Teacher Discussion Forums

Dear all,

I have left a post in the ESP thread, but I am not sure whether this is a more appropriate place. Anyway, I have been asked to provide a proposal for a course on the English of Tourism and tourism discourse aiming to develope both knowledge of inguistic concepts and the language skills of the students. I did not find much which brings together the theoretical level and the more practical level. I found this book by a researcher of the University of Pisa published not long ago, sometime this 2006.

Sun, Sea, Sex and the Unspoilt Countryside. How the English language makes tourists out of readers, by Gloria Cappelli, here's the link:
http://www.paripublishing.com/books/sunseasex/

I was wondering whether somebody knew this book, and whether this could be a good choice for undergraduate students. It seems to meet most of my requirements, so, before ordering it, I wanted to hear some comments.

Thank you in advance.

Donatella

PS: A reference to a journal with a review of the book would be equally helpful. Thank you.

I hope these observations will be helpful for somebody.

I bought the book in the end, and I find it quite good. I have only read carefully the first two chapters, but I think it could work very well in a university course where the students have language classes and a course which is more theoretically oriented. It is definitely suitable for the course that I am planning because it analyses texts and other materials to unveil the linguistic mechanisms which are used in tourism promotional and informational materials.

There are some theoretical parts which could be a bit complicated for students which are not familiar with linguistics, but the teacher can definitely make them accessible. I suppose they are there for further reference.

It is organised as a workbook with space for writing and at the end there are a few pages for the students to write down new words, with letters, etc.

I think it is a good reference book for students to keep for future reference too, because at the end of each chapter there are sample questionnaires for the analysis of whatever happens to be the tourist material analysed, so that non-native speakers can make sense of the most relevant linguistic strategies used and maybe use them.

I will leave another post once I have actually tried the book, but it looks like it could be different from what is already out there and, most important, that it could be an interesting reading/work resource for students instead of the usual stuff they do in tourism English classes.

It is suitable to undergraduate or graduate students, not to highschool kids. I think it is meant for future professionals.