Speaker
Description
This study examines how AI-generated personas can address the limitations of conventional role-play in English for Specific Purposes (ESP) classrooms for Tourism students. Traditional classroom activities often fail to reflect the complexity and unpredictability of real-world service encounters.In this approach, AI tools are used to create diverse tourist profiles with different cultural backgrounds, communication styles, and behavioral traits, including demanding customers and situations involving misunderstanding or conflict. These profiles are embedded in task-based activities where students engage in role-play, problem-solving, and guided reflection.
The study draws on a classroom-based implementation with 50 third-year students majoring in English for Tourism and Hospitality. Data are collected through observations, student reflections, and performance tasks to examine how these AI-supported scenarios influence communicative competence, intercultural awareness, and workplace readiness.
Findings suggest that AI-generated personas increase engagement and expose learners to more varied communicative challenges. Integrating such tools into ESP teaching can better prepare students for communication in the tourism industry.
Biography
Liem Do is a full-time lecturer at Faculty of Foreign Languages, Van Lang University in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. He got an M. A in English Language Teaching from King Mongkut’s University of Technology in Bangkok, Thailand. His research interests include, but not limited to, Task-Based Reading and Writing, Reading and Writing Methodology, Translation, Curriculum Design in ESP, and Technology in Language Learning.
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