PCS-J 1st Technical Meeting, 2011

Timetable

1:00 ? 1:15 Registration

1:15 ? 1:20 Moment of Silence (黙祷) following by opening announcements

1:30 ? 2:50 Duncan Patterson
Performance-based Training: Preparing Professionals for the Global Workplace

This presentation will describe a number of two-day performance-focused seminars that form part of an in-house training program for employees of Sumitomo Metal Industries, one of Japan’s largest steelmakers. The presenter will cover how topic areas and related performances were selected, and will provide information about the content of the seminars. Areas covered in the training include Technical Writing, Technical Presentations, Meetings, Site Tours, and Business Correspondence. The presenter will also describe how some of these seminars have been adapted for use in other companies, and in a number of universities in the Kanto and Kansai areas.

It will be argued that for training to be successful in preparing professionals for the needs of the global workplace, in-company performance-based training programs need to take into consideration not only identified features of the targeted performance areas, but also need to incorporate aspects of communication behaviors (e.g. relationship-building, style-switching, intercultural effectiveness) that will impact directly on the individual’s effectiveness in global business settings.

Bio: Duncan Patterson is the training section manager (Tokyo) 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. Duncan has been involved in the design and delivery of ESP courses for more than 20 years. His current interests include assessment and evaluation in ESP as well as on-line blended training (using a combination of on-line materials and face to face training).

2:50 ? 3:00 Coffee Break

3:00 ? 3:25 Jie Shi
Developing a Genre-based EAP Curriculum for Science and Engineering Students

Curriculum Development is of fundamental importance for designing English programs as part of “general education” or liberal arts education at Japanese universities. However, the lack of awareness of the necessity of, and opposing opinions to, the programming of English education are considered to be the main obstacles in the process of curriculum development. This presentation reviews such difficulties in past reforms to the English curriculum by the English Department of UEC Tokyo, followed by a report on a newly implemented genre-based curriculum for compulsory components of the English program at the same university.

The process of the development of the genre-based curriculum, starting from the proposal till the review of the first year of implementation, will be outlined. The specific genres for each year of the English program will also be explained. One of the characteristics of the genre-based curriculum is that it is not a totalitarian curriculum, i.e. the intended coverage of the content of the coursers in a semester is around 70% leaving one third for teacher-selected content. In the courses taught by the presenter, genre-based knowledge is combined with the selected academic learning skills and strategies that are especially needed for the Japanese science and engineering students.

Bio: Professor Jie Shi is originally from China, but has been living overseas for over two decades. She has been teaching English at tertiary level mostly in Asia: China, Singapore and Japan. She is currently teaching at the English Department of University of Electro-Communications (UEC Tokyo) where she has been in charge of curriculum development and faculty development for over 6 years. Her main research areas are Bilingualism and Multilingualism, ESP, EAP, curriculum design, higher education, and teacher development. [Note: Professor Shi is proficient in Japanese, Chinese, and English, and welcomes question and discussion in any of the three languages]

3:30 Michihiro Hirai announces his newly-published book

3:40 Tom Orr moderates panel discussion
ESE Beyond the Ordinary: What English for Science and Engineering Programs Could be Offering their Students but Typically Do Not’

A panel composed of members from academia and industry will present and discuss innovative ideas for improving the quality of English for science and engineering (ESE) programs by expanding their offerings beyond training in vocabulary, grammar, research paper writing, and research paper presentations. Ideas for professional self development will also be presented to enable students and professionals to mature further on their own. Audience discussion will complement this presentation in order to include the widest range of ideas and expertise possible.

Panel Bios: Tom Orr is a professor at the University of Aizu and director of the university’s Center for Language Research. Tatsuki Kawaguchi is a faculty member at the University of Aizu, appointed to the university’s Center for Strategy of International Programs.

4:55 Closing remarks

5:00 Meeting Ends