The
Development and the Tasks on Teaching English for Tour Guiding at Basic
Operational Level
Anton D. Pratomo
The specific topic given in this presentation is how we are able to develop the materials and the tasks given in teaching English for Tour Guiding at the basic operational level. This will bring us to the ESP approach to language teaching and it begins as a response to a member of practical concerns, such as the need to prepare materials to teach students who had already mastered general English but now needed English for use in specific non English backgrounds , for instance for business purposes. In this case we are talking about English for travel business focusing on English Guiding Profession at the basic operational level.
Based
on the results of teaching English for basic professional guiding level, it is
needed by students who want to be a tourist guide. So it was conducted
according to the principles of competency based training. This will involve
extensive use of the industry endorsed competency standards and
learning/assesments packages. The training was based on a cluster of competency
standards of Tour Guiding, specifically work as an English foreign tourist
guide.
In
ESP learners’needs are often described in terms of performance, that is , in
terms of what the learners will be able to do with the language at the end of a
course of study. So the goal of an ESP course is to prepare the learners to
carry out a specific task or set of tasks.
The
material presented here is based on principles associated with Competency Based
Training (CBT), a system that focuses on the delivery, assessment and
certification of training for specific activities in the work place. It is
founded on competency standards which act as bench marks for work place through
the appropriate use skills, knowledge and attitudes.
This
course lasted 40 hours sessions, including the assessment, 6 hours simulation
in a special simulation room as a dry practice and 8 hours real practice in a
form of Bandung City Tour Activity. The participants of this course 15 Junior
High School (SMP) students who were still in the first and second grade. This
presentation shows us the model of teaching describing the kind of information
needed to develop a profile of the learner’s communicative needs.
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Pratomo, A. D. (2003, October). The development and
the tasks on teaching English for tour guiding at basic operational level.
Paper presented at the 51st TEFLIN International Conference,
Website: www.geocities.com/eltindonesia
Email: eltindonesia@yahoo.com