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!