2020.06.15
Our foreign teacher Siti has started an on-line English conversation class “Ni-Haro” for Ube Kosen students who wish to participate.
Siti was appointed as a specially assigned assistant professor for the Global Engineer Project last year. Since then she has been teaching mathematics and chemistry in English to our first to third year students, also she has participated in our international exchange activities. She was a teacher of physics and mathematics at a government-funded high school before she came to Japan in 2014.
Ube Kosen started on-line classes on April 13th as we could not have regular classes due to COVID 19. Usually, around this time, we accept some teaching interns for English or Chinese from oversea schools which we signed an MOU with and have various international exchange activities at our school. But it was all cancelled to accept short-term international students in the first term this year. But we would like to maintain some international exchange activities so that we managed to start an on-line English class “Ni-Haro” for only the students who wished to join.
“Ni-Haro” is one of the international exchange activities run by our student volunteer group SA (Student Ambassador) which plans and organizes the school international exchange activities. They have “Ni-Haro” after school every week while the short-term international students stay at Ube Kosen. SA was involved to organize “on-line English class with Siti”.
Currently, we have two groups for the class, one group has three students from the third year and the other group has three students from the first year. We use Microsoft Teams, Office 365 for the class, and have one to two classes a week since the end of April. We communicate in English on a theme we have chosen such as recommended books, favorite cooking.
Siti during the on-line English class
 English class with the third-year students |
 English class with the first-year students |
Siti is the only teacher for the on-line English conversation class, and it is being implemented on a trial basis. But we would like to increase learning opportunities for English and Chinese in on-line classes in the future by discussing with our partner schools in Taiwan which we send our students as language teaching interns every year.
We would like to have international exchange activities in the current situation. We will announce more as soon as it is ready.
FIJIWARA Minori (First year of the Department of Business Administration)
I am getting used to the on-demand classes which have started in the middle of April, but I have been worried if I had submitted assignments via the internet without problems and so on. Under such a situation, teacher Siti provides an English conversation class “Ni-Haro” to three first-year students who are interested in English. It was only a couple of days I went to school after the ceremony for starting school, so we never talked to each other at school. It was a little difficult to communicate with my new Kosen friends on-line and in English. But I take this is a good opportunity to learn English and I enjoy it.
Siti Aisyah
My name is Siti Aisyah. I was appointed as a specially assigned assistant professor for the Global Engineer Project. Before coming to Japan in 2014, I was a physics and mathematics teacher in a government high school in Malaysia. I obtained my Bachelor of Science (Physics) with Education from the University of Putra Malaysia (UPM). My passion is in education and sciences, and I like to learn and experience new things. In my free time, I like to read books and listening to music. I also like to travel and experience other country’s culture, learn their history and life-style.
Working in NITUC allows me to share my experience with the students and enabled me to get involved in educational activities that will have an impact on the students’ global skills. They should know that understanding English is invaluable for science. It allows people to study abroad or read scientific works directly after they have been written, using them in their studies, not when they are accessible in the local language. I am currently assisting teachers in NITUC in making learning material for Mathematics and Chemistry classes in English. My work involves reviewing the materials and improving the contents by aligning them with English-based text books and syllabus. Other than this I will gradually teaching students in classes from the next semester.
Currently, I am also handling English Cafe which started on May 2020. English Cafe is an excellent place to brush up students’ conversation skills in an enjoyable and relaxing environment. Rather than conventional English practice, we sharpen on English speaking through casual talk, daily life interests, and natural pronunciation. Students can speak freely and at their own pace on specific topics given each week, such as their favorite books, movies, or unforgettable life experience. I am very impressed with students’ motivation during our past few weeks, and they showed an outstanding effort to speak freely.
I utilized the Bloom Taxonomy structured model to classify the different objectives and skills for the students by considering the ability of the students. I also prefer to use a free facilitated model, where all domains of cognitive progression are cyclical. Teachers and learners have the autonomy to shift their methods at any point during the learning venture. These methods enable learning to manifest in a free dimensional mode incorporating the past learned studies and reflective analysis of new knowledge activity. Through this methodology, I found that the motivation of students increased since it is in a non-rigid flexible learning environment.
I am welcoming students to join us even to hang out or polish their English conversation skills at any time. We can also have tea or coffee, whether it is online or offline chat! We are looking forward to meeting you!