THE NEEDS OF INTELLIGIBILITY FOR REISTRAR OFFICE PERSONNEL IN ENGLISH AS A LINGUAL FRANCA FOR SPECIFIC PURPOSES CONTEXT

Sonporn Sirikhan

Abstract


Apparently, the growth of internationalization in universities in Thailand does not match the qualifications of the current personnel in registrar office who have been long employedsince English skills were not relatively required.   As having a high frequent contact with international students in providing academic services in English throughout their study,registrar office personnel need a well-designed in-house English training urgently.  This study investigated work-related needs in English for registrar office personnel.   Data collected from registrar office personnel revealed that intelligibility, not fluency in English, is the achievable goal for their work.  They specifically needed to improve their listening and speaking skills with sufficient knowledge of vocabulary and sentence structures related to students’ academic enquires.   Besides,it has been revealed thattheir perceived social identity influences their communication with international students. Thus, knowledge of communicative strategies, awareness of politeness, and intercultural communication need to be implemented.  The training course reflected from work-related needs of Thai registrar office personnel is expected to develop in order to help them accommodate the changes of being ‘internationalization’ in Thai universities where international programs have been offered. 

Keywords


Registrar Office Personnel, ESP, ELF, intelligibility

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