General Information
Professor: Maguil Céspedes M.Sc.
Participant Institutions: Consorcio Cooperativo Red Nacional de Turismo Rural (COOPRENA .R.L.)
Duration: 10 weeks
The ecotourism when is understood as a way of environmental education aloud for the acquisition of revenue to the residents of the communities around the National Parks through the use of the natural resources in a sustainable manner. Additionally, ecotourism incorporates an extra level to the tourist as well to the local residents by the re-valorizing of the local traditions, culture and the natural resources around them, aspects normally non-appreciated by the local tourist in most of the cases.
The Natural Guides should show and make emphasis in a distinct perspective, that will aloud the tourist to understood the relationships between the events that occurs between the city and the rural areas, and between the interactions that exist between the industrialized countries and the countries in development (like ours). With the mentioned perspectives in mind our objective is to increase the appreciation towards the natural resources through the knowledge of the impact of the interactions that happens in the over all picture.
General Objective:
Train members of the community as natural guides that should be capable to understood and believe in the ideal of sustainable development as well with the basic training to communicate in English.
Specific Objetives :
• Provide the course participants with the basic knowledge in natural history and culture, environmental education and conservation in
• Habilitate the participants with a basic knowledge of English.
• Train capable naturalist guides as well as leader in the development of their communities.
• Promote the appreciation towards the conservation and environmental education to the residents of the communities and the tourists with the active roll of the naturalist guides.
• Promote and support the development of sources of employment as well as sustainable development in the communities from within them.
• Prepare, edit and distribute educational material that can be use as consultant material after the courses have finalized for the participants to maintain and increase their knowledge of English.
Expected Concrete Results :
• Improve the English communication of the students five points over their level at the beginning of the course.
• Be proficient about the main five concepts explained in Naturalist guide’s manual.
• Be capable of perform a 30 minute interpretative tour in English.
• Revise and keep up to day the English manual and the natural guide’s manual using the feed back from using the students comments at the end of the course.
Methodology:
The duration of the course is two months and is implemented in different ecological zones around
The English training will required at least four professors. Remember that the realization of the course required 24 hours of commitment towards their students and the ideal personnel for the English training will require young professors with English as their mother language.
On the first day of the course the students sing a voucher during the formal inauguration of the course. The students will swear over English-Spanish dictionary that they will accomplish the goal of the course. The golden rule is, to communicate verbally and in written form in English from that point on to the end of the course.
The interaction professor-student is performed in English. The classes are performed during meals in an open set format as well as during walks in the field as well as in the classroom. The course encourages the student to perform critical and creative thinking by engaging them in theatrical representations, dialogs, oral and written exercises, and other various creative learning techniques. With these set of techniques the student are presented with non-stressful spaces to alleviate the tention tautness that learning a foreign language generates. |
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The course is strict in terms of what is expected from the students, so a system base in the number of infractions done by each student have been created to ensure the success of it; if a student surpass the number of infractions permitted he/she will be expulse from the course without appeals.
The course includes speeches and lectures from different experts in biology about specific topics of relevance for the Naturalist guides’s education (i.e. trophic networks, germination and predation); this scheme save the students from hearing obver and over the same stuff presented in different ways throughout the course length.
The courses aare structures in shuch a way that the students have to interact in groups during diffrent tasks throughout the length of the course; these methodology promotes the cooperation and re-enforcements of concepst from the own students. The students grouos chance composition in time to aloud the students to interact with all the participants on the course as well to expose them to diffrent sets of background and formation enreaching the experience of the students.
Participants requirements and course composition:
16 participants chosen by their organization/community with the following requisites :
• Know how to read and write.
• Show a profound self motivation and interest towards becoming a Naturalist guide. We strongly encorage people already involve in conservation activities as well as in environmental education.
• Persons with facility to communicate and interact with other persons.
• Show facility to adapt to a wide set of logistic scenarios.
• Have the ability to adapt to communal living.
• Show an interest to learn.
• Been under 25 years but legally independent.
• Have a true necessity to learn English and posses a rudimentary understanding of it.
• Been physically fit to perform physical activities indoors as well as in the field.