Hi there!

This is me: Tony Jolley and my ‘chorus line‘:

Katy and FeeBee, the best looking pair of  blonde-bombshell backing singers  in the business!

[Sadly both left us recently… ]

  Your M2 Professional English unit.

This is, in other words, my ‘base page’ for the  M2 CENPROFDOC unit which will give you an idea of the course content and the assignments relating to this Applied English programme.  When you hover your cursor over the CENPROFDOC M2 item under the main FSESJ  tab on my www.tonyversity.com/students  website, you will also find that there is a ‘spring out menu’ that appears automatically.  This is where you will find such things as:

• detail of ‘Blocks’ of work which will culminate in an assessed output..
• materials I may put up for you in the form of ‘Thinkpieces’,  mini-lectures or other resources
• assignment instructions
• general feedback upon the work you are doing / have done.

In the first slot you have on your timetable for this unit (and before the next one a week later), I would like you to look closely at the material (links and videos) provided below (and you have a small whole-group task to do  concerning your confidence levels in English – it is after the third video on this page! ). The chances are, if we don’t have a CoVid resurgence, we will be able to do these things in class.  If we can’t then you can follow the video content and these instructions.

BUT FIRST: a word about the Rentrée.

With any luck (and lots of vaccinations!) we all should be able to enjoy the traditional, attendance-based mode of teaching this year, but if ever illness, isolation or confinement does strike, I would like you to take confidence in the fact that with my website content & links, the numerous pre-recorded videos that I have made available on my YouTube Channel for asynchronous viewing and live Zooms coupled with a weekly email to confirm:

• what we just did
• where we are
• what is to be done next and the location of instructions and support materials
• assignment details

…. I

will be able to provide the learning support which I know you need IF we ever have to face confinement again.  IF ever this does happen, you will already be familiar with the above because I will be using these things in class in the ‘attendance mode’ on a day to day basis and you will be using them between my classes.

Here is my general video intro to Rentrée 2021 .

Clearly if Rentrée this year becomes subject to lockdowns, you can revert to the contents of 21 Rentrée (video as above). Let’s hope not! So you should, hopefully, be able to ignore it!

Now an introduction to this unit.

What it entails and  what I am trying to do on this course to help you with your confidence in using your English.

Here is the  link and the video:   https://youtu.be/9LXl9RbIR5k

Principles and Practices in the ‘Last Chance Saloon‘ for your English.

This is all about you and your confidence after many years of learning English: what does it all amount to?  What is the payback that you have for all those years and all that effort in terms of the confidence to communicate effectively (even if this is short of perfection and involves mistakes being made!).  You only have this year left to capitalise upon it for ‘free’…. Thereafter you may well have to pay for English translation support (between 40 and 170 Euros per hour!).  Better to ‘get your act together‘ NOW, then while the support is low/no cost to you!

GROUP TASK FOR OUR FIRST WEEK

I would like you all to listen to the video immediately above and to:

1. reflect upon / calculate how many years you have each been learning English.  Then calculate the group average on a scale of 0 to 10 where 0 = no confidence at all and 10 = fully confident.
2. each consider the two workplace examples I give you in the video:
   • EXAMPLE 1. what is your level of confidence of giving a VIP a tour of your company premises, people and processes: in English.  Calculate the group average on this scale: /10 where:
     • 0/1 = no confidence whatever: ‘find someone else!!’;
     • 2/3 = confidence far too limited to do it;
     • 4/5 = OK, if you can’t find anyone better, I’ll try, but I’m bound to make a lot of mistakes;
     • 6/7  = Yes, I think I can do it, but it will fall far short of perfect;
     • 8/9 = Yes, fine, I’ll do it and it should be pretty good with a few minor errors only; 
     • 10 = no worries, it’ll all be fine…fully confident..
   • EXAMPLE 2. what is your level of confidence in communicating complicated and precise instructions in English in a fluent, easily-understandable written form in the context of arranging travel and accommodation for your boss on a business and conference tour in the USA?   Calculate the group average on the scale above.

THEN:

… in this, our first week, would you please find a way to combine and feedback your results – hopefully in class. [IF ever we are back in confinement – or cannot finish this in Week One –  record together a brief standard video or audio file with which to present an overview of your individual and group results … in English of course!  You may be able to share your individual results perhaps via the completion of a file via Google Docs / Drive, then you could do the short video/audio file summary of the overall group results  and remember to make it accessible to me!] 

NB. It is important that you get a working system of sharing material sorted out from the start as we are going to be using it throughout the course whether in the attendance or distance mode of delivery.  If in confinement, please send this to my email address or (better still) a link/invitation to where you have housed it and I can view/listen/download it.  [OF COURSE, IF you are doing things in confinement,  I don’t expect it all to be edited professionally (though with your group I can hope for something good, I feel!)  – someone moving round the room (respecting social distance of course!) with a phone camera on record would be fine…  Then, before you leave, send me the link to the recording.  I’m  interested in seeing and hearing you for the first time.  I’ll only get serious about marking with our first task/ Block!  With any luck we will be doing all of this in/between classes]

When you have finished this, then you can move on down the page – there are more videos to view… and a new individual task to start: The Personal / Professional Profile.

