AESS get-together

Yesterday we met for a friendly chat in English, to say goodbye before the school year ends and some of the students graduate. We had tea and snacks, talked about plans for the future, graduation trips, favourite foods and cooking mishaps.

We also discussed methods of improving one's English by oneself (tedtalks are nice!), and problems related to paper proofreading (if your paper returns to you red, it means I understood it, and made it better; if it comes back with a lot of underlines and question marks, but no corrections, then it means you should worry, because your message isn't getting through, and I didn't even know how to make the paper better). We also talked about the differences between humanities, my specialization, and various branches of the exact sciences that my students specialize in. It was an interesting conversation about our methods and purposes, and I was convinced, one more time, that the researchers from these two very different areas of the academia don't get the chance to converse, exchange opinions, and try to understand each other's worth often enough.

Thanks for coming to my seminars, and I hope that what you learned during our short time together will come in handy one day in the future!

Fall semester, 2011

The classes started a little late this semester, but have been going quite well until now. There are two groups (Wednesday, 3rd period and Friday, 3rd period), 8 students each. Half of them are beginners, while the other half are attending my seminars for the second or even third semester.

For the assistant professors' class, we are using the schedule-maker ちょー助 to decide the days and times of our seminar; the members are different (almost) every time, but we have managed to meet about 7 times so far.

Today was the last class for this year, but we will have 4 more next year!

While enjoying the winter break, how about listening to some presentations on http://www.ted.com/ or watching some animated talks on http://comment.rsablogs.org.uk/videos/?

Happy holidays and see you next year!

Presentations

At the end of every semester, I ask the students to make a short presentation (5-6 slides, up to 10 minutes) about their research, and experiment they've performed, a device they're using in their lab, etc.

Here are a couple of photos from the Wednesday seminar. Thank you for your nice presentations, Takashi, Akinobu and Tatsuya!

Spring Semester, 2011

Because I wanted more people taking part in my seminars, I made posters about AESS and put them up in front of all the main departments in KISOKO. My effort paid, and almost 40 people applied to join.

After having everybody come in, fill in a questionnaire and take a level test, I was able to make the following 3 groups:

Wednesday, 14:40-16:10, advanced (around 800 TOEIC score), 10 students

Thursday, 14:40-16:10, intermediate (around 700 TOEIC score), 10 students

Friday, 15:40-16:10, beginners (around 500-600 TOEIC score), 12 students

There are also 2 other students, who couldn't attend any of the larger seminars due to their busy schedule, that come to my office every Monday for a 1 hour class.

It is true that the numbers started dwindling once the hot months began (especially for the Thursday class), but I am pleased to say that attendance is still satisfactory in the other groups!

Catching Up

It has been too long since I last had time to write something here; more and more people found out about AESS, so I had more and more work to do(seminars, private tutorials, paper correction, etc).

Here's how AESS contributed to the improvement of Osaka University students and young researchers' English skills in the 2010-2011 school year:

1. over 100 students and professors had their papers, abstracts, presentation slides and scripts revised and corrected by the AESS staff; also at AESS, students came to rehearse their English presentations, and to ask for help in their correspondence with universities and research institutes abroad. I even had to go through a couple of doctor's theses written in English by Osaka University students (Japanese and foreign).

2. the number of students taking my academic English seminar was smaller than expected in the beginning, but it did increase in the second semester (30) as compared to the first (20). We had two beginner groups for the spring semester; those who continued in autumn went up a level, and formed the intermediate group. Also from autumn, I added another beginners' group, and a group for advanced learners, made up of young academic staff.

All in all, it was a good year. A lot of students seem to be too busy with their research to have time for English, which is a sad thing. On the other hand, there are quite a few students who have understood the importance of English in their future career, and are active both in my seminars, and in other extracurricular activities that put them in contact with foreign cultures and languages. Good for them, I say! Keep it up, by all means!

AESS Fall Term

A new semester started for the academic English seminar, too.

Most of the students who were in my class for the spring term are now part of the advanced group, while most of the new-comers will make up the beginners' group. We held the orientation together last week, and everybody had to take a small English test, to help me better appreciate their level and choose teaching materials. They could choose between the Beginners, Intermediate and High Intermediate tests; most chose the Intermediate, but we had two challengers who went for the High Intermediate level test! I am happy to say that everybody did quite well, so this week the "real" seminar will begin.

Beginners: Wednesday, 10:30-12:00

Advanced: Friday, 14:30-16:00

We also have a new type of seminar, for young professors. It all started with a suggestion from one of my colleagues during the welcome party held at the beginning of this school year. Since most of the people present then were a little envious of the chance students got to study academic English, I thought it would be a good idea to create a class for the young professors, too, where they could brush up on their skills. In this class we will focus, on the one hand, on English for academic papers and presentations, and, on the other hand, on developing the ability to teach classes in English, and advise foreign students in English. This is new for me too, and there are not so many textbooks that can guide us, but I'm sure we'll pull it through!

Young Professors/Researchers: Friday, 10:30-12:00

Useful Links

The older you get, the more important structured study becomes, so if your teen days are over, you'd better start working on some grammatical scaffolding to put all that new vocabulary on. In other words, build a frame of simple but basic grammar, and then attach new vocabulary to it as you go along.

Just as translating phrases from Japanese isn't a very good way to get it right in English, maybe you shouldn't always try to find the Japanese equivalents of English grammatical structures, but just take them in, as they are.

How about checking out some grammar websites in English, before the holiday is over? Read the compact explanations, and try your hand at the exercises, too. It should be OK, no need to go looking for your old high-school textbooks!

http://www.edufind.com/english/grammar/grammar_topics.php

http://www.ego4u.com/en/cram-up/grammar

http://www.englishclub.com/grammar/

These are just some suggestions. If you know any other useful sites, please share!