The contribution of AI to develop Tourism students employability

Enfoque

Teacher competence includes many aspects related to the use of new technologies in the teaching process within this globalized world. These aspects include the skills and abilities that are needed to remain successful in the present job market. In this paper we share our experience built on project-based methodology, by using several AI apps and websites where tourism students can mock a job interview and other important features concerning communication in English. Participants in this project included tourism students in the last year of their degree at Rey Juan Carlos University in Madrid.

The objective of this paper is, in the first place, to make tourism students aware of the existence of different AI tools they can use so as to face a job interview successfully and, in the second place, to explore the students’ perceptions regarding the distinct tools we present them with. Even if students have an acceptable command of English, they also have to learn to cope with facing job interviews.

Regarding the methodology used, this paper exploits the experience of 35 students who were taking the final year of their Degree in Tourism. To make students digitally competent citizens as well as extremely prepared to face a job interview, we presented them with several AI apps and websites that would help them in getting their ideal job, and they also had to decide which is the best one and which one(s) worked better for them and why. At the end of the process, students were presented with a questionnaire to find out their opinion about their experience.

After having come in contact with the different resources we offered to students, they turned out to be really enthusiastic because they realized they were asked potential questions and the more they used these tools, the more confident they became, since they also got feedback in a positive and a negative way, so that they could correct their mistakes and they were encouraged to face a job interview in the real world.

As a conclusion, we can highlight that the different teaching techniques regarding AI used in this project, allowed tourism students to adjust to specific situations and to practice their skills in a quasi-real context and receive remarkably interesting and useful feedback. Likewise, from our students’ answers we can observe that these tools were extremely helpful for them. Moreover, in order to revitalize the educational sector, and to make English for Specific Purposes students involved in their learning process, we have understood that providing them with the right kind of devices will make their learning much more profitable and enjoyable, as can be derived from our students’ answers from their experience in using those resources. Finally, from our practice we can state that AI is essential to boost student achievement.