The importance of appropriate materials for teaching ESP for tourism students in Ukraine

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The importance of appropriate materials for teaching ESP for tourism students in Ukraine

Petliovana L.L., Candidate of Pedagogical Sciences, Assistant Professor, Associate Professor of the Department of Foreign Languages Khmelnytskyi National University

One of the major criteria in employing people in the tourism and hospitality sector is the English knowledge. Poor English proficiency and competency can result in hardness in attracting and entertaining the tourists. Therefore, it is crucial to consider the English language taught as a core subject at tourism higher education institutions and universities in Ukraine. In designing a course for students of tourism, an integrated approach to get the students involved in the syllabus we want to teach has been used. This paper is focused on those teaching and learning methods and techniques which can improve the practical use of English for work- related purposes, this giving the students the opportunity to develop their language skills by means of attractive, motivating and useful learning activities. The paper aims at providing an in-depth knowledge about ways of studying and applying English for Specific Purposes in the Tourism field, as well as types of activities to be used in the classroom in order to assist learners overcome language difficulties. It is of great importance to emphasize the specific tasks and strategies used while teaching ESP for Tourism classes, strategies that differ from the ones used in a traditional English language classroom.

Key words: tourism and hospitality sector, ESP course, communicative or reading skills, integrated approach, syllabus, learning materials.

Одним із головних критеріїв зайнятості людей у сфері туризму та гостинності є знання англійської мови. Погане володіння англійською мовою та компетентність можуть призвести до труднощів у залученні та розвазі туристів. Тому важливо розглядати англійську мову як основний предмет у туристичних закладах вищої освіти й університетах України. При розробці курсу для студентів туризму був використаний комплексний підхід для залучення студентів до навчальної програми, яку ми хочемо викладати. Ця стаття зосереджена на тих методах і техніках викладання та навчання, котрі можуть покращити практичне використання англійської мови для роботи, що дає студентам можливість розвивати свої мовні навички за допомогою привабливих, мотивуючих і корисних навчальних занять. У статті розглянуто способи вивчення та застосування англійської мови для конкретних цілей у галузі туризму, а також види діяльності, які слід використовувати в аудиторії, щоб допомогти студентам подолати мовні труднощі. Важливо підкреслити конкретні завдання та стратегії, які використовуються під час викладання АСЦ для занять із туризму, стратегії, що відрізняються від тих, які використовуються у класі традиційної англійської мови.

Зазначено, що хороший матеріал повинен базуватися на різноманітних цікавих текстах і заходах, які забезпечують різноманітні навички: один фрагмент матеріалу має розвивати більш ніж одне вміння, наприклад, читання, слухання, говоріння, письмо. Тексти як навчальні матеріали можуть бути використані для вивчення та практичного використання широкого кола навичок. У курсі АСЦ вони можуть стати джерелом для нового словника, комунікативних навичок чи навичок читання. Визначено різні види діяльності: розминка - діяльність, що включає попереднє навчання й активізацію нових словникових або граматичних структур, обговорення питань, які стосуються теми; рецептивна - діяльність, що охоплює роботу з самим текстом, читання, аудіювання; інформаційна та продуктивна діяльність - включає практику здобутих знань; подальші дії - наступне вдосконалення, розвиток, використання набутих знань. Ключові слова: сектор туризму та гостинності, курс АСЦ, комунікативні навички чи навички читання, інтегрований підхід, навчальна програма, навчальні матеріали.

Setting the problem

The role of international tourism within global economy is constantly growing. The experience of many countries demonstrates the great potential and high profitability of tourism. Therefore, the constant support for international tourism from the state must be one of strategic directions of socioeconomic development of Ukraine. International tourism has a positive impact on the sociocultural development of Ukraine, stimulating the growth of the related sectors, and having a positive impact in shaping the image of Ukraine as a tourist state. Nowadays tourism rightfully can be called the most promising business in the world in general, and in Ukraine. Tourism is important social and political phenomenon. The tourism industry can safely be called one of the most important components of the global economy.

I suppose that the biggest plus of Ukraine - rich natural resources. Every city in Ukraine is special and has its own attractions and cultural heritage. The steps that will help the development of tourism:

- simplification of visa and customs procedures;

- improvement of tourism infrastructure, which includes the staff, who speaks English in a professional way;

- development of state programs for the development of tourism.

