An Analysis of Speaking Activities in Local Thai English Textbooks

This study aims to investigate speaking activities of two English textbooks, ‘English for Tourism II’ and ‘English in Airline Business’, by employing PPSIGAKI Model, a combination of Hymes’ (1967) SPEAKING Model and Munby’s (1978) Communicative Needs Processor, to compare the similarities and the differences of speaking activities found in these ESP textbooks. The findings reveal that both textbooks have speaking activities which are consistent with the elements of the PPSIGAKI model. This implies that both authors designed the speaking activities in the textbooks based on the communicative theoretical concepts. From an ESP perspective, both textbooks were designed according to learners’ needs for both tourism and airline professions and the purposes of these ESP courses. From the SPEAKING Model perspective, the speaking activities in these textbooks were authentic and served the purposes of social interactions, particularly in the field of tourism and airline situations among various speakers from different cultures. Furthermore, noteworthy, both textbooks contain their own uniqueness and features in terms of purposes, participants, channels of communication, patterns of language use, settings, and genres. The findings suggest that future research studies should focus more on linguistic perspectives and should gather data in the perspectives of textbook authors or users in order to reflect on the usefulness and effectiveness of the textbooks.