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Blue Harun 2003, also, believed that proficiency in hospitality language is important and ought, therefore, to be included in hospitality management programs regardless of whether trainees are
operating through their mother tongue or a second or foreign language or both. Effective communication skills are highly needed in the hospitality industry. This is in line with
Azizan 2007 who believes that Soft skills such as communication skills and problem solving are largely needed for young people in finding employment in hotel industry.
The main goal is to make guests feel happy and comfortable and being polite is an indispensible part of receptionists. Blue Harun 2003, also, came to this conclusion and believe that the language of
hotel encounters comprises mostly functional aspects of hospitality language. The ultimate motive is to make guests feel happy with the service provided. They ibid believe that the structure of
hospitality language is, therefore, very straightforward. Polite utterances can be spoken in a friendly, helpful and welcoming manner. Hospitality English, as we have seen, deals largely with various
types of service. It is socially directed and information or service driven. They ibid divide Hospitality English into two parts: English for general hospitality purposes giving directions,
requesting and giving tourist information, and other communicative activities that can take place in any hospitality setting and English for specific hospitality purposes language of one particular
hospitality setting and language used for checking into a hotel, giving information about hotel facilities, meal times, etc..
To encourage students to speak and listen well, telephone skills should also be included in the listening and speaking skills. Telephone skills will include the appropriate ways on answering
telephone, taking messages, transferring calls, and knowing how to use the appropriate language as to sustain good relationship with the guestscustomers in the working place.
Activities which need reading include reading for pleasure and job knowledge and reading job related documents, for example, fulfill the need for reading in employment agreement. Writing
includes writing letters to respond to reservationbooking, letters to respond to complaints, writing application letters for job hunting. Students should also be taught on filling in various forms in job
specification. So, the target situation needs of these students included knowledge of hotel management
terminology, effective communications, property management systems, system wide reservations, guest registration, managing the financials, guest checkout, managing hospitality, and training for
hospitality. These are all needed for their likely future work with native English speakers.
2. Stage 2: Goal setting
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With the findings obtained through the target situation needs analysis, a set of objectives were determined for a course designed for the aforementioned group of tourism major learners. So, at the
end of a course for students of hotel reception, the students are supposed to be able to:
recognize the patterns of giving directions, making phone calls, writing e-mail
use the appropriate terminology in given situations
recognize the ways to open, continue, and close a conversation
skim relevant texts for content and meaning, and scan them for specifics
identify features of different e-mail writing styles There are some more target situation objectives they are supposed to be able to do, like:
know hotel management terminology,
make effective communication,
use property management systems,
do system wide reservations,
make guest registration,
Manage the financials,
Do guest checkout,
Manage hospitality,
Train for hospitality.
3. Stage 3: Material evaluation
After analyzing the students’ needs, and determining objectives of a course for students of hotel
reception, an appropriate material should be selected that could meet the needs of the students.
There is a paucity of research on needs analysis and textbook evaluation studies. However, systematic evaluation of textbooks is not carried out in Iran, and students needs regarding the
materials designed for them are ignored Baleghizadeh Rahimi, 2011. One method of evaluation is proposed by McDonough and Shaw 2003 in which the authors suggest
three stages: external, internal and overall evaluation. In the first stage, a teacher can scan a book, obtain a general idea regarding the materials and, then, decide whether the materials conform to his
expectations. If the text satisfies his requirements, then he can progress to the next stage, which consists of an in-depth analysis of the materials. The last stage is overall evaluation in which they
stress four main considerations when deciding on the suitability of materials: usability, generalizability, adaptability and flexibility.
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For this purpose, first, three available books were chosen and evaluated using the McDonough Shaw framework 2003, and at the same time, it was examined to see if they fulfill the
learners’ target situation needs and objectives of the course. The textbooks selected for this group of tourism
students were:
1 The fourth edition of HOTEL FRONT OFFICE MANAGEMENT written by Bardi 2007, which for convenience was called BOOK 1 throughout the study and was just available on the internet;
2 YO U’RE WELCOME, written by Harkess and Wherly 1984 which was called BOOK 2;
3 a book written by Kiany and Khezrinejad 2010, published by SAMT organization named ENGLISH 3 FOR STUDENTS OF TOURISM AND HOTEL MANAGEMENT. This book was
called BOOK 3 through the discussion. Performing a brief yet accurate scan of the blurbs, contents, and introduction shows that the claims
by the author of BOOK 1 include: “to encourage students to take an active part in applying …
concepts to the exciting world of hotel operations. The structure of the text will assist students as they prepare for positions as entry-level
managers. The logical presentation of chapters in order of operation
…
will give students insight into
the front office manager’s role in the hotel. Students will also benefit from the discussions of other
departmental managers,
…and how they relate to the front office.”
Bardi, 2007
In this respect, the book claims to satisfy Target Situation needs of learners as well as providing appropriate structure or genre which prepares them for management and hospitality. It, also, claims
that it fulfills the target and present situation needs of the students by providing situations for discussions among the students themselves or students and managers. This will lead to enhancing
their speaking ability. These claims seem to be exemplified throughout the book. International Highlights are articles of interest that appear in each chapter. Besides, Case Studies in
each chapter allow students to apply theory and enhance reading comprehension of the students. In this way, the book meets the target situation needs of the learners by familiarizing them with a large
amount of up-to-date information and opportunity for discussion and reading about what they need to learn and use English for in their career.
