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Spanish for air cabin crew, Hastings College of Arts and Technology
Video clips
View some of the good practice described below in the case study. You will see good practice in the use of the target language for beginner vocational students, the use of games and mime for learning key vocabulary and phrases, realistic role plays carried out in a mock aeroplane and the use of specially created resources relevant to air cabin crew.
Case study
Context
Hastings College of Arts and Technology is a medium sized general further education college, offering a wide variety of courses. Students learning to be air cabin crew learn Spanish alongside their main course.
How the programme is organised
Students take Spanish for one year and have lessons for 1 ½ hours per week. Although the language learning is not compulsory, it is strongly encouraged by the vocational team. Once they begin, the students rarely drop out as a strong importance is placed on their language learning. The Spanish course is funded using enrichment funding. Although the students are non-specialist language learners, the whole course is delivered via the target language using activities relevant to the vocational context. To see the language learning in action, view the video clips.
Resources
The scheme of work is designed in conjunction with the Travel and Tourism Department, to ensure that everything the students learn in Spanish is relevant to their main course. Some of the resources from the main programme are used for teaching the language. For example, a picture of the inside of a Boeing aeroplane is used for teaching the students how to direct passengers to their seats. A mock aeroplane, which is fully equipped with overhead luggage storage, real aeroplane seating and a hostess trolley is used to practise role-plays. Realistic resources for teaching selling duty free goods, giving air safety instructions and other activities have been produced and are available on CILT’s Vocational Languages Resource Bank:
Air safety instructions
Airport announcements
Buying and selling duty free
Directing passengers to their seats
Serving food
Results/effects
Students learn a lot of language quickly and are able to perform confidently, even though they only study Spanish for 1 ½ hours per week. In one lesson observed, after only 7 hours of Spanish, the students were able to carry out role-plays entirely in Spanish buying and selling duty free goods using dummy Euro notes and a duty-free brochure copied from the Iberia website. The teacher used a variety of stimulating and highly participative ways of teaching numbers as well as the language necessary for the task such as 'I would like...', 'How much is?...', 'a bottle of...', 'a packet of...'. The students were extremely engaged and competent in the task, in a way which they might not have been if they had been asked to act out buying food in a supermarket for example. They could see the relevance of the language they were learning for the job they were going to do. The teacher ensures that she always uses an authentic context for learning the language. For students’ reaction to learning a language in this way, view the video clip.
Author: Silvana Richardson
