life.As a result, tourist police do not communicate with foreigners effectively as they are part of this speech community.Their speaking problems include; using incorrect words and expressions in communication, insufficient knowledge of grammar and structure, pronouncing words and expressions inaccurately, and diffidence in speaking.Such result is consistent with Meemark (2002) andRomya (2009).
In fact, enabling tourist police with technical vocabulary in the field of tourism industry is important.Tourist police in Jordan are enlisted to join the service with no background in the field of English for tourism purposes.They do not have the language potentials especially with collocation and context.Lack of communication and intercultural study courses that tourist police headquarters do not provide pre-service to its personnel contributes to this problem.Grammar is also important.For example, the tenses: past, present and future forms are frequently used to describe and elaborate on historical themes in the workplace.
Concerning the reading problems that tourist police face, the following table shows the responses.The above table shows that problems in reading are serious as the rest of the skills that tourist police face in using English as the total score shows (M = 3.53, 70.6%).According to the results represented in Table 5, it is clear that tourist police encounter problems in reading in terms of vocabulary shortage (M = 3.67, 73.4%), comprehending vocabulary (M = 3.80, 76%) and understanding lexical items in tourists document (M = 3.50, 70%).This might be due to the methods of teaching at schools which tourist police graduated from.Teaching vocabulary in context and cooperatively makes retention more effective (Qaddomi, 2010).The results agree with Horey (1991), Meemark (2002) and Romya ( 2009) who found that reading and writing skills were considered problematic by most of their respondents, but less problematic because these are used less than listening and speaking skills in communication with tourists.The reading and writing skills are routinely used in reading complaint forms, writing daily case reports, and writing letters or e-mails.
When asked to identify what problems tourist police encounter at the workplace in writing skill, their responses were as shown in Table 6.  3) Incentives should be offered to those who develop their communication skills.4) Replica studies could be conducted to study tourists' perceptions of tourist police communication abilities.
5) It is recommended that further study be implemented with other fields, for example, medicine banking, media, business, etc.

Table 1 .
Means, SDs and percentages of English language skills needs

Table 2 .
Means, SDs and percentages of English language functions

Table 3 .
Means, SDs and percentages of the tourist police problems in listening skill

Table 4 .
Means, SDs and percentages of speaking/conversation

Table 5 .
Means, SDs and percentages of the reading skill

Table 6 .
Means, SDs and percentages of the writing skill On the other hand, insufficient skills of writing was considered the least serious problem (M = 3.04, 68%).The total score shows that writing skill problems were rated as moderate (3.47, 69.4%).Tourist police rarely use writing as they rely heavily on speaking and listening skills.This explains the rank of such domain.This result is consistent with the study ofRomya (2009).