Narrative:
Today in class we met with 5 students from Osaka university. They were part of a four week immersive language course focusing on public speaking. We divided the class into five tables. There were five TESOL/TFL students per Japanese student at a table. My table sat with Shinji who focused on virology and veterinarian (which he had to teach me how to spell) science. We had a conversation about what he was nervous about in regards to public speaking. He told us to focus on his rate of speech, word choice, logic/thought processes. The students then took turns presenting and taking questions. After all presentations, we gave him feedback based on his requested areas. Then Brandon (one of their teachers) explained the process that led them to the presentation stage today.
Reflection:
I was really happy to apply things we learned in phonology in Language Analysis with the pronunciation aspect. Although it wasn’t something he asked us to focus on, I still picked up on it. There was a moment where, during introductions, we heard him say he studies biology. However, during his presentation we realized, because it was written on the screen, that he studies virology. We then had to figure out where the mistakes were (the r/l blends happening in Asian languages, the intonation, the variations of the pronunciation of virology, etc.). We also got a chance to glimpse the final result of a curriculum and to get insight into the process that led there. I also realized how much I miss teaching.
I really enjoyed eavesdropping during the conversations with the Osaka scientists because I think it brought out the teacher in a good number of your classmates. I am happy too to see some of the material in Language Analysis being brought to bear: the virology/biology distinction is a good example of the challenge of English to be precise in articulating stops (like /b/) and fricatives (like /v/). If you had the opportunity to go over a video of the speech with your student, I am sure you would uncover a number of other issues, including word stress, rhythm, intonation and the like as well as the segmental items.