Hotel vocabulary

When dealing with writing and spoken skills (units 7 and 8), having a good command of hotel vocabulary is crucial. Here you are a very simple but practical website to revise your knowledge on this kind of data.

And talking about vocabulary study, I would recommend you as well to have a look at this new visual dictionary. Type a word and see its results...http://www.englishclub.com/english-for-work/hotel-vocabulary.htm

Did you like it? Post your comments if you wish it...

How to Dial a Rotary Telephone and more.

How to Dial a Rotary Telephone!

As dial telephones were introduced - replacing operator service - instructions were shown in movie theaters as to how to use the new instruments.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIDw75mUl6c&feature=related

Telephone Doctor Customer Service Training
Telephone Doctor eLearning that addresses how the provide excellent customer service when customers are very upset.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDvEWS018nw

Learn the most common phrases and expressions for making phone calls in English. In this beginner English lesson you will see two phone conversations. You will learn how to answer the phone, how to ask to speak to someone, and how to take a message. You will also learn how to cancel an appointment and reschedule for another time.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-W6dXfm7YE


6 Quick tips to help you diffuse anger and create calm with unhappy customers. This video is part of a 25-module online video course for customer service professionals. If you'd like to learn more, please go to http://www.goldenmethod.com.




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACKbkmO9rLg&feature=related

Do you usually speak on the phone in English?
Do you call overseas or to EU and use your English?
Do you find it hard?
How do you cope with difficult and/or angry customers?
Please, do tell us!!

12 Top Tips for Successful Interviews and more

12 Top Tips for Successful Interviews : PFJ media introduce 12 top tips for successful interviews.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnLQy0ACIOs&feature=related


Important Questions to Ask Employers
Job candidates talk about important questions employers should answer.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQByQrECXNA


5 mistakes to avoid for job interviews



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opYjNr_4A5k&feature=player_embedded


monster.co.uk and skillstudio.co.uk show you how to answer some of the most common questions you will face at a job interview:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nr2bpcpNQWY&feature=related

Are you prepared for an interview?
Which is your impression after watching these videos?
Would you follow the hints they offer?
Please, leave your comments.

VIDEO CV

Nowadays people tend to send video cv's when they are looking for a job. Have a look at this:

Video CVs/Résumés are the new thing!
If you want to make your job application memorable send a video file about you along with your CV on paper.
A video CV/Résumé is not meant to be a substitute for the traditional résumé but an addition that will undoubtedly make you stand out and greatly increase your chances of being remembered by any potential employer.
Video files can be easily accessed through a PC or a DVD player connected to a TV set. Most schools have one or both of these facilities so you will not inconvenience them.
One of the great unknowns for any employer looking to hiring staff from abroad is the personal aspects of a candidate which are missing from your paper CV.
A thoughtfully prepared video CV can convey instantly a lot of information about yourself, your personality, your demeanour, and so on, which usually do not come across in a paper CV.
On video they will be able to see what you look like and sound like and generally get a pretty good idea of the kind of person you are: shy, loud, gentle, outgoing, sincere, excited, confident, etc.
Of course, they’ll know you have tried to portrait yourself at your best but just being able to see you in person will be a great added bonus and probably one of the key factors in their final decision.

http://www.icalweb.com/wiki/index.php?title=Video_CV/Resume

You can find many different video cv's depending on what kind of job people are searching, on what they want to highlight, on their personality...These examples are quite different --and with different accents for you to practice.




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYJBLrsA-WY&feature=player_embedded




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oT1XYjZcmck&feature=player_embedded




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWMA7bi3Y4E&feature=player_embedded

Would you try and record one?
Have you heard of this kind of CV?

elllo.org

Do you know ELLLO? ELLLO means English Listening Lesson Library Online :
Learn English naturally.
You can practice English in the funniest way.

Listening Lessons (Views, Mixer, Games ...)Activities include multimedia, free MP3 files, vocab tasks, language notes, print page and more.ViewsMixerGamesVideosSongsNewsPoints

There are now over 600 audio clips on ELLLO. Below are just a small sample of what is on the site.

High BeginnerThese activities are good for students who are new to learning English.

High IntermediateThese listening activities are a little more difficult.

Low IntermediateThese listening activities are a little more difficult, but not much.

AdvancedIn these clips, the speakers talk faster and the topics are more difficult.

The mp3 files and text on elllo are Creative Commons. Students and teachers are free to download, copy and distribute these materials for educational purposes. They are not transferable for commercial purposes.
ELLLO! Listening Games:
http://www.elllo.org/months/weeks/games.htm

CVs, BUSINESS LETTERS, COVER LETTERS. MORE INFO

How to write a business letter, the eight parts of a business letter.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxFs5zeRBn0



How to Get a Job : How to Make a Cover Letter

A cover letter is a quick description as to why this resume is better for a particular job position than all the other resumes, so having specific job position details in it is very important. Write a cover letter specific to each job application by using these tips from a career adviser in this free video on job guidance.

