Course Description

This course is for the students who plan to be teachers in junior or senior high schools in Japan, and who need to improve their communicative competence for everyday conversation and future classroom skills.

The students will learn essential items for practical communication such as formulaic expressions, appropriate wording for typical situations, and linguistic and cultural differences between English and Japanese by doing exercises of writing emails. An opportunity to make a presentation in English will be given in the 12th or 13th class. At the beginnings of most classes, a short free composition will be conducted in five minutes. This class is designed to achieve Learning Goals 1, 2, and 3 of the General Basic Subjects, incorporating active learning.

Course Objectives

By the end of this course, students will be able to
1. understand and utilize appropriate expressions including honorifics and the expressions
　reflecting cultural differences from Japanese in typical situations
2. express their own opinions about certain linguistic aspects of English
3. perform a presentation of no fewer than 100 words with intelligible pronunciation
4. write six sentences in five minutes. (A subject-verb set with proper word order will be
　counted as one sentence).

Grading Policy

Final examination (50%), short free compositions (20%), the presentation draft (10%), the presentation performance (10%), and participation (10%)

・The short free compositions and the draft of presentation will be returned through the LMS with grades and corrections.
・The participation of students is graded according to the responses when being called on and the degree of participation in the group discussions on the selected topics in the handouts, etc.

Textbook and Reference

Requirements(Assignments)

[Preparation with the Textbook, etc.]
1. For the preparatory study of each unit, do the exercise on vocabulary first. Next, read through the model email and answer the comprehension questions. Third, examine example sentences in Key Expressions 1 and translate the Japanese phrases in the questions into English. Fourth, fill in the blanks of "English mind, Japanese mind," understanding the explanations written above the questions. Fifth, translate the Japanese sentences in Key Expressions 2, referring to the explanations above them and the previous example sentences in the same unit.
　Questions in the textbook should be answered before class. Unfamiliar expressions in the model email and questions will be looked up with dictionaries beforehand. (50 minutes)

2. For review, students will practice giving correct answers to the questions studied in class, especially the mistaken ones. The meanings of new expressions should also be memorized for making correct answers. (30 minutes)

3. For review of short free compositions, students will check the feedback of their compositions on the LMS, and identify their grades and mistakes. (10 minutes)

[Preparation for the Presentation]
It takes a considerable amount of time to prepare for a presentation, so the time for the preparation should be divided into several days instead of trying to finish it in a day.

1. Put your ideas according to an outline into English. (60 minutes)
2. Use dictionaries to look up the expressions you cannot translate into English.
　(30 minutes)
3. Read through the whole draft and modify unnatural parts. (15 minutes)
4. Read the draft aloud and check the pronunciations of the words whose sounds you are
　not familiar with. (15 minutes)
5. Practice reading the draft until you can say it fluently. Memorization of the draft is not
　obligatory, but good eye contact with the audience is expected for the presentation.
　(15 minutes every day)

Note

・Students are supposed to bring in English-Japanese and Japanese-English dictionaries for each class. (Either paper or electronic dictionaries are accepted. If you are an intrnational student, the dictionaries that translate English into your mother tongue and vice versa are preferable.）
・The feedback on the LMS should regularly be checked, although the time when a short free composition or the draft of the presentation is returned will be announced.

Through various activities in this course, I hope that you will be able to improve your communicative ability in English.

Schedule