Kumiko Morimura

Developing e-learning content to raise global awareness in a seminar style course

Students created content for an e-learning system in two seminar style courses. In one course Japanese students created e-learning content for teaching technical English vocabulary, while in the other course international students analyzed what materials should be developed to help them start their life and studies in this foreign country. Both courses focused on raising global awareness and understanding of international differences, which is reflected in the resulting e-learning modules. By putting students in a central position, we make sure that both the content and style of the courseware we create will be useful and appealing to the target audience. At the same time, it helps the students to hone their creativity, presentation, and leadership skills. In this paper, we walk through the courses and show the benefits of this approach and the lessons we learned from these courses. Some of the main conclusions are that having a mix of students from different years and backgrounds is very effective to create discussions that broaden everybodys views, and that this can help faculty to find out what knowledge students feel they miss and how students like to be taught. This, in turn, will lead to more to-the-point and more useful courseware.

Teaching English for Japanese undergraduate students while playing an environmental board game in English

In this paper we propose an unique approach to teaching communication and negotiation skills, as well as environmental issues, in an integrated manner. We describe and evaluate a course which has been taught to first and second year students at the University of Tokyo, Japan. The course is based on a board game called “Keep Cool 2”. During the course students are provided with background knowledge, play the game, reflect on the progress of the game and its outcome, and present their findings to the group. The objective of this course is twofold: students should learn about the environmental issue and the related geopolitics on the one hand, while on the other hand they are encouraged to improve their English language skills in general and negotiation skills in specific. Our experiences show that the board game is an effective way to engage the students. Additionally, the presence of international students or students who studied abroad seems beneficial, since their participation in the game and discussions helps the other students to develop their language skills.

Assessment of “Special English Lessons” for engineering students

Special English Lessons (SEL) is a special English language instruction program for engineering undergraduate students designed to improve their English skills and enhance their abilities in global communication. It is provided by the Global Ware Project (GWP) of the Center for Innovation in Engineering Education (CIEE) at the School of Engineering in the University of Tokyo. The SEL program is delivered by selected private English language schools from outside the university and governed by the GWP. The number of students who take part in the program has been increasing each year: enrollment was 430 in 2008, an outstanding result. SEL is not merely the simple outsourcing of lectures to English language schools, but a collaboration between GWP and these private schools. GWP controls the entire program, actively supervises the classes, continuously assesses the classes, and proactively suggests ways to improve the program to meet the evolving needs of the School of Engineering.

International Negotiation in the Field of Information Technology: A Survey of Critical Concerns

This paper presents findings from a brief survey of paper and electronic publications relative to international negotiation in the field of information technology (IT). The aim of the project was to identify critical concerns that ought to be addressed in specialized training for university students planning to enter the field of IT, which can enable them to participate effectively in decision making at all levels of IT employment with colleagues and clients of all nationalities and backgrounds.

Cultivating a sense of global leadership and global experience among graduate students using the internal education system of a global enterprise

The Center for Innovation in Engineering Education at the University of Tokyo and Cisco Systems G.K. cooperatively worked to cultivate a sense of global leadership and experience at a global enterprise by providing lectures and practical sessions for graduate students of the University of Tokyo. For these students, it was beneficial to experience global business education at the global enterprise without spending much time on traveling. For the enterprise, it is also beneficial to have a chance to examine if their education system would work for the domestic university students.

Effective methods for teaching technical presentations in English to Japanese engineering students: Case study at School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo

This paper reports our five-year experience in teaching technical presentations in English to engineering graduate students at School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo. This graduate course ldquoEnglish for Engineers and Scientistsrdquo is a new attempt to teach and train graduate students how to make proper technical presentations in English. The course is composed of lectures on technical presentation for four weeks and practice sessions for seven weeks. In the lectures essential points of technical presentations are discussed in detail and in the practice sessions students are trained through making presentations twice on the same topic. Their presentation skills have been improved by native speaker instructorspsila instructions and suggestions on presentation performances, slides, and English. Native speaker instructorspsila comments in the evaluation reports indicate that almost all the students in their first try made improper presentations by not following the points they learned in the lecture. In their second try, however, they made much better presentations. The class evaluation results show that most of the students have obtained necessary skills of technical presentation. These results indicate that the combined course of lecture and practice sessions is very effective in training students to make better technical presentations in English.