Expert: Pat Goodwin
Contact: www.PatGoodwinAssociates.com
Bio: Pat Goodwin is a certified personnel consultant and a career transition consultant who has worked with hundreds of individuals over the past 20 years.
Filmmaker: Todd Green





CV Writing, How to Write Your Resume
CV writing is a skill that you absolutely must master if you want to get a great job. However, not many people know how to write a good CV. Of course, you can pay someone else to write your resume for you, but that is not always a good idea.Resume writers know how to create a professional CV, but they don't know you and usually aren't writing a document which is targeted to fit a specific job. So it pays to learn how to write your own.It's actually not as difficult as you might think and once you know the basics, you can create a laser targeted CV in no time at all.Start out by getting all of the relevant information in one place In fact, try to make a note of all your employment and student activities as you go. This will save you a lot of time when it comes to updating your resume. Keep a file on your computer with dates, addresses and contact details of potential referees.Make sure you have all your physical documentation in one place too - degrees, professional qualifications, and any certificates you obtained from short courses. The next stage is to go through the job description and person specification in detail and highlight all the qualities, skills and experience you need for the job. Then make sure this is reflected in your CV and cover letterOnce you have assembled all of your information, you are ready to move on to the next stage, in part 2.Want to discover the right way to write your CV or resume? Go to http://www.coolercareers.com/how-to-cv-writing.html to download your free e-book.




Have you already written your cv, cover letter, etc.
You can try now.
You can also tell us about it, if you need more info, etc. Make the most of this post!

Improving your pronunciation?

On of my Department colleagues, and also English for Tourism teachers, has just published a book that may help you to improve your English pronunciation. Te book is called "Teach yourself English Pronunciation" and it can be bought online. It includes a CD that can be displayed in your computer full of recordings and interactive explanations and practice.

The Mixxer- Improving oral competence through Internet

Thinking about improving oral skills in an autonomous way? During this course, we will try to propose project and new way to practice communicative skills, but also, there are possibilities on the web to do it on you one if you want to begin now.

Just one thing, if you decide to do it using any of the ways suggested here, let us know by adding a comment here, so that we could take it into account in your final score.

The only think you have to do in order to find a partner to practice is installing Skype , having ready a mike and headphones/speakers and register in the website: http://www.language-exchanges.org/

If you want to record your conversations, so that we teachers, could have some feedback or evidence of your work, try using this application: http://www.powergramo.com/index.htm or even Audacity .

Let us know using comments if you like or not this tool!

** I have just set up a group for our classroom. If you want to join, fist you need to sing up to mixxer, then join our group here.

A podcast to practice English for tourism dialogues

Look at the new site that I have just found:

http://mthomsen1776.podomatic.com/

It is a kind of blog that uses audio files apart from texts to publish its information. You will find here a good recollection of dialogs to listen and read at the same time so that they are perfect for you to practice the last unit of you book. What do you think? Did you like the idea?

I will also add a rrs link in order to read and listen to new updatings from our blog.

Do you celebrate Easter?

Visite this link and try to leave a recorded message in order to practice your speaking skills.

Google Earth and El Prado Museum

Now there's no need to travel to Madrid in order to admire all the famous masterpieces from El Prado. Thanks to Google Maps, you can do it. To do this activity:

1. Read the following information and give your opinion here about the quality of the images, variety of works presented, etc. After doing that write here using the comments option your opnion about this. Would you recommended? Is is good enough? (Use page 42 from your book to do this in order to describe the advantages and disadvantages of visiting artistic places in a vistual way)

2. Choose a portrait, and try to describe it here (page 106 from your books).

Barajas chaos

Imagine that you have been working these days at Iberia, Barajas airport. You need to calm down many tourist waiting to fly.

Give here possible answers and relaxing messages to all the possible claims done by angry tourists.

Have a look at the following article to read some input on this topic.

Would you like to have all your words to learn well-pronounced?

Have a look at this website and you'll see how easy is to listen all the words you want to hear pronounced by an English native speaker. First, try to find out some words related to tourism that you don't know how to pronounce (for instance). Then, register and try to add you own categories!!

Forvo: the pronunciation guide. All the words in the world pronounced by native speakers

After that, leave a message telling us if you enjoyed the experience!!

Practice your listening!

Unfortunately, there is no way by now to practice our listening skills in this course so that they could be evaluated later. However, you know you can always find several links in our online course to listen either to real English or adapted on your own.

Trying to find something else, I came across this fantastic blog. I have added it to the links (feeds) on the right, so that you could download mp3 to listen away from your computer or do it at the exactly same time your read the same text on the screen.

What's that little orange square on the right?

What this very short video and, after that, if you don't catch what's the meaning of those little orange squares, let me know, please... (using the comments button)

Talking about travels...

For those of you who want to practice listening and speaking in an asynchronous way, here you are this useful blog with voice to practice different languages. This link leads you to the "travel section", but you could find many more there...

You could also participate as tourism professionals to be and answering questions shown there by people!

Oral and Writing Communication

As students of Tourism, you'll have to deal with customers in different situations, and this means that you'll have to write letters or emails giving details (about a hotel, a restaurant, a country, a town or city, for example) or answering people's requests or complaints. But that's not all. You'll have to speak with them, in person or on the phone.



http://www.ego4u.com/en/business-english/communication


In the link above, you can find some useful vocabulary about oral and writing communication and you'll also find some information about the structure of the letters.

You could practice writing a letter, a hotel complaint, for example and then writing the apologising letter.

Practice for lessons 7 and 8

Browse some of these pages, see what they are looking for, read all the info and check the vocabulary, have a look at what you might need if you wanted to work for The Ritz, for instance.

There are tons of web pages offering info under the labels "work with us", "careers", "recruitment", etc. Imagine how to write you CV or resumé, a cover letter, and so on to be part of their staff.

You may end up being one their trainees next summer...

http://www.maybournegroup.com/careers/default.asp

http://www.theritzlondon.com/misc/recruitment.asp

http://www.redcarnationhotelshr.com/

http://www.ihgplc.com/index.asp?pageid=7