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...

Letter of complaint

Imagine that you are the manager of a very famous hotel. Read the whole list of topics enumerated in this page, an reply a letter of complaint of a very upset client. You could take some ideas to express your apologies from page 83 in your textbook.

http://edition.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2008/news/troubleshooter/

As you may have noticed, it have belongs to part of the travel section by CNN website, called "travelshooter".

Don't forget to do this task by using the comments option!

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?

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!

More on cover letters...

have you ever had to write a cover letter? a CV? A formal letter? Don't you think it i a very important task to do in your training as tourism professional?

Have a look at this website. You will find sample letters, tips about how to write a cv or even quizzes about everything learnt!

http://www.cvtips.com/job-search-tests/

THE FLATMATES . A letter.

Some listening practice for you: a letter!

Vacancy reference: Assistant Manager!

The Flatmates are short BBC Learning English episodes whose chareacters are four flatmates: Tim, Helen, Khalid, alice and Michal.

Do you find useful these short BBC episodes?

from: bbclearningenglish.com

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/flatmates/

Word order

Would like like to practice some practice for your second term exam? Click on the following url and follow the instructions to put all the words on a sentence in the right order. It could seem a very simple game, but it could become extremely useful for you to write good compositions in your exam.

Reading and Listening News in very simple English

I received today this recommendation from one of the collaborators in this website. It has a section devoted to offer very simple texts dealing with news, some of them, like this section, having to do with travel and tourism.

Simple English News - Travel

Of course our texts are much more difficult than these, but try to read them (and listen) very carefully paying attention to the structures and order or elements in the sentences. This could be a good help for you to write better compositions in the exam.

Those "headlines" on the right...

As I can guess from the activity in the last poll that I added here in this blog, I realize that you don't know exactly what are the links on the right. Well. Most of the most famous British and American newspapers have a specialized section on "travels and tourism".

What I did was including feeds from all these important publications (The Times on line, The Independent, The Guardian, The New York Times, etc...) so that you don't have to visit all those pages in order to look for articles dealing with tourism.

This way, articles will go to in real "fresh" English you and won't have to look for specialized text to improve your reading any more. But not only updated articles will be shown here in this blog using this method, also video (National Geographic) and audio archives could be listened and archived in your hard disk or mp3 player so that you could listen in the underground or by car...

You will find too feed to pages to learn English such as the one from the BBC or ESL About English

What's Ecotourism?

Listen to these students of biology talking about Ecotourism and compare to the texts founds in the textbook dealing with this topic. Could you find other ways of doing "Ecotourism"? Could you understand well what she said?

General Manager´s Blog

Do hotels keep a blog??

And hotel managers???

What are these blogs about????

http://www.opushotel.com/blog/

http://www.hotel-blogs.com/guillaume_thevenot/

http://www.hotelchatter.com/

http://blogs.travel-library.com/category/hotels/

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

Guide to Basic Business Letters

Guide to Basic Business Letters
From Kenneth Beare,Your Guide to English as 2nd Language.
http://esl.about.com/cs/onthejobenglish/a/a_basbletter.htmGuide to Basic Business Letters

The Basics
The basics of good business letter writing are easy to learn. The following guide provides the phrases that are usually found in any standard business letter. These phrases are used as a kind of frame and introduction to the content of business letters. At the end of this guide, you will find links to sites that give tips on the difficult part of writing successful business letters – arguing your business objective. By using these standard phrases, you can give a professional tone to your English business letters.
The Start
Dear Personnel Director,
Dear Sir or Madam: (use if you don't know who you are writing to)
Dear Dr, Mr, Mrs, Miss or Ms Smith: (use if you know who you are writing to, and have a formal relationship with - VERY IMPORTANT use Ms for women unless asked to use Mrs or Miss)
Dear Frank: (use if the person is a close business contact or friend)
The Reference
With reference to your advertisement in the Times, your letter of 23 rd March, your phone call today, Thank you for your letter of March 5 th .

The Basics
The basics of good business letter writing are easy to learn. The following guide provides the phrases that are usually found in any standard business letter. These phrases are used as a kind of frame and introduction to the content of business letters. At the end of this guide, you will find links to sites that give tips on the difficult part of writing successful business letters – arguing your business objective. By using these standard phrases, you can give a professional tone to your English business letters.
The Start
Dear Personnel Director,
Dear Sir or Madam: (use if you don't know who you are writing to)
Dear Dr, Mr, Mrs, Miss or Ms Smith: (use if you know who you are writing to, and have a formal relationship with - VERY IMPORTANT use Ms for women unless asked to use Mrs or Miss)
Dear Frank: (use if the person is a close business contact or friend)
The Reference
With reference to your advertisement in the Times, your letter of 23 rd March, your phone call today, Thank you for your letter of March 5 th .

How many different kinds of letters could you write?

Did you know that we have different rules to write business letters in English depending on the person person are you are addressing? In this post I suggest you to have a look at this website (mainly for native speakers, but also useful for us : http://www.writing-business-letters.com/). You could find on the Internet even templates like the very practical ones at Microsoft: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/templates/CT101485751033.aspx (Just download and edit) .

Try to have a look and read them! After that, tell you about them here! Did you find them interesting? Did you know of their existance before? Have you ever used a template?

You could even use a writing generator!

http://www.english-test.net/esl/learn/english/grammar/ii095/esl-answers.php

Have a nice writing...;)