Teaching English for Specific, or Professional, Purposes (ESP) is rapidly becoming one of the most important directions in English teaching in Ukraine because of its internationally oriented economic development requiring numerous specialists with good command of English for professional communication. Of special significance is training such specialists in the field of international tourism since this area of economic activities is one of the most beneficial for the country's economic growth. However, ESP teaching to Ukrainian university students majoring in tourism is far from being up to international standards - first of all, due to the absence of a textbook of English meeting the most cutting edge requirements to such textbooks, as well as meeting the requirements of the specific conditions of teaching ESP to future tourism managers at Ukrainian universities. Owing to this, the project of designing a cutting edge textbook of English for such managers has been elaborated for longer than a year at Khmelnytskyi National University, Ukraine. The development of the textbook is now drawing to its close and the aim of this article is to discuss its specific innovative features. The textbook is designed following the precepts of the constructivist approach to organizing the teaching/learning process and the essence of that approach in what concerns language training should be discussed before considering the textbook in question.

Analysis of recent research and publications.

English for tourism and hospitality is used for international tourism and service industry which is considered under the category of English for specific purposes and its practical application needs to be understood [3]. English has been dominated in many different fields such as education, business, technology, media, research, tourism, and medicine. According to Tsao and Xu, there is a fast rise and demand for English for specific purposes to achieve people with instrumental purposes. English for specific purposes is recommended to the learners who are required to meet the essential, specific and precise needs to respond to the considerable demands in vocational or academic situations in English [11, p. 128].

There are a lot of scientists who are engaged in the study of ESP. Hutchinson and Waters agree that one approach to the language teaching is ESP. They believe that all decisions as to the different methods and content are constructed based on the learners' intention and purpose for learning [8, p. 65]. According to Strevens, ESP is designed and aimed to see the definite needs of the learners. He states that, with the development of business management and communication technologies in the recent years, some changes have been made in the field of English language teaching. One of these changes is that the attention of course designers from teaching English for academic purposes has been altered and improved to teaching English for more specific purposes (ESP) [10, p. 8].

In fact, differences between the ESP learners and ELT learners is that ESP learners are the ones who are nearly aware and familiar with English, however, they are still required to learn the language to perform particular job-related functions and to be able to communicate a set of professional skills [9]. According to Hutchinson and Waters, three important reasons for the emergence of ESP are the new focus on its learners, request, and demand in the new world, and revolution in the field of linguistics.

ESP features and characteristics were defined by Dudley-Evans. The first characteristic explains that the particular need of the learners is identified through the ESP. The second characteristic is that ESP utilizes the specific activities of the discipline and principal methodology. Finally, the last characteristic states that ESP concentrates on the appropriate language learning for the skills of study, genre, lexis, grammar, and discourse [4, p. 193]. English for specific purposes is a term that refers to teaching or studying English for a particular career (like law and medicine) or for business in general (International Teacher Training Organization, 2005. In fact, ESP is considered as a main subject or topic that can promulgate competence into the hospitality and tourism preparation and training programs [7, p. 120]. To make it clear, in the language learning process, English is not considered as the main purpose; it is only seen as a vehicle for its acquirement.

According to Dudley-Evans and St. John, “the teaching process of any kind of language for occupational purposes (EOP) need to be considered as a starting point and the analysis of the four traditional skills within an appropriate context, that being, as far as possible, the conditions given in the workplace” [4, p. 69]. Hortas believes that EOP programs are needed to more focus on developing communicative competence in a specific field, such as aviation, business, or tourism. Accordingly, the command of ESP and EOP must be such that the learners can reach a satisfactory level in their specialist subject matters and career [6].

In fact, people who are required to use English at work for tourism and hospitality purposes need to improve their communicative abilities, language fluency, and accuracy. These people in international tourism and service industry have the opportunity to apply and utilize the target language in their activities and routine work. Cravotta states that mastering English for Tourism Purposes (ETP) provides people with the required linguistic tools to work in the different chosen professions [3].

Being skillful in foreign language skills is necessary for people working in the tourism and hospitality sector. The reason is that it is the means for having communication with foreign tourists and understanding cultural differences. In fact, for those who are seeking employment in the tourism, hospitality and service industry, it is essential to stay highly motivated in order to be accurately fluent in a high level of professional service language. In fact, they are required to become proficient in English for Tourism Purposes [3, 1 p. 105]. Moreover, Cho (2005) believes that English for tourism is viewed as an area of business English and incorporate business English and English for academic purposes by bridging workplace communication and classroom use. This can help to increase the job opportunities in the international industry [2, p. 9].

