AN ONLINE HOTEL STAFF COURSE FOR TOURISM AND LANGUAGES

STUDENTS

Nombre Completo del Estudiante

This paper describes the design, implementation and evaluation of a course for a group of
students that will take their internship in a hotel. The course tries to help students acquire
the skills and specific language required by the target situation. It was implemented in
Colegio Mayor de Bolivar (CMB), a public university located in downtown in Cartagena.
The university offers technological program such as Tourism and Languages, social work,
among others. Though there are no financial-related restrictions and people from all
economical levels are welcomed, the university mostly targets students who belong to level
1, 2 and 3. In this regard, CMB has become the second option of choice (only after the
Cartagena University) when it comes to public, inexpensive education.

CMB is backed by the Distrito of Cartagena and the students pay according to their parents
income. Tuition varies, but it usually goes from a third of a monthly minimum wage to a
minimum wage, which is at least half of what they would have to pay in a private
institution.

The tourism and language program is developed in six semesters. Students must attend
English classes 6 hours a week during the entire program. Once they graduate, they are
expected to achieve a B2 level of English, according to The Common European Framework
of Reference for Languages.

Our course was designed to provide the students with the specific knowledge they need to
exercise their profession, once they finish the career and enter the market place.
Specifically, the course addressed the hotel environment. Students learned the vocabulary,
common situations in a hotel, etc. Since the course was developed in fifth semester,
students were supposed to have already achieved B1, or at least A2.

Students ages vary from 16 to 22. Most of them are women. As said before, most of them
belong to level 1, 2 or 3 of social stratification. Being as young as they are, they seem to be
receptive to learning a new language, which they see as an opportunity to get job
opportunities.

The classroom we choose to apply the course had 25 students. However, we decided to
work with ten of them, taking into consideration that the course was intended to be only a
pilot course that, depending on the results, could be applied to the whole class.

To implement the course we considered the students needs: They often see themselves
involved in situations for which General English is not enough. Teaching students the
necessary skills they need in a real life environment is a must. Therefore, creating the
course was justified.

Though all four skills were addressed, the main focus of the course was to improve the
students speaking and listening abilities. To do so, there were

Videos
Discussion questions
Role plays

We selected videos from YouTube that had not only the information and vocabulary, but
also a level according to the students capabilities. The videos were publicly available and
no changes were made to them, since, as we said before, they complied with all of the
requirements we set for each unit.

After the students watched the video, they had to answer some discussion questions related
to it. With the video we introduced the students to the topic, so they knew what to expect
from each unit. The questions that students had to answer served as a way to ensure they
actually watch the video.

In pairs, we asked the students to produce role plays in which they represented situations
similar as those presented in the videos.

Some other activities were applied, such as gap-filling exercises, matching tasks and others.
The idea was to give the students as much information as possible, in different ways, so
they didnt become bored. Also, we uploaded files containing relevant information about
the topic.
All the activities were designed taking into consideration that the course was intended
towards adult learning, and used the communicative approach as a guideline to achieve the
goals. There were a variety of techniques at use throughout the course, including role plays
and simulations, discussions, video discussions, questions and answers.

The techniques mentioned above served to provide the students with not only the
vocabulary needed but also with the development of the critical skills required in the target
situation.

Also, we kept in mind that in hotels language is not necessarily used as it is in other
contexts. Being formal and using language accordingly is expected from hotel employees.
Everyday activities are handled with politeness and language is a factor that must reflect
exactly that.

We developed five units that covered a wide range of topics that students are very likely to
experience in their workplace. Due to the fact that students already had a workable
knowledge of general English, we designed the course as an English for Specific Purposes
program, therefore, the course focus was not on grammar but rather on the skills and
vocabulary the students needed. A student answered I think that this hotel offers very
good service (sic), different from the services normally offered by other hotels. I like the
ride on the lake, the food at night, and of course I would like to try them all with a
companion. Another one said, The services of the hotel look really nice. I would like to
try the lake service, the contact with the nature is really important for the mind during
vacations.

Had we asked about what where the unusual hotels services, we would have ended up with
a list of services, which only proves that students watched the video. By asking them their
opinion, we made sure students had to think about what they saw.

The units are interconnected. The vocabulary used in one can also be used in any other. The
idea behind the course was to provide the students with extra material, to put them in real
scenarios and enable them to cope with a variety of day to day situations in a hotel.

In unit number one, we talked about hotel services. The video at the beginning of this unit
introduced the students to the topic. The video was about hotels that offered unusual
services. By choosing this video, we appealed to the students natural curiosity. Also, in
the forum the students expressed their opinion about the services offered and whether they
would like to try them or not.

Unit two and five cover two fundamental aspects in a hotel: Checking in and out. We first
thought about combining the topics in one unit, but finally decided against that idea
because it would have been too much information for the students to handle at the same
time.

As with the other units, we begun with a video. The vocabulary was presented explicitly.
We uploaded a file with the most common words used and their meaning, so when the
students watched the video they could understand the conversation right away.

In these units the students (in pairs) were supposed to upload conversations in which the
represented receptionists and guests during the checking in/out process. Unfortunately,
since they were at the end of their semester and some of the students werent even in
Cartagena during the last week of class, this particular task was not completed by all of
them.

Unit three was about the things a person can do in the City. Cartagena is world class
touristic place. While working in a hotel, students will have to give recommendations about
the places a guest should visit. We uploaded a link to a webpage containing all the major
attractions in Cartagena, with a brief description of them. The video was related to the topic
and in the assignment the students had to describe a touristic place they had visited. As in
unit number one, there was a matching exercise with pictures of well know places in
Cartagena and their name.

