EXPERIMENTING THE USE OF CEF PROFESSIONAL PROFILE …



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EXPERIMENTING THE USE OF CEF PROFESSIONAL PROFILE FOR ADMINISTRATION AND MANAGEMENT IN THE TEACHING OF STUDENTS PURSUING QUALIFICATION IN MANAGEMENT AND MARKETING

1. Introduction

General course description

|Title |Business English |

|Institution |Undergraduate School of Entrepreneurship and Marketing in Chrzanow, Poland /Wyższa Szkoła Przedsiębiorczości|

| |i Marketingu w Chrzanowie/ |

|Status |Obligatory during the first three years of study |

|Prerequisite language |Students opt for either beginner level (A1) or intermediate level (A2-B2, depending on the average level of |

|level |the whole group)- in this particular case the group being B1; no official previous tuition is required but |

| |students sit a diagnostic test at the beginning of the first year to assess the general level of the group. |

| |Those with score below 30% are transferred to the beginners' group. |

|Contact hours |20 per semester, 120 during the whole cycle of 6 semesters; 2 hours per week but occasional longer intervals|

| |might occur |

|Timing |19 February - 27 April 2007 |

|Group size |11 at the beginning; 10 attempted final test |

|Students background |Marketing and Management students with various background (most often matriculation examination upon |

| |completion of upper-secondary schools of general education or upper secondary technical schools); little or |

| |no professional experience; little - if any - extra-curricular language tuition |

|Curriculum description |The course should prepare students for independent and effective work in a foreign language environment and |

| |acquaint students with the most frequent office and business procedures. The course focuses on communication|

| |skills applied successfully in a variety of business contexts. |

2. Course design requirements

The conditions for experimenting with the profile were relatively convenient due to the particular arrangements adopted by the teaching institution. The whole foreign language cycle comprises 6 semesters of study, totalling 120 contact hours, during which time students are supposed to receive training in selected areas of vocabulary and grammar. Guidelines for FL curriculum require that certain topics be introduced in the first, second and third year of study respectively. However, there is some area for shifting the material between years/semesters, which made it possible to design a one-semester course based entirely on the profile. It must be noted, however, that in normal circumstances teachers are restricted as to the choice of topics/contents of classes for official reasons, even though some elements contained in the profile might be incorporated into virtually any business-oriented language course at the post-beginner level. Hence, depending on situation, the profile can be used as the basis of the course programme or - should this be impossible - as a means of support for the teacher. Interdependencies between application of the profile and external "official" requirements and guidelines seem to be of importance here.

3. Application of the profile

The profile in its proposed form was assumed to define the context for language use in professional situations the learners might find themselves involved in. Thus, the contents of the profile are understood as a formulation of a thorough needs analysis suggesting directions for course development. The most direct indication of what the course should comprise comes from specific abilities necessary for office administration staff, listed in the profile. To some extent the profile's "cognitive value" can also find its way into the course curriculum - mainly through application of snapshots and common work situations. Although used chiefly as the basis for a set of language development activities, profile-based accounts of professional practice also contributed to students' improved understanding of the profession as such.

In addition, the profile contains suggestions as to particular language skills to be focused on. However, this aspect of the course plan has been defined primarily on the basis of general circumstances - these including: emphasis on communication, limited number of contact hours and low weekly workload (2 hours per week with one 2-week interval). For these reasons, it was not possible to develop proper skills modules, the lessons being largely combinations of all four skills. Moreover, the official requirements for course curriculum limit the number of typically grammar-based lessons to a minimum, focusing mainly on collocations and proper use of particular parts of speech. Time restrictions made it virtually impossible to expand the repertoire of course materials (no video recordings, tape recordings used from time to time).

4. Content areas

The position of office administration staff - as detailed in the profile - has an extremely diversified nature. In fact, the analysis of the profile leads to the conclusion that the position in question requires knowledge and abilities from a few distinct areas - these being accounting, elements of labour law, marketing/public relations in addition to the vast area of general business procedures and formalities as well as business correspondence at all levels. Therefore, it was necessary to make a selection of material to be included in a one-semester language course. Since the profile was to be tested with first year students (2nd semester) with fairly limited knowledge of specialist subjects, the most obvious choice were two major areas - office procedures / correspondence and telephoning/arrangements, neither requiring profound background knowledge. Moreover, these two areas constitute a natural follow-up to the material covered in the first semester of study - company profile and functions of company departments.

5. Course plan

The course plan presented below contains material to be covered during 10 meetings of 2 contact hours each. The educational institution requires that the students take two written tests administered in the middle part of the course and at the last meeting in addition to an extra assignment in a different form. Assuming that time required for one test should not exceed 45 minutes, this leaves the teacher with 18 45-minute classes to be devoted to proper instruction. The meeting-by-meeting course schedule has been attached as appendix A.

