Actual Improvement Plan of the English Language Proficiency of Tourism POLICE in KOREA

Abstract

Purpose; The purpose of this study is to examine and analyze the English ability and operation status of the Korean tourism police officers, to find out the problems, and to find out more effective tourism police officer’s English ability according to the characteristics of the tourism police. For this purpose, we examined the English ability of the tourism police officers who are performing actual work, and analyzed the importance of English ability in accordance with some of the representative cases in tourist attractions around the world. Also, this study analyzed the problems and difficulties of English language ability that tourism police officers consider to be important in real work environment in order to make improvements in current English test and education system. As a result of examining the cases of foreign tourism police, the most common case of English utterance is when they need to give help in solving the inconveniences of foreign tourists while enjoying the visit in tourist attractions. The necessity of English was most emphasized in speaking and listening to the basic vocabulary and expressions used by foreign tourists, and the difference of accent by culture was one of the factors that caused difficulties in mutual communication. The main topic of communication between foreign tourists and tourism police officers was mainly on asking and responding to directions, giving some explanation of the tourism sites, taking complaints of various inconveniences around the attraction spots. Therefore, it is necessary to design the test and curriculum for a special purpose English required by the tourism police in order to meet the actual work condition.