Once a week from the 17th of June to the 29th of July, we held the extra English lessons called “NEXTA English Club” inviting Ms. Miho AZUKIZAWA, as a lecturer from the Center for Foreign Language Education. These lessons are designated for the students in the 2nd year of the interdisciplinary Faculty of Science and Engineering related to the Materials Science and Engineering Special Course. It has been planned as one of the preparation and foothold for upcoming specialized classes in English in the course as well as future interactions with the University of Oxford.

Every time when started the class, the students had a small conversation regarding how they spent their weekends, then they watched a video on various themes and had an exercise to read some questions and answer them. Since they are not used to talking in English, there was some moment when they stop in mid-sentence, however, Ms.Azukizawa encouraged them by saying, “It doesn’t have to fit the Japanese word you have in your head, please try to be simple and break down into some simple words you already know so that you can say something.” It seemed that the students started to try to express themselves slowly hearing the advice.
 In the last class on the 29th of July, Ms. Azukizawa gave a message to the students saying, “I hope you take this opportunity as a jumpstart and take English into a part of your daily life and you will continue to learn.”

After all the classes, one of the students reviewed saying, “Though I couldn’t talk at all in the first class, I learned through these classes that it’s important to say something. I used to have a strong feeling that I’m bad at English, but I feel like now it’s gone.” Or, “I haven’t had a chance to speak during classes until this class starts, so it was hard at the beginning. However, after trying during this class, I learned that it isn’t more difficult than I thought.” The other students said, “I had a strong feeling that I am bad at listening and speaking, and I always thought that I need to pay attention to grammar when speaking, but I found out that it isn’t that difficult to speak.” The classes brought the students an excellent and meaningful opportunity to learn practical English and jumpstart their future activities.
 This class is planned to be held in the latter term as well.

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Next Generation Tatara Co-Creation Centre