6. Implementation

Language input was provided in the form of a variety of exercises offered by language course books and self-developed language activities. Further activities involved a controlled practice stage (responding to instructions, sentence matching, gap filling) followed by more creative and independent assignments. Specific activities included:

• (for office procedures / correspondence) analysis of sample business letters and other corporate documents referred to in the profile: quotations, invoices, complaints, customs declaration forms downloaded from the Internet with special attention placed on specific terminology and situation-specific language. To some extent this involved re-discussing material from the first semester (introduction to business correspondence), which was, in fact, a kind of useful revision.

• (for office procedures / correspondence) role-play: students working in pairs, sharing a set of instructions. The topics included: i) one student running a small enterprise selling sports equipment the other being interested in the purchase of selected items for their recently opened gym; the activity required writing a cover letter for a business offer, an enquiry, a quotation, an order; ii) one student making a formal complaint about the product purchased the other replying and apologizing.

• (for office procedures / correspondence) snapshot-based activity: discussing “a day in a life of an office manager” for practice in Present Simple / Present Continuous applications (routines / duties vs. arrangements)

• (for telephoning/arrangements) context-specific language input in the form of listening exercises, explanatory reading materials, variety of multiple-choice quizzes, gap-filling and sentence matching activities

• (for telephoning/arrangements ) preparation of "problems' lists - a set of 20 situations ending unsuccessfully (these including typical telephone problems like bad lines or wrong extensions as well as situation-specific problems, e.g. failed attempt at re-scheduling a Board meeting)

• (for telephoning/arrangements ) practising vocabulary of conferences, meetings and presentations

• (final assignment) guided telephone exchange

Implementation would have gone more or less smoothly if it had not been for the students' generally low level of intrinsic motivation, which is somewhat characteristic of the student profile (groups in early years of private colleges offering courses in marketing and management tend to include a number of students showing no keen interest in the study area; following selection after the first year examination session the groups decrease in size but the general level of involvement increases). The practical and to-the-point nature of a profile-based course should in fact facilitate greater students' involvement but this is apparently conditional on students’ general attitude. As some choose general business study believing that "management and marketing seem to fit everybody", in a number of cases the only available type of motivation is extrinsic motivation. Thus it was necessary to limit the number of "open tasks", whose nature makes them appropriate for groups of higher level of involvement and motivation.

In view of the limited number of contact hours the aims of the course were modest:

• to acquaint students with the most typical documents and procedures necessary for effective office work

• to develop skills in handling business correspondence including: regular cover letters, enquiries, replies to enquiries, quotations, complaints, trade documents

• to expand vocabulary necessary for the selected areas

• to expand and practise telephoning skills with regard to: fixing appointments, arranging for documents/goods to be dispatched/received, organizing and distributing information about business events etc.

It must be noted that the students' preliminary knowledge of the two main topic areas selected for the course was considerably different. With the average 3-4 years' language learning history most of the students already possessed at least basic ability to handle communication by the telephone (with, however, low degree of "business language"). On the contrary, the business-specific issues were generally new for the learners, although some of them did show some skills in writing official letters. At the final stage of the course, the students were able to effectively communicate the message in appropriate register (register sensitivity) but the level of language accuracy and correctness was not consistently high. Overall results should be considered as a success due to timing constraints, which made it impossible to eliminate errors.

Some ideas contained in the profile proved to be impossible to implement during a 20-hour language course. Most notably, this was the case of technical/field-related terminology alluded to on several occasions. Firstly, the profile did not specify what fields were meant exactly but even if it did, it would probably not be possible to effectively cover such a vast and lexically complex area. Perhaps the profile might be of greater use in this respect if it made some attempts at exemplification and generalization. In the absence of the above the whole aspect was largely neglected.

7. Evaluation

During the last meeting, upon completion of the final test the students were asked to comment on the course. They were introduced to the idea of the profiles but were asked to give feedback on the profile-based course and not on the profile itself. The course evaluation was based on oral communication.

As for the highlights: the most frequently mentioned advantage was practical approach ("I believe I will need what I've learnt", "It's easier to learn something you know how and when to use"), universal nature of the covered material ("It's important for everybody to be able to reach somebody on the phone, for example", "I sort of liked the letters - some things are specific but could be used in many situations").

As for the problematic areas: the only issue raised was subjective difficulty in learning about every-day business routines without experiencing it in real life, the argument which, considering the early stage of the subjects' proper business development, is impossible to defend. When asked how the profile-based course differed from a "traditional" course the students responded: "It's more the question of the teacher. The lessons themselves were quite similar to what they were like in the first semester but the topics were different."

On the whole, the results of the evaluation are considered generally positive.

The learning process was evaluated in accordance with the rules adopted by the educational institution. The students receive points for each of the two tests written in the course of the semester (maximum 30 points for each test) + the maximum of 15 points for extra assignment. The minimum required for the pass grade is 45 points. Of all course participants, 7 received pass grades in the first attempt, the remaining 3 having to retake the final test.

