Contacting Professionals – Part 1

I finally summed up enough courage to actually hit send to some emails that I had been wanting to send to some professionals. Today I sent some emails to a few departments within the University of Malta. That question bank that I had created earlier on in this module (read all about it here) came in very handy indeed, as I did not waste time in thinking what to ask who, and to make my life a bit easier, I drafted a template email of sorts so that when it come to actually sending it, I would customise it rather than writing everything from scratch.

The Departments I Contacted and Why?

In total I contacted to members of staff, the Head of Department and one other lecturer, in four different departments. These are:

• Department of Maltese: This one was rather obvious. I contacted this department as I would like some accademic insight on how the Maltese language is evolving in relation to the changes in the population, the impact of social media etc. I also asked them about their role within the University and any projects that they are working on.
• Department of International Relations: For this department, I focused my questions more on the immigration aspect of the project. I asked them about the demographic changes and whether this has impacted the language as well as how language affects social inclusion.
• Department of Translation, Terminology and Interpreting Studies: I did not know that this department existed, and I was very happy that I came across it. I had to put some more thought into the questions for this department, because I know that if they get back, it would help me greatly, so I wanted to make the most out of this contact. The questions are similar to those of the department of Maltese with the exception that I also added the question were I asked them if their role within the University has been affected since there was an increase in the number of expatriates.
• Department of English: This was an impulse decision. At first I was not planning on contacting the department since I am focusing on the Maltese langauge, but getting to hear this department’s perspective, it can be a good comparison exercise to the aswers acquired from the Maltese department.
  
  

Moving Forward

I am currently drafting a similar email to send it to public entities that include the Ministry of Education, Ministry of Culture and Jobsplus (the public job-seeking entity). I had found a very good department within the Ministry of Education – The Migrant Learners and Client Support Department, however at present the position of the Head of that department is currently vacant, so I would have to contact someone else from a different department – The Directorate for Curriculum, Lifelong Learning and Employability. Although it is not exactly focused on my target audience, I can get some valuable information, and maybe even a contact from the Migrant Learners department.

Hopefully I would get a reply on those emails soon. I would like to start building my case study presentation soon, even if it is simply a framework for the time being, and I must not forget the framework for the literature review. The reason behind this is to make sure that I have a structured argument and I cover relevant topics and comparisons.