Professional mandate

Initial situation

The “Terminology” course is offered to Master’s students as part of the “Translation Technologies” optional block. It is part of the “Terminology” option, which consists of 5 courses and a thesis. Its objective is to help students discover, manipulate and deepen various key notions in terminology, essential for language professionals.

Originally, this course was purely theoretical and ex cathedra with seminars based on readings/syntheses of scientific articles. The 1st innovation of the course started in 2014 with a reinforcement of the practical dimension (with the introduction of a practical work) and of the coherence between the different courses of the mention. In 2018, a new scenario was imagined with the use of the flipped classroom and project-based pedagogy, around the realization of a professional assignment.

Project implementation

In the proposed project, students are given a fictitious (but realistic) mandate, where the mandatary expects a recommendation of one or more terms for French in response to a neologism from English. These mandates are developed by the teacher, in close collaboration with professionals who are familiar with these mandates. Through the project-based approach, students develop professional skills, theoretical knowledge, and a series of cross-cutting skills. They work in groups, independently and at their own pace to learn about the course content that is useful to them in advancing their work. The teacher monitors the students, in particular through individual logbooks on Moodle.

The support in the acquisition of skills is based on inverted classes, organized according to the different stages of the mandate. Before the class, the teacher proposes short interactive video clips, created with the H5P module of Moodle, sharing theoretical notions and various exercises to promote the integration of the content. Other resources such as formative quizzes, exercises, additional readings and other videos are also made available to students. During the class, the teacher can propose moments of general questions/discussions in class or personalized for each group, for a direct application of the theoretical notions according to the progress of the students’ project.

The evaluation is based on a collective final work linked to the project (written and oral: 50%) and an individual online exam (50%).

Thoughts and advice

The adoption of project-based teaching and the flipped classroom allows for a complete change in the vision of university teaching (for both teachers and students) and strengthens the links with the professional world.

However, this project requires a great deal of work in terms of scripting and preparation upstream, as well as structuring and accompanying students. It is essential to redefine one’s role as a teacher, in particular to “accept” one’s new role as a scriptwriter and coach.

Close collaboration with the professional world and weekly follow-up by the teacher are essential. This formula also allows for a facilitated face-to-face/distance hybridization which was particularly useful in the context of the health crisis.

Student feedback

“The flipped lecture format lends itself well to the course content, there is time to “digest” the information from the readings before discussing it in class. For the report to be done, Ms. Picton follows us throughout and answers our questions, we really feel like we’re making progress.”

“Without a doubt, the variety of learning tools available (each tool had a specific function, but they complemented each other very well), including:

• interactive videos with reminders of readings and other assignments for the next class at the end
• the little reminder at the beginning of the week of the tasks to do
• Zoom sessions with the teacher, but also with other people (for group work)
• the possibility to use the forum (even if it is not the tool we used the most)

What really helped me to be clear on what to do was the precise communication from the teacher, but also the fact that it was almost every week the same organization, which helped me to establish a work routine and increased my motivation to work from home (each week I knew I had to start with the interactive videos, then do the readings, move forward on the shared document, the Zoom session on Thursday, and so on). It’s very tiring to have to readjust to a different format every week or not receive clear information and therefore spend time looking for it, when you have a lot to do, as has been the case with other courses… On the other hand, Ms. Picton’s organization was excellent.”

“The questions designed for the Kahoot and interactive videos were sometimes confusing. The wording of these questions is occasionally very ambiguous, which made me a little scared for the exams. I understand the need to create questions that make us think, but they occasionally get in the way of thinking, especially for non-French speakers. Other than that, she very easily adapted her course for distance learning.”