We have Poster Talk Slide Show! Check it out!

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Our PosterTalk Slide Show!

Performed by freshmen students on October 4,5, & 16, 2006

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Pair Discussion Sample from Tatsuya and Masaki

Two freshmen students from the Department of Pharmacy at Kitasato discuss the importance of Japanese language study versus learning English. Students in the Speech Communication classes learn academic genre for using English beyond conversations to include discussions, speeches, presentations, debates and other types of performances.

English.

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Video sent by dbrooks25

More Role Play performances

Students from the Nursing and Environmental Studies departments have created their own role play skits in English to perforn on video. Most all of the videos are 'raw' performance in front of a digital camera, but some like thes below have been simply edited using Windows Movie Maker.

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Video sent by dbrooks25

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Video sent by dbrooks25

ESL EFL student learn English

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Freshmen students create and perform a role play skit to actually use English and also to show what they have learned this semester. This is one of the problem for EFL learners who live in monolingual countries such as Japan, where there are actually not that many foreigners that they can interact with. Further, for most people in Japan's pubic and private school system, speaking English as a practical communication skill is completely downplayed and often ignored in favor of preparation of reading and translation skills in view of passing the difficult and vitally important university entrance exams. Our class strives to give an opportunity to learn that speaking English can not only be fun but can be an important part of self-development too.

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Video sent by dbrooks25

Final Performance Project for Speech Communication

Students in the Speech Communication classes are in the midst of creating, practicing and performing discussions on either every day topics or sometimes on more difficult social or moral issues. A few of the model performances will be placed here for you to view.

Role Plays in English

One of the fun and somewhat challenging things about learning to actually speak English while living in a monolingual society like Japan is finding ways to actually use spoken English in a meaningful way. Since it is not likely that students will naturally speak to each other in a language that is NOT their own native one, we, as educators, have to sometimes create an artificial environment for giving them the opportunity to speak. As a teacher of English as a Foreign Language (EFL), I gently use my 'force' as a teacher to get to try to use English for actually communicating by their creating and performing role play skits. Not only does it give them a chance to show what they can do as speaker of English, it is also fun to try to be creative with language. When they are successful -- as the one below illustrates - then it is something that we can all be proud of. I convinced them to let me show the video on this blog. They were the first ones to perform at the end of the first semester.

Here three freshmen students perform their second role play based on studying English conversation and daily communication. They created an original dialogue and perform it. Can you understand what happens after they ask the agent the price?

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Video sent by dbrooks25

Topic Speech Performances - Mr. Brooks' class

In June 2006, freshmen students have each been performing a 1-2 minute speech in English on a topic of their choice. We have worked on learning how to organize the logical structure of a short speech, and also worked on how to polish a spoken performance so that it communicates with the audience -- not simply reading a written composition. Some of the students have been quite succcessful -- even though it may have taken a couple of tries - in some cases. As the instructor, I would like to make some of the very good and excellent performances available for others (both inside our university community) and also in the outside world. In the following days and weeks, some of those speeches will be posted here for you to watch. Please remember that ours in NOT a professional broadcasting course or even a public speaking class. This is a required English-As-A-Foreign-Language (EFL) course for freshmen at our medical and health sciences university located just outside Tokyo, Japan. We have nothing better than a digital video camera to make the recordings. The speeches are not expected to be 'media-quality' (like a TV broadcast). However, some of them are quite well done and succeed in getting their message across. I think it was a great learning project. [No comments are allowed at the moment].

Much Improved Performance - 再発表

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Video sent by kujp999

The same student below gave his speech again a week later. I hope you can notice the big improvement. Not only is his self-confidence stronger but he succeeds in getting across his message more effectively and with more impact. Our comprehension of his ideas is easier too because he makes us want to listen to him by the improved style of stronger delivery, better audience awareness and much more eye contact. His main message about what he has learned personally about the benefits of sports is unchanged, but the power and impact of the message is much greater. Give a speech is much more than just writing (and reading) a good composition. A good public speaking performance can make people take notice, give us attention and also understand a new, important and meaningful lesson or idea.

RE student's first Topic Speech performance

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Video sent by kujp999

The is S's first try at performing of his topic speech He doesn't really look up at the audience so he wanted to do the speech performance again (above). I am sure you see and hear the difference in the previous video (above) when he performed it again with the goal of speaking with better audience awareness (not just reading from the paper but trying to communicate to the listeners).