[Teacher's personal opinion]

"I guess the profile and the experimentation will definitely be of great help and importance for young Business English teachers as well as for those without any experience of working in the business environment and the ones not actively searching for novelties. Then it might be an excellent source of inspiration and relevant knowledge of the professional environment. As for me personally, I found it useful to a limited extent - it reassured me that it's worth listening to some of my corporate clients ( I am aware that not all teachers have many opportunities to teach English to active business professionals who are willing to share their expectations and experiences with their teacher, but luckily, I am on of them) and having a closer look at how their work is organized and what they need in their workplace. Also, I have some hands-on experience as a PR person and trade marketing assistant so I am familiar with a number of office procedures. Still, the profile helped me find the right proportions between topic areas relevant for administration and management and somehow made it clearer what I should exactly focus on when delivering the course to the students. I believe the experimentation increased the course consistency and coherence."

Appendix A - Detailed Course Programme (NOT FOR PUBLICATION)

|Lesson No |Topic |Materials/sources |Pages |

|1 |Introduction to the semester. Presentation of the CEF Profile in |N/A | |

| |Administration and Management | | |

|2 |Sample business documents: analysis |Self-prepared | |

| | |(downloaded from the | |

| | |Internet) | |

|3 |Enquiries. Indirect questions |BLP |unit 38 |

| | |BE Secr |unit 50 |

|4 |Replies to enquiries. Quotations. |BLP |unit 40 |

| |Introducing good and bad news | | |

|5 |Orders and delivery specifications |WBL |unit 7 |

|6 |Invoices and reminders |Self-prepared | |

|7 |"A Day in the Life of a Businessperson" - |CEF Profile | |

| |Present Simple / Present Continuous | | |

|8 |Consolidation |Selected activities | |

|9 |Test 1 | | |

|10 |Telecommunications - notions. Numbers, codes, telecommunications equipment |BE Secr |unit 33 |

| | |Bus Voc |unit 48 |

|11 |Telephoning: getting through/ messages |Bus Voc |unit 49-50 |

|12 |Telephoning: arrangements |Bus Voc |unit 51 |

| | |ML BGU |pp178-179 |

|13 |Product information / Describing your products |Build |unit 13 |

| | |BLP |unit 16 |

|14 |Warranties / Technical problems |Self-prepared | |

|15 |Conferences: equipment / choosing a venue |BE Secr |unit 44 |

| | |ML Pre-Int | |

|16 |Exhibition information. Business events |Build |unit 60 |

|17 |Problems' lists /things that go wrong on the phone/ | | |

|18 |Additional assignment: controlled telephone conversation | | |

|19 |Test 2 | | |

|20 |Progress evaluation. Feedback and final discussions. | | |

Appendix B - Final assignment (translated from Polish)

Students engage in the following conversation. They have 20 minutes' time for preparing the conversation in English. During the final attempt they are allowed to consult the Polish versions only.

________________________________________________________________________________

Role card A - you work as an office assistant for a construction company. Follow the instructions VERY CAREFULLY. Otherwise, the conversation will not be possible.

A1 - Introduce yourself. Do NOT mention the company. You need to speak to Sales Manager.

A2 - Explain which company you are calling from.

A3 - Repeat the name of your company - spell it carefully.

A4 - Say "Thank you"

(* * * - Speaker B is connecting you)

A5 - Listen carefully to Speaker B. You will be given two options but do not choose either of them. You would like to speak to Marketing Department. You know one person but you don't know her extension.

A6 - You say you are interested in the presentation of a product sold by the company you are calling. State the reasons. The product you choose MUST be connected with computers/IT)

A7 - Inform Speaker B that 10 people from IT department wish to attend such presentation + some members of the Board. Specify possible dates.

A8 - Provide information about facilities and computer equipment in your workplace. Ask if something else will be necessary.

A9 - Say that you can arrange everything.

A10 - Say you are in charge of purchases. Give your e-mail address and direct line.

A11 - Repeat what you said a moment ago. Say it clearly. You want to know when you will receive some the confirmation.

A12 - Specify the time when you can answer calls.

... continue the conversation in a spontaneous way...

______________________________________________________________________________

Role card B - you work as an office assistant for a large firm of new technologies. Follow the instructions VERY CAREFULLY. Otherwise, the conversation will not be possible.

(You start)

B1 - The phone is ringing. Answer politely

B2 - Ask about the caller's company.

B3 - You did not catch the name. Ask the caller to repeat. Explain the bad is line.

B4 - You are going to put the caller through to Sales Dept. Say it. Ask the caller to hold the line.

(* * * - you are connecting the speaker)

B5 - There is no answer from the office. Give a choice: either the caller i) leaves a message or ii) calls back later.

B6 - The person Speaker A asks you about is out of the office. Now you take the initiative - ask what the reason for calling is and whether you could help

B7 - You say you can be of help here. Ask about possible dates. You need to know who will be present at the presentation.

B8 - Choose two dates. Say that one will be confirmed within 2 days. Ask about equipment and facilities available on Speaker A’s premises.

B9 - Say that you will need access to the Internet, OHP, ideally three PCs for better demonstration

B10 - You need the name of a contact person.

B11 - Politely ask the caller to speak up. You did not catch everything.

B12 - Say you will get back to Speaker A as soon as possible. Ask what the most convenient time to call is.

B13 - By the way...

... continue the conversation in a spontaneous way...

______________________________________________________________________________

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