EMI Microteaching and Peer Mentoring Joint Project: Session 1 & 2

【NSYSU X AIT】English Language Specialist Program─EMI Microteaching and Peer Mentoring Joint Project

Session: First
Time: Friday, October 21, 2022, 9:30 A.M.-11:30 A.M.
Specialist: Dr. Eniko Csomay
Mentor: Dr. Wan-Chi Tsai
Microteaching presenters/Topic:
1. Dr. Tong-Yu Hsieh/Basics of Verilog Hardware Description Language for Digital IC Design
2. Dr. Shu-chen Ou/Lexical Prosody Typology
The first session of the Microteaching and Peer Mentoring Joint Project had been hold on Oct. 21 with Dr. Tong-Yu Hsieh and Dr. Shu-Chen Ou as presenters and Dr. Wan-Chi Tsai from KMU as mentor!

Dr. Tsai praised Dr. Hsieh’s efforts to engage students. Dr. Hsieh made an immense effort to boost understanding by using graphs, highlighting keywords, and paraphrasing to reinforce the taught content. His frequent expressions of “what you will learn” and “wrap up” indicated his intention to let students keep track of the lecture. Dr. Hsieh’s endeavor to interact with students proved very effective. He had been encouraging students to participate in class by asking short questions, keeping them on track as well as ensuring comprehension; as for Dr. Ou, Dr. Tsai commented on her successful elaboration on the importance of the subject. She started her lesson by connecting students with some fundamentals of the previous class. She successfully made manifest the impact of intonation by taking songs and stories as examples that could arouse students’ interest, and her clear pronunciation could also help students achieve better understanding. Although Dr. Ou introduced many technical terms, the lesson was still easy to follow thanks to her organized explanation.

To strike the balance between students’ understanding and progress of class, Specialist Eniko suggested teachers consider recording their lectures for students to review. Teachers should not surrender to using Chinese every time students encounter hardship of understanding. Regarding the amount of text in slides for students’ best perception, Dr.  Eniko shared the “6x6 rule”. It might not be a determinate rule, however. Participants discussed the appropriate instructional approach and degree of difficulty for different levels of courses and students, and the ultimate answer was that it depended on the specific class. 

Session: Second
Time: Friday, October 28, 2022, 9:30 A.M.-11:30 A.M.
Specialist: Dr. Eniko Csomay
Mentor: Dr. Ke-Li Tsai
Microteaching presenters/Topic:
1. Dr. Chung-Lin Tsai/External Analysis
2. Dr. Yu-Jia Lin/Basic Concepts in Natural Resource Management
3. Dr. Chen-Li Huang/How to Create a Good Title of a Paper
For the second session, the mentor Dr. Ke-Li Tsai from KMU perspicaciously identified the merits the 3 presenters showed during their microteaching, and also provided suggestions worthy of consideration! Structured presentation with highlights of keywords, providing definition of keywords, pertinent use of visuals, comparing what are similar but different, using examples and analogy, asking more thought-provoking questions for discussion, and encouraging collaborative learning, are all effective strategies. 

During the discussion, participants shared the technology they used, such as Kahoot and Prezi, to design activities that could engage students. Dr. Eniko also proposed different ways to make an EMI class more dynamic. In contrast to a linear lesson, she suggested giving questions at the beginning, paraphrasing occasionally, and providing summary in the middle. In short, connect the points and parts of the lesson to make it more dynamic.

Presenters had reflected on their speech pace, usage of technical terms, time management, and so on. Conducting microteaching before peer teachers was absolutely not an easy matter, but it was definitely a rewarding experience! Participants also had dynamic discussions on their approaches to engaging students with different activities. Wonderfully, teachers shared ideas and dedicated themselves to refining teaching skills, expecting to make their EMI courses more interesting and accessible to students!