Electrical Class

Today, the students did some review on some basic electrical terms, such as micro, milli, pico, etc. The students understood how to do the calculations, but had a lot of difficulty explaining them.

I taught the students to frame their explanation like this: well, um, today, I learnt that "milli" was ten to the power of negative three. Actually, I already knew this, but I learnt how to explain it in English, um, yeah, I also learnt other vocabularly like this, such as, um, do you know, "pico?"
Oh, well, "pico" is.............

The students, hopefully, understand how to talk about what they learnt in a very general way. Of course, I don't understand about the details of the Electrical Engineering class, but if the students begin to talk about what they did - as well as gauging the level of knowledge of the interactant, then it starts to generate a conversation. I intend to do this type of structure to ask about all of their specific classes. My aim is to get the students to repeat the specific vocabularly, as well as generally apply the "theoretical" side to a more "practical" side. I find that the students can easily understand the equations and work their way through difficult calculations, but miss the actual aim of why they are doing these equations. Explaining why they are doing these equations actually forces the students to apply their knowledge in a broader more practical approach, which will hopefully reinforce their learning.

Today the students were very tired when they came to my English class from 3-4. I gave the students some time to gather their thoughts and said that we will do something "fun" tomorrow - they wanted to play badminton, so I think I'll dust off my white bata bullets tonight ready for English class at the gym tomorrow. A bit of fun to relieve the stress never goes a miss.

Did you have a good day? / Electrical Engineering - Basics

Today, we practised the same question as the other day, but this time, I got the students to structure their answer in a way that starts with a general introduction, then a slightly more detailed account of some topics, and then finally a conclusion relating to how they felt about their day. I included an example of this structure from a conversation that I had and analysed it with the students on the data projector. Tomorrow's class is going to be going over the same content - practise makes perfect. I have found that the students really appreciate having the opportunity to practise speaking. They told me that they never got this practise in Japan. I also told the students that if they are asked a question then they should answer within about two seconds. Even if they don't know the answer, then they should give a hesitational marker (so as to keep the floor and indicate acknowledgement that they have been asked something) and then give an avoidance strategy such as, "I'm sorry, I don't know, but I'll think about it. Please ask somebody else first." I also gave other similar expressions and then we practised saying them. Hopefully, now the students understand that if they are asked anything by anybody then they should quickly default to these expressions. We then talked about classroom culture in Japan and New Zealand.

I am now starting to encourage the students to use more English in the classroom.

What is the unit of length? mWhat is the symbol for metre?What is time measured in?What is length measured in?Volume is measured in meters (to the power of 3) cubed.What is area measured in?What frequency is radio NHK in Japan?What frequency is National radio in New Zealand?What is this number to 3 significant figures? (Please round this number to 3 numbers.)

The students learnt about how to manipulate various units of length, measurements and equations into English (as above). I sent the students all of the electrical engineering notes and went through them in class. We are up to page 21 now.