Travel and Tourism Course in 2010

Travel and Tourism English Syllabus for Autumn 2010

     This post is now only for reference.  As of September 2012, I'm teaching another course in Travel and Tourism, and I have another syllabus for that course.
     As the travel and tourism industry focuses on people as individuals, this course necessarily involves oral communication.  Students will be required to give regular oral presentations on given topics.  This course also aims to acquaint students with aspects of the hospitality and tourism industries.

Student scores will be calculated as follows: 

Participation (including punctuality and attendance): 30% 

Mid-term exam: 30%

Final Exam: 40%.

     If a student arrives for class only a few minutes before the end of a class period, that student will be recorded as absent for that class period; unless the student can offer a valid reason for tardiness.  Attendance will usually be reported to the school each Tuesday.  For that reason, if a student is absent with good reason, it is the student's responsibility to inform the teacher no later than the Monday following the class.   

     The textbook for this course is/was Tourism, Book 1: Oxford English for Careers, written by R. Walker and K. Harding; published by the Oxford University Press. I have been informed--two weeks after school started--that this book is either out of stock or out of print.  Through the efforts of another Hsing Wu College instructor, Marion, I'm told that another book is coming soon.  When it arrives, I can begin making specific lesson plans.

     I have also discovered that very few of the students in either of the Travel and Tourism English classes actually speak English.  This has led to the need for some changes in class goals.  Current goals are as follows:

1.  That the students will learn to understand spoken and written English well enough to achieve the other major goal of this course.  The first half of the class each week will be spent watching English-language videos of various lengths subtitled in English.  From time to time, I will test their comprehension of these videos.

2.  That the students will organize into teams acting as travel agencies.  Students who are able to speak English will lead the teams.  The teams' projects will be to describe in detail how they would organize tours of less-traveled areas such a Iran and Yap, Micronesia. 

     The teaching and learning strategy for this course, Travel and Tourism English, is project based, cooperative learning.  Project based means "learning by doing in realistic situations."  Cooperative learning means that students learn from both the teacher and from one another, and the teacher may even learn from the students.  Students will form small teams acting as tourist agencies.  These teams will design vacations to places other than the well-worn tourist resorts or tourist traps.  Think of it as somewhat like virtual reality; it's a game with a purpose.