Turkey is one of the tourist attractions in any time of the year thanks to its natural, historical and cultural beauties and entities. It is a market with 16.801.618.000 USD tourism receipt from 26.431.124 foreign tourists according to 2008 figures (Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism, 2010). The quality of the staff serving in this sector determines both the satisfaction of the customers (foreigners) and the sustainability of the Turkish tourism potential. The quality of the staff is directly related with their education. With regard to this education, teaching language(s) is of utmost importance. The graduates of tourism high schools and tourism vocational schools are supposed to have acquired adequate level of proficiency in one or more foreign languages, since communication is the most critical means of serving the foreign visitors. In this respect, the objectives and quality of foreign language education in these schools need to be studied.

The major goal of contemporary language curricula around the world is to provide communicative competence (Larsen-Freeman, 2000; Richards & Rodgers, 2001). However, the recent approaches in language education also suggest some other competences to be involved in language curricula. For example, “Common European Framework of Reference for Languages:Learning, Teaching, Assessment” developed by European Council (2009,p.105) stresses the importance of providing the language learners with favorable attitudes such as “openness towards, and interest in, new experiences, other persons, ideas, peoples, societies and cultures”. This importance attached to the development of such attitudes is related with the Council’s intercultural objective “to promote the favorable development of the learner’s whole personality and sense of identity in response to the enriching experience of otherness in language and culture” (p.1).

Such positive intercultural attitudes are also expressed in some attitudinal-motivational theories in foreign language teaching. For example Gardner defines a attitudinal construct called integrativeness, which “reflects the individual's willingness and interest in social interaction with members of other groups” (Gardner&MacIntyre, 1993, p.159). It involves “individual’s orientation to language learning that focuses on communication with members of the other language group, a general interest in foreign groups, especially through their language, and favorable attitudes toward the target language group” (Gardner, 2005, p.10). Similarly Yashima (Yashima&Zenuke-Nishide, 2008) postulates a specific international attitudinal construct called International Posture, which reflects “a tendency to see oneself as connected to the international community, to have concerns for international affairs and a readiness to interact with people other than Japanese.”(p.568).

As for the rational of this study, it is assumed that these intercultural attitudinal objectives of foreign language education should be associated especially with the students of tourism high schools and tourism vocational schools, since such an intercultural openness must be favorable characteristic of people whom the foreign visitors will encounter first and foremost.

Thus this study intends to investigate Turkish tourism high school and vocational school students’ a) orientation to language learning which focuses on communication with members of the other language group(s), b) general interest in foreign groups, especially through their language, and c) favorable attitudes toward the target language group(s).

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