The theoretical background of the material

ELF Communication with Thai visitors
The number of foreign visitors to Japan reached 31 million in 2018. In terms of their language
backgrounds, Chinese speakers constitute 50%, Korean speakers 25%, followed by Thai speakers at
3.7% (or 1.1 million). Such recent trends in the inbound tourist population raise issues regarding
communication in English as the lingua franca (ELF) between non-native service providers and nonnative customers. The ThaiE-speaking population in particular has remained relatively unknown until
recently, and the distinctive characteristics of Thai English could cause difficulties in communication
with non-ThaiE speakers. In the East/Southeast Asian region including Japan and Thailand, American
English has been mainly learned as a norm, which has been self-evident from the strong influence ofAmerican English. This accords with the account of the Expanding circle of Braj Kachru’s World
Englishes (WE), in which non-native English variations should be norm-dependent on Inner or Outercircle Englishes (Kachru, 1985). However, this strong Inner-circle English ideology no longer
accounts for the reality of ELF communication. Rather, it is making it more difficult to achieve ELF
communication between ThaiE speakers and JapaneseE speakers since they are learning only
American English, which is equally far from each other's respective English variation. This project
was launched with the sincere belief that it is necessary to solve this issue from the viewpoint ofequality among the speakers of various English variations and thereby promote efficiency incommunication among them.

The theoretical background of the material
The project is based on the perspective that “any English variation is equivalent before the goal ofachieving mutual understanding.” It partly shares with current theories of English as an international
language (EIL) that asserted the equality of native speaker’s English and non-native speaker’s English(Smith, 1983; McKay, 2002). In addition, this project incorporates the discipline of English forSpecific Purposes (ESP) that focuses on the specific needs of the language learners (Dudley-Evans,1998; Hutchinson and Walters, 1987). Although ThaiE has been categorized as essentially exonormative in terms of Kachru’s framework of WE, this research is distinguished in legitimizing ThaiE
to be a learning target for a discourse community, which is comprised of tourism workers in Japan.
Their common objective is to achieve more effective ELF communication with their Thai customers.
This research, from the EIL perspective, clearly divided the intersection of WE, ELF, and ESP
theories into learning objects and we called it “EIL-based ESP.” It is distinguished in providing anenvironment within which students are able to learn intensively the characteristics of a specific nonnative English variety. In turn, this gives means to legitimize Expanding-circle Englishes as an objectof intensive study. Such authorization to Expanding-circle Englishes has not previously existed in theWE theory. Since it is hoped it will promote positive change in the perception of English learners inJapan toward their own English variety, it is therefore considered significant to present the theoreticalframework of “EIL-based ESP” as a valid contribution to the research literature (Miyamoto &Watanabe, 2017; 2018). It is important to note, again, that EIL-based ESP should be applied to thelearners in specific discourse communities. Although this material should prompt further evaluation interms of appropriateness and quantity, it is hoped that it will eventually make significant contribution
to the optimization of communications within the tourism industry.
References
Dudley-Evans, T. (1998). Developments in English for Specific Purposes: A multi-disciplinary approach. Cambridge
University Press.
Hutchinson, T. and Walters, A. (1987). English for Specific Purposes: A learning-centered approach. Cambridge University
Press.
Japan National Tourism Organization (JNTO). (2018). The number of Foreign visitors by nationality and purpose of visit
2003-2018. Retrieved 02 01, 2019, from Japan National Tourism Organization:
https://www.jnto.go.jp/jpn/statistics/visitor_trends/index.html
Jenkins, J. (2007) English as a Lingua Franca: Attitudes and Identity. Oxford University Press.
Kachru, B. (1985). “Standards, Codification and Sociolinguistic Realism: The English Language in the outer circle”. In:
Quirk R., Widdowson H. (Eds.) (1985). English in the World. Cambridge University Press.
MacKay, S. L. (2002). Teaching English As An International Language: Rethinking Goals and Perspectives, Oxford
University Press.
Smith, Larry E. (1983). Readings in English as an International Language, Pergamon.
Miyamoto, S, and Watanabe, Y. (2017). The perception of “Thai English” in Japan: An analysis of interviews with hotel
staff and a survey of university students' attitudes toward accented English,『相模女子大学文化研究』(35), 25-36.
－. (2018). Material Development of Thai English for learners in Japan’s hospitality industry: a pilot study,『相模女子大学文化研究』(36), 3-24.
References of the material
Osaka University, “Thai language for self-learning”
http://el.minoh.osaka-u.ac.jp/flc/tha/pandl/01.html
JTB, “The Number of Foreign Visitors by Countries (2016)”, https://www.tourism.jp/tourism-database/stats/inbound/吉田英人 (2014). 『ゼロから始めるタイ語』、三修社.
ランナー・タイ「英語のタイ文字置き換え規準」、
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BBC Learning English, http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/thai/home
Gentner, Michael M. (2014). Teaching English to Thai Learners, Bangkok University Press.
George Mason University, The speech accent archive, http://accent.gmu.edu/index.php
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http://www.academia.edu/3805219/Perception_of_Thai_English
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Sabaijai Consulting Co. Ltd,『[コラム] タイ人の英語の発音は変？』http://sabaijaicons.com/sound.html
Wei, Youfu & Zhou, Yalun “Insights into English Pronunciation Problems of Thai Students”,
https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED476746.pdf
Travelloco, “Thai Language into Asia, Making sense of 'Tinglish', the Thai version of English”, https://www.intoasia.com/thai_language/thaienglish.php