English for tourism is known as one of the attractive subjects since many of the people will be a tourist at least once in their lifetime. Moreover, learning English for tourism purposes is crucial for those who are working in guest-host relation section such as hotels, travel agencies, restaurants, information centres and tourist attractions. In industrial sectors, English has recently become a core subject, and hospitality training programs help the employees achieve English proficiency to fulfil the job responsibilities [7, p. 118].

Presenting the main material

Among the many vocational areas that make the world of English for specific purposes, that of English for tourism is one of the most attractive because all of us are tourists on countless occasions, bringing our own real experiences to the classrooms. Such a program, might, for example, emphasize the development of reading skills in students who are preparing for graduate work in business administration; or it might promote the development of spoken skills in students who are studying English in order to become tourist guides. The focal point of teaching English for tourism is that English is not taught as a subject separated from the students' real world; instead, it is integrated into a subject matter area important to the learners. In the field of English for tourism students most of the studies have focused on the analysis of the required skills and needs in work place, adequacy and appropriateness of instructional materials and strategies.

It has been observed that the type of work plays a significant role in evaluating and using of English. The most common reasons for communicating as a travel agency worker were found to be offering destination guides, writing and sending email and faxes, making on-line ticketing, browsing the internet, making online hotel booking, etc. Travel agency users were found to be heavier users of English than their banking counterparts. The results of the study indicated that the most important skill for tourism personnel is writing. When instructing an EOP course an issue to take into consideration is that using adequate language learning and professional strategies are required in tourism field. In designing a course for students of culture and tourism, we used an integrated approach to get the students involved in the syllabus we want to teach. The approach we invented consisted of 8 components: knowing the class and their knowledge, determining the goals to achieve, the way we measure the success, making decisions with students involved, creating syllabus, deciding on the real teaching techniques and method and getting feedback during the course [5]. The application of the approach indicated that the teachers are faced with needs which are of a less academic and more realistic nature.

The language domains and modify the communication for the language proficiency levels. The definitions of the language domains are as follows:

Listening - process, understand, interpret, and evaluate spoken language in a variety of situations.

Speaking - engage in oral communication in various situations for an array of purposes and audiences.

Reading - process, interpret, and evaluate written language, symbols, and text with understanding and fluency.

Writing - engage in written communication in various forms for an array of purposes and audiences

In ESP course, text as a learning material can be used for learning and practice. In fact, it can be a source for reading or communicative skills and new vocabulary. Concerning the ESP activities, it is needed to keep in mind the context that should be consistent with studying subject matter. Different activities can be used in ESP teaching, e.g. warming-up activities, receptive activities, productive activities, and follow-up activities. Warming-up is a kind of preparing step. In warming-up activities, the teacher has to do pre-teaching, discussing questions concerning the topic and activation of new vocabulary or grammar structures. To raise the learners' interests and lead them to further problems various kinds of plays, collocation grids, puzzles and questionnaires can be used. Warming-up activities are very important and essential phase on which the text working process depends. Reading, listening and working with a text itself are the activities that belong to the receptive activities. Various reading strategies can be realized through the receptive activity, e.g. skimming, scanning, with or without translation, and informative. They have to lead to encouragement of the learners. In fact, language-based approaches e.g. gap-filling and jigsaw reading can also be identified or approaches relating to the content of the text. Both of them have to aim the learners to be as much active and reflexive as possible. Productive activities are practicing of the acquired knowledge. This activity is working in groups and pairs or individual with teacher assist who takes notice of using the target language. To identify how the learners understand the given topic, summarization of the lessons should be done by the learners. In follow-up activities, appropriate using of learned and developing need to be recognized. It can be done in a form of exercises and creative homework.

