A unique course focusing on career guidance and intercultural differences related to the labour market in European countries was created thanks to the EDUC (European Digital UniverCity) alliance. The course is now in its third year and is offered as part of the combined study programme French Language for Commerce and Public Economics and Administration, jointly implemented by the Faculty of Education and the Faculty of Economics and Administration. The course is very popular among students, as teachers from the universities in Brno, Pécs, Rennes and Paris Nanterre as well as Delphine Guillot, an experienced French HR specialist, are involved in teaching the course and provide students interested in working in Francophone areas with a lot of valuable experience and practical advice.
Hana Delalande, a lecturer at the Faculty of Education at Masaryk University, came up with the idea to open the course before the pandemic and, thanks to EDUC projects, later made it available to students from partner universities in France and Hungary. “We try to make it as practical as possible for students and help them prepare for job seeking. That's why in the course, we focus, for example, on editing a CV or preparing for an interview. Overall, we guide the students to be able to sell themselves better and to gain more confidence because even experiences like scout leadership can be crucial for a CV. And positive feedback from students shows that we are succeeding. We see that at the end of the course, they are more confident and have better knowledge of the local and international francophone job market,” explains Hana Delalande from Masaryk University.
The best thing about the course? Interculturalism and personal encounters
In addition to participating in various workshops and lectures, students also worked on group projects throughout the semester. Students from all four universities were represented in each group, and their task was to present their project in French at the end of the course. Each of the four groups chose a different topic – the Olympic Games and the position of sport in education, a comparison of life and studies at all four universities, the countries' attitudes towards the European Union, and the obstacles associated with the so-called 'university to office' transition.
According to the teachers, all the projects were of a very good quality, and it was obvious that the students had put a lot of work into them. The final presentation in Brno was therefore interesting for all participants. In addition to the six students from Masaryk University, six students from Pécs, Hungary, together with teacher Márta Kóbor and one French student from Paris Nanterre with teacher Marie Beillet, took part in person. Other teachers and students who could not be present joined in online. Presentations of the projects took place throughout the morning, after which everyone went for lunch and sightseeing together and visited Christmas markets and local restaurants where they tasted traditional Czech food and Czech beer.
Students appreciated several things about the course. For example, Jean-Marc Sorbé Domergue, a student studying the French-English double degree programme in Public Administration (Administration publique), which MU is implementing in cooperation with the University of Rennes, considers the biggest contribution of the course to be its interculturalism, which accompanied the students from the first to the last lesson. “It was very enlightening to learn about the cultural differences that make us who we are. Moreover, we tried to use these differences to hand in very good final papers, and I think we succeeded. I'm very glad I took the course, I've never experienced teaching like this before and I'm already thinking of enrolling in another hybrid course or summer school,” says the student, who will spend three semesters in Brno and will receive a diploma from both universities at the end of his studies.
Ambre Heurdier, a student from the University Paris Nanterre, also appreciates the course. “The best part of the course was that we could meet our classmates and teachers in person. And we had a lot to say because we already knew each other well. The course also benefited me in other ways because I would like to teach French to foreigners after school. It was my first time in a classroom where French was a foreign language for most students. And it was a very interesting experience. I tried to talk my Hungarian and Czech classmates out of it and show them there was nothing to fear. I enjoyed it, and I'm considering coming to Brno for an internship to teach French.”
From a course to a five-week internship or “BIP”
Ambre will not be the first student to come to MU for a placement, thanks to contacts made through the virtual course of the EDUC alliance. Last academic year, University of Rennes student Eve Corvaisier, whose dream is to work in diplomacy, was offered a five-week internship in the Department of French Language and Literature at the Faculty of Education.
Thanks to her internship in Brno, she experienced international relations on many levels – she went to Czech primary and secondary schools several times to talk about Rennes and Brittany, where she comes from. At the Municipality of Brno and the Regional Office of the South Moravian Region, she discussed the partnership between Brno and Rennes, cooperation with the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region and how to attract French tourists to the Czech Republic. She also visited the French Embassy in Prague, where she attended the France Alumni Day together with MU alumni. After returning to Rennes, she then went to schools to talk with pupils about her placement in Brno and her classmates about how enrolling in an online course within the EDUC alliance can be one big adventure after all, because in August Eve also went to a summer school in Pécs thanks to EDUC.
“When I and the other teachers began with the course, we couldn't imagine what such a course would look like and whether there would be any interest. Now, we're teaching the course for the third time, and the students are enjoying it. Moreover, for students from all four universities, it is often their first international education experience. This makes us very happy because the course also makes it easier for them to go to summer school or study through the Erasmus+ programme. And we, the teachers, also enjoy teaching. It's different every time and always surprises those who sign up for the course. It's not only students from our universities but also students from Indonesia or Mozambique who study in foreign language programmes or through the Erasmus exchange programme,” says Hana Delalande from the Faculty of Education.
All the teachers were pleased this year with how spontaneously the course developed and that the students finally decided to come to Brno to present. The course was originally conceived as a virtual course only. But everything goes hand in hand with the teachers' plans, who would like to receive funding from the Erasmus+ programme next year to create a so-called blended intensive programme (BIP). This type of mobility allows a combination of semester-long virtual teaching and intensive week-long full-time teaching at one of the partner universities.
If the universities receive funding for the BIP, students will receive a scholarship for international mobility. “This would make the course even more attractive to students. Plus, they would get a valuable box for their CV and invaluable life experience. After all, only a few students go on Erasmus. Thanks to new types of mobility and virtual teaching in general, our graduates will have much more experience abroad, which is one of the main priorities of Masaryk University,” emphasises Hana Delalande.
