PCS-J 1st Technical Meeting, 2010

Timetable
1:30 Registration, greetings

1:40 Invited speaker Andrew Vaughan

Title: Unmet needs ? Preparing Professionals for the Global Workplace
Abstract: This presentation will look at how corporate language training programs in Japan aim to provide professionals with the language and communication skills needed to be successful in the global workplace. It will be argued that for Japanese professionals to be successful in the global workplace, training programs need to better reflect the realities of the workplace, and need to move beyond the traditional skills covered in ESP programs (e.g. Technical Writing, Presentations, E-mail writing). It will be argued that there needs to be a greater emphasis on the communication behaviors, including intercultural effectiveness, required for professionals to be effective in their current and future roles. The implications of such a shift in emphasis for some of the issues related to program design (such as needs analysis, evaluation and assessment) will also be discussed.

2:40 break

2:50 William Rozycki
Evaluating professionalism: A model from medicine Abstract: Joining a profession means more than handling the linguistic challenges of the work. This presentation looks at development of an assessment of disciplinary knowledge jointly developed between an English-for-Specific-Purposes center and a Family Practice residency training center at a major university medical center in the US.

3:30 Atsuko Yamazaki
Title: PCS-J and the ‘Big Picture’
Abstract: A brief report on the activities of the Administrative Council of the Professional Communication Society, and how our PCS-J chapter and the PCS fit together with the larger IEEE organization.

4:00 Meeting closes

Presenter biosketches
Andrew Vaughan is General Manager of Sumikin-Intercom, Inc. (SI), a training and translation subsidiary of Sumitomo Metal Industries. SI delivers customized corporate language training programs to industry and business across Japan. Andrew is the author of a number of Business English textbooks, most recently the ‘Get Ready for Business’ series (Macmillan).

William Rozycki is a professor in the Center for Language Research at the University of Aizu and currently the chair of PCS-J.

Atsuko Yamazaki is a professor at the Shibaura Institute of Technology and a board member of the Administrative Committee of the Professional Communication Society of the IEEE.