Ensino de língua inglesa contextualizado na formação do técnico em hospedagem: uma proposta complementar de integração entre a teoria e vivência da prática profissional

Abstract

The English language is a vital tool for communication, broadly used as a medium for the understanding and exchange of ideas between people around the world, expanding the possibilities in both everyday life and professionally speaking. Nevertheless, the percentage of speakers of English in Brazil is significantly low. In the field of Tourism, speaking English is even more important, but not much is known about the reasons behind the little number of speakers and low level of fluency of the professionals in this field. The question which arises is related to the existence of awareness or not about the role and the necessity of English in this group’s perception and, therefore, this research had the objective of exploring the role of the English language in the education of hotel technicians, through a field study carried out with students of the course Hotel Technician and teachers of the Technological Axis of Tourism, Hospitality and Leisure in the Learning Center of Professional Education (CEEP) – Ministro Petrônio Portela, in Parnaíba (PI). This is a qualitative and descriptive study, which started with exploratory research and investigation of the conceptual basis of the program, as well as a documentary study regarding the official texts which guide the practices in the field. The sample was composed of students of the course hotel technician integrated to high school, who had to respond to a questionnaire with open and closed-ended questions, questions that are structured based on research on ESP (English for Specific Purposes), especially on Needs Analysis, which allowed us to understand how they perceive English in their professional education, that is, the necessity for professional practice. Semi-structured interviews were also realized with six teachers from the same school. After the collection, the data were tabled, decodified and categorized for the Content Analysis (BARDIN, 2011). From the results of this research, an educational product was designed which is an extension course of English for Specific Purposes applied to hospitality, with the intention of pointing out solutions for the problem related to the professional education of the Hotel Technician, seeking to extend the interaction between the common basis syllabus and the Technological Axis of Tourism, Hospitality and Leisure, which will lead to practices closer to integral and omnilateral education. Finally, this work is situated in the line of research Educational Practices in Professional and Technological Education and is established over the theoretical basis of PROFEPT, which refer to Integral Education, Omnilateral Education, Interdisciplinarity and Polytechnical School