With quite a number of obervations and experiences at Hospitality and Tourism classes in the previous weeks, QTC Training Group continued its internship in the forms of interviews and discussions with people from hospitality sectors, including program managers, course verifiers, BTEC unit teachers, student project groups and class SLBs at Deltion on November 18, 2014. QTC Training Group gained a deeper insight into the application of CBE in Dutch vocational education.
According to Alie Stam, manager of Hospitality & Service, Deltion started cooperation with the Edexcel awarding organisation and its publisher, A Pearson Company, about ten years ago.BTECs are vocational/work-related qualifications that are exclusively offered by Edexcel. BTECs range from Entry Level to Level 8 (postgraduate level) on the National Qualifications Framework (NQF), offering a progression route across all levels, starting with BTEC Firsts and Nationals as GCSE and A level equivalents. They are developed in consultation with industry and professionals, with the aim of being relevant, progressive and recognised by professional bodies, employers and universities.
About 15 years ago, Deltion introduced the series of BTEC courses for five international studies, which include Hospitality studies, Tourism Studies, Aviation Studies, Art & Design, Business Studies. Taking into account the students’ English language ability, BTEC units are delivered to first and second year students of these studies through bilingual teaching and learning, which means they work out the projects of the selected units in both English and Dutch languages. When students meet the requirements of Level 3 set by Edexcel, they can obtain an English diploma issued by the British authority together with a Dutch diploma of their studies.
An hospitality teacher who gives unit course said that students do a lot of work on their own to pass the BTECs. The work portfolio should be handed in and assessed and kept in the archive room to be shown as proof to Edexcel external verifiers. The best part of BTEC courses is that they give learners lots of choices about assignments and projects to make to either get a P (pass), a M (merit, meaning medium) or a D (distinction, which means excellent).
After interviewing two groups of first-year students on their project of Organizing an Event, the Training group felt that BTECs provide a more practical, real-world approach to learning and skills development alongside a key theoretical background. In short, students are learning by doing. One project group was organizing a “Valentine’s Party in a Restaurant”. The other was planning a “Cooking Contest on Campus Square”. Students thought it interesting to practise something real from the industry and doing a project is much better than always sitting in the classroom to attend lectures.
Luc Jans, manager of hospitality studies, said they don’t just borrow all units from the course. They select and use some of them to cover all the four tasks of the level 4 program, ie, Restaurant Service, Front Office, Hotel Management and Entrepreneurship. Teachersy need to modify the teaching contents and the assignments to meet the needs of the students at Deltion and the demands of the indutry in the Netherlands. The internal verifiers from Deltion and the external verifiers from England work closely to ensure the qulity of bilingual education. Both teachers and students face challenges raised by bilingual teaching and learning. However difficult it is, in a globalized world of economy, the feature of internationalization of tourism, hospitality and aviation should never be neglected.
To conclude, Competence Based Education is performed in its own way of education at Hospitality Sector in Deltion. Qingdao Technical College can learn from Deltion’s practice mode, which may be defined as The Task and/or Assignment based Unit-Topic Bilingual Teaching & Learning.