BOOK 2 cl aims that “The book comprises: 45 task-based listening units featuring typical hotel
language, realistic situational role plays, oral work exercises for fluency practice, job related reading texts, including authentic documents,
a valuable Reference Section”. Harkess and Wherly, 1984 Each unit starts with a listening exercise followed by role plays, oral work and readings. The
“reference section” includes hotel terms and their definitions one coming after another in a messy
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and unorganized way. So, the book provides little help regarding terminology. However, claims are exemplified except the fact that the role plays are not realistic. They are to some extent artificial and
old-fashioned and do not match what is prevalent these days in most hotel conversations. But it may help learners to use English for general hospitality purposes, like giving directions, requesting and
giving tourist information, and other communicative activities that can take place in any setting, without any focus on language used for hospitality like checking into a hotel, giving information
about hotel facilities, meal times, etc. Communication skills and problem solving skills are completely ignored in this book and it mostly needs rote memorization of language needed for
different situations disregarding the communicative and negotiative aspects of language. So, despite having lots of oral exercises, the book may not meet the communicative needs of the learners. But it
may help them in general hospitality English. However, BOOK 3 is mostly reading based which is not sufficient for the course mentioned. That is,
it may not meet learners’ Target situation needs except in reading. Lots of readings extracted from different sources, however, without so much relevance to the purpose and the language needed for
the students as hotel receptionist s. So, this book does not meet students’ need for sufficient
terminology while BOOK 1 provides them with an ample amount of vocabulary needed in the target situation.
BOOK 2 has a focus on listening in addition to some speaking exercises. In BOOK 3 each section contains a grammar section that covers some basic structures, such as the
present tense and word order
and I think
yesno
or
wh-questions
should also be covered while they are excluded from the grammar focus
.
BOOK 3 provides some translation and rewriting exercises which are very artificial and are not the type of authentic or simulated tasks that are prevalent or useful at the present time.
BOOK 2 and 3 are very basic; the language is often simplified and does not seem to reflect authentic hotel encounters. Language learners need to be exposed to real hotel data, including discourse
markers like,
uh, um, uhm, well, I mean and yeah
, which do not usually appear in textbooks, while BOOK 1 may provide a good source for authentic hotel language.
Considering whether the tasks in books correspond to those that learners are likely to encounter outside of the classroom and whether these texts assist them in communicating; unfortunately, none
achieve these aims. BOOK 1, for example, contains questions at the end of each unit which must be answered. In order to make the tasks seem authentic, the teacher can:
Use them as communicative tasks in order to enhance students’ speaking and listening ability in class. For example, a question like this seems suitable for this purpose:
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“What are some of the personality clashes you have noticed where you work? How did your supervisor handle them? Would you have handled them differently if you were the supervisor?”
Send them as emails to be answered to the stud ents so that it can enhance students’ reading and
writing ability. For example, question like this is suitable for this purpose: “Go to a current hospitality
-related website such as www.hotel-online.com and research a trend in the hotel industry such as r eal estate investment trusts REITs, extended-stay hotels,
or RevPAR. How does that concept affect your future career plans?” Regarding cultural appropriateness, we can see that in BOOK 1 and 2, which are not written by
Iranian authors, there are words that are not so prevalent in textbooks in Iran. Words like dancing, name of some beverages or foods or parties are restrictions that are imposed by the government.
Certain books whose contents primarily contradict the Islamic culture are banned or forbidden from being taught. So, the teacher who wants to teach such books has to either skip those parts or choose
another book. BOOK 3 is culturally appropriate because the authors are aware of the context in which the material is going to be used. However, a receptionist who is supposed to communicate
with foreigner guests in his workplace in the future must know about the culture he or she is going to confront. So, the first two books which contain culture meet the target situation needs of this group
of learners regarding culture. To finalize this analysis and choose the book that suits the course objectives and the needs of the
aforementioned students, this step addresses the following questions:
Can the materials be used as core or supplementary?
BOOK 1 can be used as core material and can be adapted to the syllabus because it is full of terminology which is a central need for these students
and it would result in obtaining a lot of information in the field. The two other books can be used as supplementary; BOOK 2 could be used as a workbook for enhancing their speaking and listening
skills; and BOOK 3 provides a good source of self-study for them at home. A combination of the three books can meet students’ target situation needs mentioned above both regarding general and
specific language needed.
Can the materials be generalised? Will they be useful for all learners?
Ansary and Babaii 2002 have stated that no one textbook can be a response to all differing needs; topics in a textbook may not
be relevant for and interesting to all; one textbook is confining, i.e., it inhibits teachers’ creativity;
textbooks have their own rationale, and as such they cannot by their nature cater for a variety of levels, every type of learning styles, and every category of learning strategies that often exist in the
class. So, especially in ESP there is no generalizability because every individual’s needs, interests,
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motivation, proficiency level, learning style and strategies are different, along with the differences in teacher
s and context, i.e. because there is no homogeneity, there is no generalizability. ESP teachers’ responsibility is to find some materials that approximate the needs of the class as much as possible.
Can materials be modified to suit your purposes?
These three books need some modification to become appropriate to be used in the class. They are going to be used as sources of target situation
information for the students, so, they must be modified to suit the students’ needs.
Are the materials flexible in sequence and grading?
BOOK 1 appears to be more flexible than the other two books, as the units in BOOK 2 are interrelated and the structure of BOOK 3 is not
changeable or the exercises cannot be used in any other way or communicatively. BOOK 1, in this regard, is a good material which can be used because the content can be handled and taught in any
way according to students’ expectations and needs.
4. Discussion and Results
