Seminar
of English for Specific Purposes on Tourism and Hospitality along with Professional Development
No matter where you are, as
long as you teach people you still will be called a teacher. Even if you teach
under the bridge, deep in the secluded forest where there is no technology, you
still are a teacher if you can manipulate the things around you into something
that can make people learn something for themselves. Teaching in a place
without formal administration, rules, classified rooms, and uniforms does not
make a person less of a good teacher if he or she has the passion to teach and
educate in order to advance and civilize the mankind. It is really noble of you
if you do teach without concerning about the where it takes place or the
situation whether it is in formal or informal circumstances.
The key to be a good teacher
even in informal situation is professionalism. Teaching in a school does not
make you completely professional. Most cases found that a lot of teachers at
school do not do their job properly. Even if you teach in less formal
circumstance but you do the duties from your profession with utmost heart, you already
are a good professional. It is important to develop your professionalism on
whatever job you are taking and wherever it takes place so that you can build
one more positive character to your self.
Friday, 27th of May,
one of my course at college held a seminar for professional development
alongside with English for Specific Purposes regarding teacher’s roles in
tourism field. The speaker was one of the alumni of the department who is now
currently working in tourism field as Human Resources Manager at one of Resorts
in Ubud, Bali. He shared his experiences as a staff recruiter and also a
trainer at his workplace. Aside from working in a resort, he also teaches
courses outside his work place and also an intern in one of tourism
universities.
Teaching English in tourism
field has its own ups and downs. For example most of the trainees already have
families so it is actually not an easy task to make them learn again because
they already have a lot to think at home. So it is the trainer or teacher’s job
to make the material that the trainee should master easy to learn and done. The
speaker said that his trainees learned a lot by practicing the lesson in the
real situation. So he opted to make the trainees practice more than spending
their time at class learning like high schooler.
He did the general approach in
order to adjust what is appropriate to get the best outcome. First, he negotiated
the course content with the students. This is called need analysis where you
seek for what the students really need at that time. He let the trainee looked
for the material that they want to learn than bring it to the class and they
would discuss it together. Of course fitting the schedule with the time
available because the trainee did not only learn about English, they also had
other stuffs to learn to.
Second thing he did was using
authentic material. Tourism field is more to practical thing so they will see a
lot in the real work so the authentic material usage during the learning
process hold a very significant role. By using the authentic or semi authentic
material helps the trainee learned faster because they will face it everyday
during work.
Third, he used accelerated
learning technique. As we know human can only concentrate maximally 30 minutes.
So, he only taught for 30 minutes for each meeting they had. Half is used for
theory then the rest for the practice. Moreover, did not have meeting with the
trainee everyday so accelerated learning is necessary to do.
The last, he made sure to make
masterful use of the most important resources. He made the trainee practice
with the guests in the resort to that they could be used with the activity. It
is also can help the trainee master the material quickly and can apply it into
the real work efficiently.
He also needed to adjust his
self to a new environment. He enriched his knowledge on the tourism field so
that he would not disappoint his students for being unprepared to teach them.
That is the pride of teacher to master everything they need to teach to other.
Those things he did above had
shown his professionalism at his work. Even though he was not teaching at
school (formal circumstance) he did his job thoroughly so that his students
decode the right things to be applied in their daily lives. Being professional is
not a sin so we should do it no matter in what circumstances we are in.
