For this segment, I will be reflecting on my work from June 26th - July 3rd, my second week of the LiA. I think I was really happy with the progress that was made on my projects. The picture for this week’s project was kindly taken by a high school teacher, Tanaka-sensei.
It was also a very interesting week, but I’ll save all that for my LiA and Experience Abroad reflections, haha.
What went well?
This week, I was able to give a bunch of introductory guest lectures, finish my research and worksheets on the differences between Japanese and English academic writing for the science camp students, and give two lectures about academic writing in English, and how to effectively conduct paragraph writing so it’s clear and concise.
I really am grateful to the teachers for allowing me to contribute to their students’ curriculums. I think it’s really hard to accommodate when there’s an entire lesson plan laid out day-to-day. But the teachers were super happy to the point where I got asked to give more lectures to more classes. I was also able to give feedback on a bunch of English assignments and tried to be as thorough as possible.
Honestly, I wouldn’t have been able to teach English writing effectively if I didn’t take the writing studies course in my first year with Dr. Jonathan Vroom. He is the reason why I went from hating writing in grade 12 to doing research in it!
What could have gone differently?
I would usually make worksheets on the day of a lesson or the day before, mostly because I needed to synthesize the information and feedback from the previous class in order to provide a worksheet addressing the feedback I had for students’ writing. Thus, I wish I dug more into the level of English proficiency for the students at their grade level. One thing I’ve noticed is that the students’ ability to understand English concepts and apply them have discrepancies. More specifically, they understand well, but have a hard time writing their papers.
Also, for the Pen Pal project introduction, I should’ve given more prompts for the students to talk about. I think it’s hard to understand what is unique about Japan because it’s always been their normal. So I’m going to prepare for the next class by bringing more ideas about what to talk about.
What did I learn about myself when working with others?
Last reflection I mentioned how I was able to adapt quickly to cultural norms such as bowing culture and catching onto vocabulary. But I think as an extension, I can get along with anyone, regardless of age. My parents would call this being overly friendly since they’ve seen me do this back home in Pakistan as well, but I think it’s a really good trait. I love talking to the students, laughing with them despite the language barrier, and learning more about people. One thing I love at the schools is how the teachers spend lunch with the students and we’re all talking with each other. I don’t know if that’s how it is in Canadian elementary schools anymore, but I remember just having a lunch supervisor and the only communication between the teacher and student would be if the class was misbehaving. Here, the students talk quite a lot with their teachers and I really love that! This was surprising to me because the students came off as shy when I first met them.
What did I learn?
This first point doesn’t really pertain to leadership, but I think the biggest thing I learned is that it’s possible to simplify concepts and teach them to any age group. Obviously, context is required, but I think by providing the students the context, they better understand the purpose of academic writing. I think in writing studies especially, the debate of when to teach students to unlearn bad writing practices and bend the rules often reaches uncharted territory, especially given that this would require a revamp of how English is taught in curriculums.
One thing about leadership that’s really important to me to understand is that it’s not just about autonomy over the execution of ideas, but the thought process behind the execution of a project or lecture or even a worksheet can demonstrate leadership. Here, I referenced what I learned about academic writing and revamped the materials in a way the students could understand. I think this was super ambitious given that such piloting of teaching English classes isn’t usually done at the high school level, even in English-speaking countries. So to try this with a country where I know little about Japanese academic writing was really interesting.
What do I want to develop or focus on next?
I want to do the following for my next LiA week:
- Create more interesting prompts for students to discuss in their Pen Pal projects
- Finish up my “Creating a Research Space” presentation for the science camp students and deliver the first installment of the workshop series
- Finalize the corresponding worksheet and include Japanese sources about this form of writing to help the students better conceptualize it
- Brainstorm a jeopardy to help the high school students in their academic writing
- Present the jeopardy on basic English for elementary students (grade 4, 5, and 6 students)
I’ll focus on my Model UN sub-project later in the later weeks, as the resource curation will occur during the students’ first week of summer break.
Also special thanks to all my supervisors in both Yoron and the University of Tokyo for reading my weekly reflections. They've been checking up on me regularly and have been incredibly helpful and supportive. ☺️