English Listening Difficulty of Passenger Service Officers, State Railway of Thailand

Abstract

This quantitative research aimed to investigate English listening difficulty of passenger service officers at State Railway of Thailand. The instruments were questionnaires administered to 320 subjects out of a total of 1,603 passenger service officers in all provincial offices. Passenger service officers need to meet and communicate with international passengers in provincial stations.

The results revealed that English listening as the officers’ difficulty was categorized into four problems. Listening to fast delivered messages and Listening to unfamiliar words displayed high means scores,  = 4.15 and  = 4.03, respectively; followed by Lack of capability to understand the message heard ( = 3.69) and Dealing with travel information ( = 3.46) followed by which displayed a score at a high level (= 4.03).  The results could be beneficial for officers and the organization to implement appropriate resolutions to the problems. The organization, as well, could make use of the research result to come up with sustainable improvement.