Exploring Students’ Interest in Pursuing English for Tourism Course

The research was accomplished to explore students’ interest in choosing English for Tourism course and how they perceived the course. This research was completed by using a qualitative approach. The participants were five students of English for Tourism in the fourth-semester students of batch 2018 and above at the Department of English Language Education, UIN Ar-Raniry. Semi-structured interviews were used as instruments to answer two research questions; what factors affect students’ interest in choosing English for Tourism course and how they perceive English for Tourism course. From the result of the research, it was found that there were two factors affecting students’ interest in choosing English for Tourism course. The first factor was internal factor which came up from the psychological aspect; they were familiar with tourism sector (readiness) and have interest with tourism sector (attention). The second factor was external factors; these were the image of the lecture, classmates or peers, their future dream, and the material in the course itself. Moreover, the students also perceived English for Tourism with positive comments on the whole. Students admitted that English for Tourism was essential to learn. They also gained lots of advantages from the course and agreed that English for Tourism was beneficial for them as PBI students. Yet, the students argued that the course needed to emphasize practical aspects and creative projects. They also hoped that there would be a general lecture of this course.