Hi there Arch & Mus M1!

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 last year…]

  And this is the  Introduction to your Professional English unit.

This is, in other words, my ‘base page‘ for the 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 ARCHMUS M1 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 (subjects we will treat usually over a 3 or 4 week period) … including the assessed work related to the block (‘assignments’)..
• materials I may put up for you to support your learning in the form of ‘Thinkpieces‘,  mini-lectures, assignment instructions or links to other resources.
• general feedback upon the work you are doing / have done (you will, of course, receive individual feedback as appropriate).

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 last video on this page! ).

BUT FIRST: a word about Rentrée 2022.

NB. In 2023-2024 you can safely ignore this unless CoVid makes an unexpected and unwelcome return.

I am sure that you are as relieved as we all are that we are able to meet face-to-face in the classroom.  Lets hope that high levels of vaccinations and a good bit of luck combine to enable us to stay in the attendance (présentiel) mode.  IF, however, isolations and confinements hit us, I want you to understand that all is not lost – far from it – I have 25 years’ experience of ‘blended learning‘ (combining attendance and distance modes and all of the tools available to us as teachers and learners).   Here is my video on the subject: based on the year 21/22.

Now an introduction to this unit specifically:

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

Learning English for M1 ArchMus:

principles and practices.

———————————————————————————

GROUP TASK FOR OUR FIRST WEEK 

I would like you all to listen to the video immediately above (Learning English for M1 ArchMus students) – if we haven’t covered it in our class – 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/oral 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 –  you should 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.  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].  I’ll only get serious about marking with our first task/ Block!]  Hopefully, we can ignore the ‘distanciel’ in favour of the ‘présentiel’!

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…?
2. to contact me, use  tjolley@gmail.com  (the email addresses that UHA’s ‘annuaire’ gives you for me will work (but it is long and hyphenated and easy to make a mistake with!)  it defaults to my gmail address anyway!).
3. I do now have a shared office – just opposite the door to classroom 108! I am often there and available between 08-10h Monday mornings.

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

I have written about this under several headings on my site – see the links and videos on

This Page:

The link above has short videos on a number of topics.  [Where I have put ‘E‘ after the title, then it is Essential for you, rather than optional … but you can read these after class]:

• my website : background
• how I like to work (two vids on principles)
• the concept of ‘Blocks and Bridges’  E
• understanding and answering the question.  E
• using academic sources E
• citation and attribution E
• plagiarism 1 & 2  E
• deadlines  E
• As a sign of th fast-changing times, you also need to be fully aware of the implications and risks of using AI/IA in university work.  I have written about this in an article I would like us to read together: here.

At Master’s level, I hope most of this goes without saying, but we will go over this in our first session nevertheless!   Do take note of what is said about plagiarism!

I guess what I am aiming for is what I would best term: a spirit of ‘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…..

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 40+ hours 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!  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!).
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.   [I do have some career experience and practical knowledge of your field asI was formerly Head of Research and Development for a Regional Tourist Board liaising with Museums, Archive Centres and other tourism-related businesses and taught for years on a Heritage Conservation degree programme.]

Looking Forward:

where do we go from here?

The answer is that we need to start!

Q. What do we start with then?

A.  The Personal/Professional Profile 

The video below gives an overview.       The link above gives the specific instructions.  I will cover this in class, but if you missed it or want a recap – here it is!

Follow the Personal/Professional Profile link (above the video panel) and watch the video and you’ll see the task that I am about to set you.   Start work on preparing a personal/professional profile ‘PPP’…. The link above video link explains it all.  Bring a draft (brouillon) to class in our second week together – I can help you with it (formative feedback).  Your submission deadline will be our third class: you will hand it to me in hard copy.

If you prefer reading rather than watching me on video, then the instructions are essentially as follows:

You ‘bump into’ your boss (who interviewed you) at the coffee machine and the conversation goes like this:

« Hi there, remember me?  I interviewed you!  Call me ‘Tony’ from now on – we’re pretty informal here…. 

Could you do me a favour?  We have a tradition in which we put up on our intranet / website and in our magazine a ‘personal/professional profile‘ of all our new recruits so that colleagues and clients can get to know you.  Ideally it needs to be of  2 x full pages (absolute minimum of one full page – but I really am expecting TWO full pages)  A4, 12pt text with little spacing between lines and may include up to two ‘smallish’ photos.   This is NOT your cv – we’ve already got that – (though you might need to repeat just a little of your academic and employent background) : a cv is, to be frank, little more than a boring list of events and dates anyway…. rather we need this profile to give you ‘colour’, character and to make people want to meet you – after all, they are going to be working and interacting with YOU rather than a list of qualifications or history!  You can write personally, introduce anecdotes or humour to express your personality for example…. anything to avoid it being boring!  Use any style or format – just create impact!  Being in the Museums and/or Archives business, you are already a specialist in presentation of artefacts: it is just that this time this ‘aretefact’ is YOU!  So this shouldn’t cause you any problems I’m sure!  It has got to be web/ intranet ready – no-one is going to correct it or act as your editor, OK?.  

