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!

Long time, no post

It's been a while since I wrote on AESS' blog.

This past month things have started to get busy as far as academic English support is concerned-- deadlines for papers, upcoming international conferences over the summer, etc, etc. It does appear KISOKO students are quite active abroad, traveling to Spain, or Italy, or the United States to make presentations, take part in workshops, or publishing the results of their research in overseas academic journals. All very nice and admirable! Unfortunately, English is still an obstacle that has to be overcome...

A few tips about English conversation: don't try to understand everything, but instead listen closely for the important words (which will be pronouncer more clearly and loudly than others), and then try to use your common sense or technical knowledge of the subject to guess the possible connections between those words. For example if you hear "camera" and "shoot", they are most likely talking about taking a photograph, not pointing a gun at someone.

Still, even though it is OK to build a "horizon of expectation" around the words you do understand, you must also remember to keep an open mind, because people can always be trusted to come up with the most unexpected ideas!

A few tips about writing, too: don't be afraid to use articles, the probability that either the definite or the indefinite ones are going to be needed is bigger than the probability that you could do without them in a given context. Practice makes perfect!

Also, don't forget to consider the agreement between subject and verb. I see many papers where the subject is in the singular and the verb in the plural, which is a very basic mistake, easy to be avoided, as in "the system consists of three main elements...", not "consist of...", etc. Of course, agreement can be tricky at times, like, for example, the noun "news" is plural in form, but actually takes a singular verb, i.e. "no news is good news". For lists of countable/uncountable nouns and rules about their agreement with the verb, you can check any English grammar book or website-- I'll be back with some suggestions in a couple of days!

Till then... enjoy the rainy season!

Tips on Top

Let me tell you today about a few mistakes that I come across quite often (maybe a bit too often) in my students' writing assignments.

Well, first of all there are the articles. The Japanese language doesn't have them, while the English language gives you too many choices: definite article? indefinite? none at all? Again, here too there are rules, and exceptions, and you'll probably learn to get them all right only after reading/ listening to a lot of English. But just one tip: use a/an when you mention something in conversation the first time, and where you can replace it with one without changing the meaning of the sentence. The second time you mention the same thing, and if you can replace it with this/that/these/those, use the. Here's how it goes:

Once upon a time there was a man who lived by the sea. The man went fishing every day. One day he caught a golden fish. The fish told the man: "If you let me live, I'll make three of your wishes come true!" The man thought for a while, and then said: "I want a big house!" The fish wiggled his tail, and the house appeared right in front of them...

Also, don't forget that superlatives (most, best, longest) need the, as in He's the most interesting person I've ever met, with the best sense of humor; so does same: We both say the same things at the same time.

This doesn't solve all the possible problems with articles, but at least helps you avoid making basic mistakes.

Another tip: one of the is followed by the plural, because it means that you are referring to just one object out of many similar objects: One of my colleagues will make a presentation at the conference. I ate one of the peaches you bought yesterday.

Note one more thing: almost is an adverb, a modifier, normally to be used with adjectives, that's why we can't say almost people, but instead we have to say almost all (the) people, not almost results, but almost all (of) the results, etc.

That's all for today, hope it's helpful!

Academic English Seminar& AESS Resources

Last week I had the first academic English seminar at KISOKO. There were a few problems: for example, I couldn't find the classroom, because I was convinced it was E513, which should have been a room on the 5th floor of the KISOKO building, the E wing. I was so convinced this was the correct location, that I even wrote so in the message I sent to the students (without checking the HP). So on the day of the first class, I went up to the 5th floor to find out that... there's no E wing on the 5th floor. I also met 2 of my students, also looking for the classroom, and started roaming the building together; our group got bigger and bigger, until we finally met someone who actually knew that e-セミナー室 is on the 5th floor of the D wing! Hurray! Because of my mistake, 2 more students arrived late (probably after going up and down, left and right, looking for the mysterious E wing, room 513...)

But finally we were all in the classroom, and the class started, only for me to discover that I didn't have a CD player for the listening exercises! Nobody's fault but mine... today though, that's covered too, and I'm looking forward to my second class :)

Another piece of news: since we have received all the books (but one) that we've ordered, you can come and borrow them now. You'll just need to fill in a simple form, with your name, lab, mail address, etc. Bring in your student ID too, please!

For the 字幕スーパー movies you'll have to wait a bit more, but they'll be ready soon! Also, a list of everything we have will be uploaded, as I have promised, so that you can easily decide what you want to borrow even before you actually come to AESS.

See you!

