CELTA

Assignment 3
Language Skills Related Task
Candidate Ayla Cristine de Souza e Silva
Word count 903
Date of submission 24/01/2018

PART A (Class Profile)

This is an intermediate group of volunteer students in the CELTA course at SEVEN Idiomas. Most
students live and/or work near the school. This is a very heterogeneous group. We follow Speak
Out - Upper Intermediate as a course book, and sometimes we use authentic and supplementary
materials. Most students had already had a formal learning in other schools, however, for different
reasons, some of them had stopped studying the language. The average age range for students in
the group is between 40 and 60, but there is a 15-year-old girl as well.

PART B (Why I have Chosen this Text)

Some of people in the group are studying English because of work or because they want to travel
abroad, and some simply because they enjoy it. It is very participative group who always engage in
the tasks and usually perform very well.
I have chosen an article called Hostels Are More Popular Than Ever Among Travel-Leaning
Millennials (see appendix 1) because travelling is something everyone from the group enjoys and/or
is planning to do soon. For instance, Luciana and Yasmin, who are mother and daughter, are
moving to the United States of America within 6 months and Maristela is travelling to China and
Japan. Garbo also intends to visit the USA with his family this year. I believe some of them could
benefit from the information the text provides on hostels, which is a type of accommodation not
many people in Brazil are familiar with, specially adults. According to Edge (1993: p. 47),
'authentic materials bring the means of learning and the purpose of learning close together, and
this establishes once again a direct link with the world outside the classroom'. The text contains a
variety of words related to travelling that might be new to students, which will improve their
vocabulary (Garbo and Luciana, for example, sometimes forget words and want to work on this
area), and the language used is challeging enough for their level. Most students from this group
said they liked reading, which is also another reason why this would be an interesting choice for
them.

Parts C & D: Specific Reading Skills

The layout and length of this text make it ideal for students to practise reading for gist and detail.
According to Harmer (1998: p.69), when students are 'really fired up by the topic or the task, they
get much more from what it is in front of them', which is usually what happens with this group,
since there are many strong students and all of them engage easily in the tasks. Therefore, having
an activity for them to get the overall meaning of the task and then

Task 1 (Initial Reading Task)

Choose the paragraph that best summarises the text:

1. ( ) People nowadays are travelling a lot and staying in hotels more than ever. They value their
privacy and comfort. Domestic travel has increased but international has decreased.
2. ( ) The hostel industry is currently booming due to a increase in millenials travelling abroad.
These millenials plan to travel as much of the world as they can. They spend more on thavelling
than previous generations, which has created a market for hostels.
3. ( ) Millenials like to travel and stay in hostels because they are very luxurious and
extravagant. These travellers have more money than normal travellers. Most of them stay in
private rooms in the hostels.

Answer key: 2.

Task 2 (Detailed Reading Task)

Decide if these statements are true or false and correct the false ones:

1. ( ) Millenials hostel-goers are usually rich young people.

2. ( ) Hotels are more popular among young travellers than hostels.
3. ( ) Travellers who like meeting new people, tend to prefer staying in hostels.
4. ( ) Nowadays there are luxurious hostels as well as hotels.
5. ( ) The hostel industry has been facing diminishing popularity.
6. ( ) Over 50% of American millenials hostel travellers have gone abroad.
7. ( ) If a traveller wants privacy, there is plenty of private rooms in hostels.
8. ( ) There are many useful features in hostels nowadays.

Answer key:
1. F. ‘Millennial hostel-goers may not have as much money as some travelers’.
2. F. ‘Hostels are becoming a more popular alternative than traditional hotels for many young
travelers’.
3. T
4. T
5. F. ‘It’s astounding how much the hostel industry has transformed in the last five years alone.’
6. T
7. T
8. T

PART E (Productive Skills)

Because this group is very talkative and many of the students want to improve their speaking skills,
I believe, as a follow-up, they would benefit from having some questions to discussions based on
the topic of the text, as a reaction to it. I would ask them to stand up and form two circles (‘onion
ring’). The inner circle would not move and the outer circle would move. Students would have to
ask and answer a few questions that would be on the board, and then move clockwise to talk to
the next person whenever I clapped my hands.

The questions would be the following:

1) Have you ever stayed in a hostel? If so, how was it?; If not, would you like to?
2) Why do you think hostels are so popular nowadays?
3) Do you see the hostel industry as a lucrative industry moving forward?
Bibliography
EDGE, J. (1993). Essentials of English Teaching. New York: Longman.
HARMER, J. (1998). How to teach English. London: Longman.
MOHN, T. (2016) Hostels Are More Popular Than Ever Among Travel-Leaning Millennials, accessed
24 January 2018, <https://www.forbes.com/sites/tanyamohn/2016/05/16/a-hostel-revolution-
fueled-by-young-travelers/#2c58e8996bb4>

Appendix 1
Hostels Are More Popular Than Ever Among Travel-Leaning Millennials
Millennial hostel-goers may not have as much money as some travelers , but they tend to spend
more of their disposable income -- and stay on the road longer -- to see the world than many
others. As a result, hostels are becoming a more popular alternative than traditional hotels for
many young travelers, aged 18 to 35.
Those are the key findings of “The Global Hostel Marketplace 2014-2018” that showed that
millennials are driving a rise in hostel travel due to low cost, convenient locations, good value,
experience driven accommodations and opportunities to meet other travelers.
The report, released earlier this month by Hostelworld, an online travel agent that commissioned
travel research company PhoCusWright to produce it, was the company’s first on hostel trends.
“It’s astounding how much the hostel industry has transformed in the last five years alone,”
Feargal Mooney, chief executive of Hostelworld, said in a statement. “Today, we’re seeing luxury
hostel accommodations that are offering the perfect balance of privacy, amenities and social
activities.”
Compared to other traveler types, according to the report, millennials, who represent more than
70 percent of hostel-goers, are particularly passionate and determined: 86 percent of them said: “I
plan to travel as much of the world as I can in my lifetime;” 87 percent said: “I consider travel a
very important part of my lifestyle.” The research indicated that hostel travelers take more trips
across markets than any other traveler type, and are more likely to go abroad.
“This travel bug has revolutionized the hospitality industry,” the report noted, “as millennials are
prioritizing social interactions and shared adventures with newfound friends versus the average
traveler population.” In the U.S., for example, 85 percent of millennial hostel travelers took an
international trip in the past 12 months - compared to just 33 percent of all U.S. leisure travelers.
Unlike hostels of the past, the report found, today, 9 in 10 have private rooms in addition to dorm
rooms or traditional shared rooms and typically offer a range of other amenities that may include:
free WiFi, on-site food and beverage facilities, daily cleaning services, designed-focused interiors,
social events, bicycle rentals, libraries and media centers.