We have tried to design a textbook, which includes exercises for training all these competences. This textbook focuses on the development and improvement of spoken and written English language skills. The main purpose of the textbook is to provide students with informative material for mastering topics related to the recreational and tourism sphere. The guide provides a total of 32 topics covering the latest trends in the tourism industry. Topics content is interesting and accessible, which contributes to better memorizing and mastering the material. The textbook consists of two parts, each of which presents 16 topics, designed for students of higher education of the first and second years of study (Part I) and for students of higher education of the third and fourth years of study (Part II). Each topic is therefore a comprehensive, developed system of exercises that provides a quick and effective mastery of students' necessary knowledge and development of sustainable skills in professional, spoken and written communication and working with English-speaking tourist terminology and literature. All English- language texts are intended not only to develop reading and translation of professional literature, but also to carry important information necessary for the modern student mastering the tourist industry. At the end of the guide, additional texts on tourism topics are provided for self-study. The contents of the textbook are in Table 1:

Table 1 The contents of the textbook

Having looked at the learning tasks and textbooks in the teaching of English for the tourism and hospitality, we can figure out that each higher institute or university uses a different textbook that contains the materials collected by teachers from various sources. These sources include English for tourism and English for general purposes materials, and all of them comprise all the four English skills; speaking, listening, writing and reading. Vocabulary activities and grammar structures are also emphasized in these English sources. It is essential to have a variety of English learning activities that can assist the learners to improve their English skills for the tourism purposes. These activities can be letter writing, group discussion, role playing and etc. This can qualify and prepare them for their future occupations in international tourism. It is supposed that teaching English for tourism and hospitality industry is achieved through a topic-based focus.

This method of teaching fulfills the double role of providing a meaningful framework, and learners can develop their language skills and knowledge. Moreover, it avoids the too- evident repetition of language items they have already seen. Topic-based approach aids that the language items covered are those truly required within the field chosen. We can see it in the following tasks of our textbook in Table 2:

Table 2 Fragments of the tasks

english tourism teaching learner

Conclusions

Students of tourism should be aware of the enormous importance of English in their education because it is an essential tool in any field of their future activity: management, tourist information, promotion of tourist destinations, intermediary companies, hospitality and transportation, etc. Consequently, students of tourism should be highly motivated to learn English and although more often they will probably focus on oral rather than written skills, in their career they must be able to elaborate written documents such as letters or budgets, they should keep telephone conversations, make presentations to audiences, attend fairs and conferences and understand all types of written information on tourist destinations. For example, students of tourism can be taught practical English conversation used in hotel and catering industry, various issues concerning tourism industry, tips on job interviews and writing resumes, reading and understanding articles concerning such issues of tourism. This is due to the students' desire to improve speaking English and their need to learn English for future jobs rather than using it in everyday life.

Good material should be based on various interesting texts and activities providing a range of skills, one piece of material serving for developing more than one skill, e.g. reading, listening, speaking, writing. Texts as learning materials can be used for learning and practicing a wide range of skills. In ESP course, they can be sources for new vocabulary, communicative or reading skills. They can trigger various activities: warming - up activities (pre-teaching and activation of new vocabulary or grammar structures, discussing questions concerning the topic); receptive activities-work with the text itself, reading, listening (various reading strategies e.g. aloud, quiet, skimming, scanning, with or without translation, informative; productive activities-practising of acquired knowledge, follow-up activities- next improving, developing, using of acquired knowledge. In conclusion, carefully identified needs and appropriate teaching materials for tourism students will produce not only satisfied customers but also plenty of professional fulfillment in their future career.

References

1. Chang T.Y., Hsu J.M. Development framework for tourism and hospitality in higher vocational education in Taiwan. Journal of Hospitality, Leisure, Sport, and Tourism Education. 2010. № 9 (1). Р 101-109.

2. Cho B. Usefulness and enjoyment of simulation activities for tourism major students. Modern English Education. 2005. № 6 (1). Р 3-17.

3. Cravotta J.S. (1990). English for Tourism Purposes. A new approach in the field of English for Specifi Purposes. 1990.

4. Dudley-Evans T. Developments in English for specific purposes: A multi-disciplinary approach. Cambridge, England : Cambridge University Press, 1998. 301 p.

5. Graves K. Teachers as course developers. Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 1999.

6. Hortas J.D. English for Specific Purposes. 2008.

7. Hsu L. The perceptual learning styles of hospitality students in a virtual learning environment: The case of Taiwan. Journal of Hospitality, Leisure, Sport, and Tourism Education. 2011. № 10 (1). Р 114-127.

8. Hutchinson T., Waters A. English fr Specific Purposes: A learning-centered approach. Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 1987.

9. Lorenzo F. Teaching English for Specific Purposes (ESP). 2005.

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11. Tsao C.H. English for specific purposes in the EFL context: A survey of student and faculty perceptions. Asian ESP Journal. 2011. № 7 (2). Р 126-149

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