Unit number four had to do with guest complains and how to deal with them. Devices not
working and services not properly offered are some of the situations presented to the
students. A matching exercise to familiarize the students with the vocabulary was
available. At the end of the unit, students were asked to write a paragraph complaining
about a hotel.

Even with mistakes, the students clearly completed the task, showing they understood both
the task and the vocabulary, as seen below:
My last vacation were the most horrible that i have had, i remember that In those times i
stayed in a hotel very small, the floors were dirty and the worst, nothing was as it ppeared.
i felt me cheated and stolen. Although not everything was so bad. this hotel had the bigger
pool that i had ever seen, her water was warm and her bar service it amazing also i loved
her the beds and or talk about her food everything was delicious, their cocktails very tasty
their soups fantastics and their natural ice creams me maddened, was the best that i have
eaten up to now. These was the unique things that i loved the these place.

The pedagogy we used throughout the course is based on two approaches: the
communicative and the English for Specific Purposes. The ideas and assumptions behind
these approaches were the basis of the course we designed. The believe that students can
learn English in several ways and that techniques are valid as long as they are successful,
motivated us to create a course that addressed many different styles, keeping in mind that
students are expected to have a more active role in their own learning, and that a course
should allow students to learn by themselves with the guidance of the teacher.

English teaching has currently acquired great importance, there are different institutions
and authors working on its development, accordingly many strategies and methodologies to
help its comprehension have been applied, but a lot of them have focused on grammar
structures that hinder the real function of the language: communication (Richards, 2006, p.
6).Consequently, nowadays new methods and approaches have been adopted, some of
them make an emphasis on content teaching, specially the information that students are
interested in or they will acquire, which encourages students to learn the language(Madrid
and Garcia, 2001, p.114). That is the case of English for specific purposes (ESP), which is
focused on teaching English for students with specific goals, occupations or fields of study,
it tries to give the students the language they will need on their professional or working life.

There are different views or definitions about what English for specific purposes is;
Dudley-Evans and St John (1998) defined it as an approach for preparing learners to
communicate effectively in the tasks prescribed by their study or work situation. As we can
see, for the authors the importance of an ESP course is focused on the use of language to
develop specific tasks, and some others researchers as Day and Krzanowski (2011), present
the relevance of ESP not just on the language use but also on the skill development. They
claim ESP (English for Specific Purposes) involves teaching and learning the specific
skills and language needed by particular learners for a particular purpose. (p.5).

English for occupational purposes is one of the branches of ESP, and it is focused on
providing the language abilities that people need in their professional lives or working
places. According to Donesch-Jezo (2012) and Bilokcuoglu (2012), English for
Occupational or Professional Purposes (EOP/EPP) prepares learners to the use of language
for a particular profession or job situation. Regarding the skills, EOP generally focuses on
speaking and listening skills.

According to Hutchinson and Waters (1987) when designing and teaching ESP courses, it
is necessary to take into account five stages that characterize its development. The first one
is the Register analysis, related to the specific grammatical and lexical features that the
course syllabus should include based on the target context. The second stage is the
Discourse analysis, this is focused on the usage, the mining beyond sentences, in other
words the use of sentences according to the situation. The other one is the Target situation,
the identification of activities, context and skills that learners will be using the language for.
The identification of skills and strategies is the fourth stage, this one is related to the
thinking processes that underlie language use. And finally the learning centered approach
that is a matter of how people learn to do what they do with language in other words what
people do with language learning.

English for specific purposes is an important and convenient approach to teach English,
because it gives to the student the language knowledge that he/her needs for his/her
professional or working life. Also it encourages students to learn English, given that it
complements their training, offering them the skills and discourse to implement in their
studies, professions and workplaces, using a second language.

Technology had an important role in this course and several devices were available or
required, in order to achieve the courses goals, such as: Computer, Software: Hot Potatoes
and Internet sources: videos and web pages.

By using e-learning site we provided the students with all the necessary tools for them to
achieve the objectives through self-learning. The course was designed in such a way that
its use was easy and predictable. The students didnt need any kind of instructions other
that the ones provided in the course.

We gave them the username and the password and once they logged in they begun working
immediately. Some of the students asked about a problem they had, regarding difficulties to
upload some tasks, specifically the recordings. For this particular problem, they didnt need
any help. Since the students belong to the same group, one of them served as a tutor for the
others, explaining and helping them along the process.

However, there was some teacher-students interaction that didnt happen through the
platform. Since the students had the teachers e mails, they used them to contact us
whenever they needed some guidance.

Also, there was face to face interaction during their regular classes. We tried to limit this
kind of interaction in order to let them discover by themselves the platform operation.
Something interesting to highlight that happened during the interactions we had with the
students during their classes at Colegio Mayor De Bolivar, was that the students who
werent part of the online course became interested in being part of it. Many of them asked
about the selection process and how they could apply.

This shows that students are willing to try new methodologies and that they are interested
in using technology. They are aware of the potential technology has for the learning
process. It is undeniable that this generation has been part of the spectacular boom
technology has experienced. It is natural for them to use it, to be connected all the time, and
not only for sharing photos and keeping in touch with their friends, but also to discover the
world, to experience a reality that otherwise would be out of their reach. Learning and
acquiring new knowledge is no longer a thing they can do only in a classroom. Nowadays,
with the advent of technology, the world is their playground.

References
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