Teaching English for Tourism Purposes at the Higher School of Hotel and Catering, Oran

Abstract

Tourism has always an important sector in the development of any country’s economy. Educating the nation about the necessity of improving this sector always copes with the key factors that lead to development. The English language has recently been the lingua franca by which all individuals and institutions in the sector of tourism worldwide started using it and teaching the coming generations through it (English for Specific Purposes). The present research focuses on teaching English for Tourism Purposes (ETP) in Algeria. Particularly, it attempts to check how ETP is taught at the Higher School of Hotel and Catering in Oran. For that, the instrument of investigation has been a questionnaire designed for thirty students at the aforementioned school. The findings revealed that students are not involved as they should in the courses and the courses do not depend on authentic tasks in teaching reading and writing. Such results serve as a main guide for evaluating and redesigning the current courses presented to ETP students.