[Tony in Tutor-Mode…. Please also choose a paagraph of 8 to 10 lines of your work which you will be prepared to read out in class.  Thanks. 

NB. Do see THIS page for details of paper and printing ideas.

You may imagine the post/position you occupy and the organisation – maybe your dream post-graduation post -, but if you have a hard job doing this – look for a REAL job you might like to do and imagine that situation.]

Strong Recommendations:

• DO NOT, under any circumstances, use a translation tool like DeepL Google Translate, Linguée etc.  Do NOT use AI/IA: Chat GPT (and its various updates), BARD etc.  First it is cheating – it isn’t your work, so why should I give you a mark for it?  Secondly there is no possibility of you actually learning anything.  Thirdly, the style of language such tools produce is almost always incorrect and totally evident to the tutor.  Don’t be tempted, then!  It amounts to plagiarism and will be heavily punished. You have been warned.
• DO use the following – if you don’t you will simply be throwing away marks needlessly:
  • download a little piece of software called ‘Grammarly‘ .  It is free.  If you set it up to operate in English for the purposes of this unit it will ‘look’ at everything you write in English whether it is using Word, PDF, Powerspoint, an email and it will offfer you corrections to your spelling and grammar. It also explains WHY, so you can actually learn from its suggested corrections.  It is like looking up a combined dictionary and grammar book and it is acceptable and is NOT cheating.  Please DO this – it can help your marks and your learning.  It will only annoy me as your marker if you don’t….and annoyed markers don’t give good marks! [NB. To register for the free version, you will need to use your UHA email address when you register to prove you are a student- otherwise you’ll pay!].  You might even think of using it for your work in French….
  • use a decent dictionary like WordReference: not only does it act as a dictionary, it gives you examples of the contexts in which certain words and phrases are used, it helps avoid faux-amis and it offers synonyms to help you avoid repetitions – you will know by now that repetition is generally considered as poor technique and lazy writing without proofing (‘relecture‘ Fr): a sin of which you should, in your profession, never be found guilty! Use of dictionaries is considered acceptable and not to be cheating. Again, like Grammarly, if you take the time, it can help you learn and develop your vocabulary.
  • change the language in Word/Open Office etc to English…. then you get a spell-check correction facility which can help you.  Effectively it acts as a dictionary – this is acceptable and is NOT cheating.
• MOST IMPORTANT: Do read your work OUT LOUD (à haute voix) – I know it sounds crazy, but it will help you. You hear the mistakes ‘bounce‘ off the walls, you will ‘fall over‘ errors and realise there is a problem somewhere. You will also begin to appreciate where your punctuation mistakes are creeping in as you will not have the proper ‘cues‘ with which to read the work aloud and will ‘trip over‘ your own words.   [Aside.  I gave this advice to a young ‘lecteur‘ recently and he tried it on his own research writing and told me this morning that he ‘caught‘ far more mistakes readng his work aloud than he ever did reading with his eyes].  Seems to prove the advice works… try it!

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 it) in your career to come
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: less formal, but no less professional.
4. your métier is all about communication and 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.

So follow the instructions and present me with something that you can really be proud of.

I will mark this as soon as I can (normally within a week) and give you both individual and group feedback.

Looking even further forward…

On the spring-out menu to the right when you click on the Arch Mus M1 tab you will find a number of ‘blocks’, some of which are illustrated and linked hereunder for you to have a look at so that you know what might be ‘coming at you‘!.

Block 2.  Heritage, Conservation and Preservation

Block 5.  Museum Websites’ Analysis.

Block 6.  Archives Analysis and Workshops

Block 8.  Money, Money , Money   (If time allows)

Block 10. Conceiving a Covid Museum and Archive

You will see that two or three of the above generally apply to both groups (Introductory task, Block 2 and Block 8) and two of the blocks have distinct contexts – one for each pathway on the  programme.  That said, each pathway can learn from the other’s task: the website analysis could apply equally to archives as to museums and the archives analysis workshops are essentially concerning interpretation and education which applies equally to musems!

There is something there for everyone: trust me!

I’ve always enjoyed working with M1 Arch / Mus (for over 17 years now) because of students’ motivation and deep subject interest and I am sure this year will be no exception!

Best,

Tony