Useful Tip

Spelling in English is a complex art, with many rules, and even more exceptions. You would think that [oo] is pronounced [u:], like in "moon", "soon", "balloon", but then you find words such as "door" or "flood", where the same combination of letters sounds totally different. Or the other way round: words like "meet" and "meat", "there" and "they're" and "their", where similar or identical sounds are represented by different combinations of letters... Some of the pronunciation/ spelling problems are universal: all the learners, and even some of the native speakers have them, while others are shared only by the Japanese . I'm sure you know by now what I'm talking about: the problems with [l] and [r], [b] and [v], [s] and [th]...

Remembering all the rules and all the exceptions is difficult and time-consuming, but technology can help. One very easy way to avoid misspelling words is to use Microsoft Word (or just temporarily copy-paste your Latex document in Word), and let the Autocorrect function work its magic. All misspelt words will be underlined in red, and a right-click will give you spelling suggestions. If you have all the dictionaries installed, a green line will even show you some of the grammatical constructions that might be wrong.

Simple and useful, wouldn't you say? Try to use it once.

If you know any other useful tips, don't hesitate to share them with us!

Back in Business

The Golden Week is over. Finally spring has come, and developed quickly into summer (nearly 30 degrees yesterday); also, ALL the days of the GW were sunny and warm, which apparently sets some sort of meteorological record!

AESS is back in business, with some good news: next week we'll have our first Academic English seminar (from 1 to 2:30 on Thursday and Friday, room D513-515). The groups are small, but hopefully enthusiastic. Most of the students are worried about their ability to understand spoken English and communicate fluently with their peers, and we'll try to work mainly on that, but the menu will include some English writing on the side, too.

The next piece of news is that, from now on, to use AESS you need to make an appointment (with the seminar starting, I expect to be a little busier than before), by picking up a time slot in the schedule here, and filling in the information on the form here. Right now the online schedule is still "under construction", but the available times will be as follows:

Monday 10:00-12:00; Wednesday 13:00-16:00; Thursday 15:00-18:00; Friday 16:00-18:00.

Very soon, you will also be able to borrow books and software from AESS; we're still waiting for some to arrive, and then we'll catalogue them and get them ready for you. Now, you can see a list of the DVDs in the AESS library on the SYSPRO-GP home page, and a list of books will also be available in the next couple of weeks. Check the HP and this blog for information about the AESS resources and the ways to use them, as I will be posting about that soon.

Looking forward to seeing you all, in class, or in my office.

Hello, everybody!

Time for the self-introduction today.

My name is Irina Holca, and I come from a small country in Eastern Europe, called Romania. Apparently it's famous for vampires and Dracula, but I wasn't really aware of that myself before I came to Japan six years ago (I learned a lot of things about my own country after coming here-- ironic, right?). Apart from the blood-thirsty characters, though, Romanians are a warm and friendly people, if somewhat loose and disorganized; the wine and goat/sheep cheese we make are delicious, and we have many beautiful old churches and castles, mountains, and hills, and the Danube Delta, a place that's unique in Europe.

The official language in my country is Romanian, a Romance language that resembles Italian, Spanish or French, but everybody studies at least two foreign languages in school, the first one usually being English (starting from the second grade in elementary school). I learned English and French, and then picked up Japanese as my major in university.

My passion for Japanese literature brought me to Nara University of Education first, then to the Graduate School of Letters at Osaka University; my specialization is modern Japanese literature, particularly Shimazaki Toson (I'm writing my doctoral thesis about his autobiographical novels right now).

All during my stay in Japan, I've been teaching English to children and adults, in public, private or Eikaiwa schools. I really enjoy it; it's a very fulfilling job, and I think that while helping my students improve their English, I've also been able to improve myself as a person.

I'm not a native speaker, but I've been surrounded by English for as long as I can remember. Having studied it myself, I think I know what are most of the difficulties a learner of English can encounter; having some knowledge of Japanese I'm also quite sure I will be able to discuss your problems and answer your questions easily and promptly.

That's (almost) all about me-- I'm looking forward now to start finding out things about you too, so drop by AESS!

Welcome to AESS!

The Academic English Support Service, which started at the beginning of this year in Handai’s Kisoko, will have its own blog from today!

Everything is still under construction, and I haven’t really figured out how to organize the pages and all, but I know I want the blog to have a couple of sections, such as for example, one in which I will introduce books, textbooks and dictionaries that might come in handy when studying Academic English, one where I will discuss common mistakes in English, as well as common phrases and expressions to remember for your presentations, and yet another one with the center’s news, schedules, ways to make appointments, etc. The blog will be in English, of course, but for some pages I will consider adding a Japanese translation, too.

That’s all for now. Very soon I will be back with a short self-introduction, because I am quite sure there are still many of you who don’t know me.

Yoroshiku onegai shimasu!