ASIDE:

Given your speciality, you may also be interested in:

The History of Tonyversity

I first launched V1. of Tonyversity approaching 30 years ago when the internet had barely ‘arrived’ outside research labs [and do you know who invented the HTML code that makes your links work  and where and when and why and how it came about?   No it is not the US military!!  You need to know … if you don’t, go do the research!  Strangely enough, both Fr

ance and the town where my wife and I grew up in England have a connection with the answer!] and Mosaic and Netscape 1 were the first available browsers….(all happening while France was largely ignoring the internet as it had its own revolutionary system in place in virtually every home: the amazing Minitel!).

Some other important things:

1. the website address is www.tonyversity.com/students    Don’t forget the ‘/students’ bit!  Bookmark it on your university browser profile and it should appear every time you log on and open the browser.  Saves time and memory.  There is no login and no password for the site for your ease of access.  I am a ‘vacataire/contractuel’ so I don’t use the various different systems for web publishing offered by the faculties of UHA or elsewhere.  This is for two reasons.  Firstly it would take me far too long to juggle 3 or four website creation tools: Moodle…Blackboard etc; and secondly I want to retain my own intellectual property – that is to say that there could be some doubt about the ownership of the content were it on a University site  or server, but on my own site, on a paid-for server, under my own domain name, the content is unarguably mine.    This is a point you might well think about in relation to your career in the creative industries: how do you stop people ripping you off… how do you protect your own material…?  The site isn’t optimised for use on a small telephone screen, sadly.  I would rather you didn’t print from Tonyversity, but if you do – choose how many pages you want to print (sometimes the last ones are unnecessary).
2. to contact me, use  tjolley@gmail.com  (you can use the email address that UHA’s ‘annuaire’ gives you for me but it is long and hyphenated and easy to mis-type – it  defaults to my gmail address anyway!).

Principles, the ‘spirit’ of the unit and more helpful material for you.

I have written about this under several headings on my site.

Please see the links and videos on  This Page

The link above has short videos on a number of topics.

• how I like to work (two vids on principles)
• the concept of ‘Blocks and Bridges’  
• understanding and answering the questions we lecturers set you
  
• using academic sources 
• citation and attribution 
• plagiarism 1 & 2  
• deadlines  
• You must also look at the requirements as regards the risks of using Artificial Intelligence. See my NEWS item on the subject.

At Master’s level, I hope most of this goes without saying, but I find from year to year that I need to say it still.   You really should watch/listen to them ALL, not least as they are there to help you!  [Take particular care to abide by plagiarism and AI (non)use regulations.]

I guess what I am aiming for is what I would best term: ‘Professional Informality’:  a way of working which is respectful, motivated, dedicated and having more to do with the working world than the classroom but which dispenses, for the mostpart, with the need for suits and ‘they way it must always be done’.  For example, I don’t have to be standing immobile on a podium, ‘dressed to the nines‘ (do you recognise that expression?) to be able to relate to you  with a classic Powerpoint support… I could be in jeans and open-necked shirt perching upon the edge of a desk in my office speaking to you all via the internet rather than in full-on, presentation mode…BUT…that doesn’t mean for a minute that I will be being any less professional at all: we’ll just dispense with some traditions to be more relaxed and comfortable, which I believe to be more in keeping with the sort of work environment into which you are likely to be going. 

You are also being prepared for a world and a career (especially the English-speaking world) where deadlines are deadlines: putting back a performance/event date on a whim with little or no notice is simply NOT a possibility.  You have to get used to this NOW.  The same goes for your work.  If I set a deadline, unless you have a medical certificate or a reason admissible under Course Regulations and approved by your Programme Manager, then you will find penalties applied you your work. Depending upon the circumstances it may receive 0/20 (but you will get feedback) or the bare passmark of 10/20 even if the content might have been worth more had it been submitted on time.  This is only fair to your colleagues who hit the deadline as I am sure you will appreciate.

I won’t go on, but you get the picture I am sure…..

Unit Aims and Objectives

1. To develop your confidence to USE effectively the English you already possess after years of study.  There is little point in giving you more vocabulary and more grammar and syntax if you don’t have the confidence to actually USE it!  My first position is to say to you that I am first of all looking for you to be clear what you mean even if you make glaring errors.  Have the courage to make some mistakes…. not only do I permit it – I want to encourage it!  This gives you the opportunity to take risks without fear of ‘punishment‘ and it gives me the opportunity to actually help you.  You are not doing a Master’s in English.  You are not going to be perfect (unless you are already virtually bi-lingual!) even after 24 hours of classes with me….SO you are going to have to get used to making the odd mistake when you are operating in English, but as long as you can be clear as to what you mean then no-one gives a damn and you will get good marks!  You will also find people, your interlocutors, are very generous (they know you are trying); very helpful (sometimes they throw you the word you need) and very grateful (otherwise they’d have to speak your language – which they don’t/can’t!).  You are having your: Last drink in the Last Chance Saloon (for your English). Picture Clint Eastwood (in Cowboy mode) going into a bar in a one-horse town in the desert: it is almost always ‘The Last Chance Saloon’: the last opportunity for a drink before the desert…..   YOU are now drinking your very last drink in the English ‘Last Chance Saloon’ in the sense that this is your last chance to make your English fully operational before a professional life beckons.  Most of you will tell me that you have had at least 10 years of English at school and university, but if I then ask you whether you have the confidence in using English that should have come with a decade of training, the answer is almost uniformly ‘No‘.  On a level of confidence ( where 1 = not confident and 10 perfectly confident) the average response is usually about 5.  After university, if you need to operationalise your English, you will have to find the time and probably pay for the privilege to the tune of 20 – 40 Euros per hour!   Better to do the job now, no?   So I am paying for your last ‘round‘ in the saloon – drink up, then!
2. To apply the English you are using and developing to your chosen career context.    You are not engineers or nuclear physicists: you have your own specialist context and I will endeavour to set our blocks of work, projects and assessments specifically around these areas, at times giving you lots of opportunity to tailor things specifically and very personally to your career aspirations.

