Teaching effectively in English (advanced course): Online workshop for faculty members and graduate students

＜About＞ Wednesday, September 16th, 2020, 10:00-17:00 @Zoom meeting room

Professional and Global Educators’ Community (PAGE) organized an online workshop “Teaching effectively in English (advanced course): Online workshop for faculty members and graduate students.” We invited Mr. Masakuni Yoshinaka (Global Professional Development Consultant with ALC Inc) as an instructor. A total of 7 participants consisted of faculty members, graduate students, and researchers at the University of Tokyo. Since it was held online, one of the participants joined the workshop from overseas.

The workshop was intended for people with intermediate–advanced English language skills who already had experience of teaching in English and those who were expecting to teach in English in the near future. In the first half of the workshop, the participants learned about topics such as “How to speak English in an easily understandable way,” “What is the most effective speaking speed?” “What kind of writing style is suitable for speaking?” and “Major/Minor grammatical errors” through speaking practice and discussion.

Following the lunch break was the second half of the session, where each of the participants gave a ten-minute mini-lecture on their research field using PowerPoint slides they had prepared beforehand. They realized their own advantage and disadvantage through receiving thorough feedback from the instructor and exchanging anonymous feedback among themselves.

Here are some of the feedback we received from the participants after the workshop:
“It was a great learning opportunity to explain my research field in English to people coming from diverse fields with no prior knowledge of my field and to receive detailed feedback on what I was not good at. The feedback not only gave me an input but also raised my motivation.”

“It was simply so fun to listen to others’ mini-lectures that I even wanted to take their classes furthermore. I wish I had more time to ask questions and have discussions on the topics. Since the workshop was held online, it’s a shame that we had no chance to chat with others during lunchtime and short breaks. It was a precious opportunity to get to know excellent researchers, so I hope a kind of online community will be established for eager instructors who want to improve their teaching in English, such as virtual luncheon, so that we can keep in touch with each other.”

PAGE will continue to hold workshops on the improvement of academic communication skills in English. We sincerely look forward to your participation.

Click here for a free online program provided by the PAGE project: English Academia.↓
https://www.he.u-tokyo.ac.jp/englishacademia/en/

Click here for more details of the PAGE project. ↓
https://www.he.u-tokyo.ac.jp/en/activities/page/