Where do we go from here?

The answer is that we need to start!

Q. What do we start with (after the ultra-quick ‘what’s your level of confidence in English’ task above)?

A.  The Personal/Professional Profile  Individual. Written. ASSESSED

NB. The video gives an overview.          The link above gives specific instructions (but ignore anything suggesting we need to do this digitally and email in – as  we are thus far hoping to be in attendance mode).

[NB. Just for those who were in L3 C&M and did this PPP exercise, you should NOT do it again. Instead, I would like you to get together as a small team and discuss the Questions:

« For all the functionalities that the internet offers us in our personal and working lives – are we really any happier as a result of its effects upon us?  For you, does working in an internet world make you feel less ‘happy’ with it in your own time? »

Discuss the above Questions candidly and list (and explain) the Pros and Cons as you see them and prepare a PowerPoint / Prezi – or similar – that you can present to the class to explain your perspectives.   It could even be that you don’t all agree – if that is the case explain why!   Your deadline is the same for those doing the PPP [Date to be advised] when you will present your findings in the prescribed form to me and your colleagues.]

For the rest of you: you MUST follow the Personal/Professional Profile instructions link: A.  The Personal/Professional Profile  and watch the video and you’ll see the task that I am about to set you.  You will need to follow the instructions to prepare a personal/professional profile or PPP…. The link above explains it all.   HOWEVER.  Given you are CEN Prof Doc students with skills in digital publishing, I am prepared to let you prepare your PPP in another format / in other formats you feel would better achieve the objectives of the PPP should you so wish, provided I am reading / seeing /hearing a considerable amount of your own English!

Why am I asking you for this?

1. I want to get to know you and your English capabilities better and early on in the programme.
2. you are very likely indeed to be asked for this (or something like this) early in your future career: it represents good practice
3. the PPP is NOT a cv/résumé and neither is it a covering letter / lettre de motivation – the style and the language are different – more sophisticated even: less formal, but no less professional.  You need to work hard to find that balance…. working relationships are not built upon ‘formal’ English.
4. your métier is all about presentation…. and this is you presenting the most precious thing in the world to you: YOU!  You should be able to do this brilliantly as you are the world expert on you!  Also it is not all about your expression in English: you will also be judged by your readers on the quality of your presentation: style, setting on the page, character, humour, attention to detail, ability to interest and engage your readership (colleagues and maybe clients).

So.  Follow the link to the instructions above, then present me with something that you can really be proud of.  I will be considering it professionally.  I expect you to have used spell-check and Grammarly to eradicate obvious errors and to have ‘proofed‘ it (relecture) by reading it OUT LOUD to yourself (you will catch errors which you otherwise not by reading silently) and checking punctuation.  I also want to see you presenting something that looks great – after all: you are in the presentation business!!!  Translator tools like DeepL and Google Translate are NOT acceptable (Likewise the use of AI] as this is an assessment of your English not an algorithm’s.  Use such a tool and you could find yourself with a failed assignment, a failed unit and a failed year.  It IS that serious – please take this on board.

I will mark this as soon as I can and give you both individual and group feedback, hopefully by our fourth class together.

Thereafter there will be another ‘Block’ with another assignment attached to be completed before the end of the term.

I am considering a number of options currently to complete S1:

• Looking at the process of doing research – designed to help you with your rapport de stage and enabling you to choose your own area of potential research interest (not necessarily concerning CEN P Doc!   For info, I would want to research whether and to what extent and why and how different guitars make their players feel, play and compose differently!) and turn it into a viable, well-articulated title, aims and objectives etc.
• Critical Analysis and evaluation of advertisments for products and services in the printed press and online applying Communications theory and practice.
• Debates relating to various propositions:
  • Customer Relationship Management: do ‘relationship’ and ‘loyalty’ really exist??
  • The internet as a ‘blessing’ or a ‘blight‘ for traditional journalism and media. ( Is the ‘truth out there‘ anymore? – The ‘X’ Files, if you are wondering!)
  • Global access to Artificial Intelligence – did things just get better or worse?

I may ask you for your opinions/preferences on this choice….

TJ