星薬科大学薬学英語Ｉ・5月15日・lesson plan & helpful hints

Hello to all my Pharm Eng I students,

Here is the lesson plan for 5/15:

Here are the board notes for the comprehension (understanding questions):

Here also are the board notes for the idea questions:

As you see in the lesson plan and the idea questions notes, I am asking you all to do a lot of homework over the next two weeks. Let's review the homework:

For next week (5/21): textbook page 12 (parts of the brain picture), and scanning Unit 3 vocabulary: choose 6-8 nouns (名詞) from the unit and try your own semantic network with them (if you were not in class on 5/15 - find out what a semantic network is - click here)

For 5/28 - choose 2 out of 3 of the idea questions and write thinking responses to the questions showing your ideas to questions #1 or #2. Question #3 is a little different question: It's in the textbook - but you have to read well to find it!

I think all of you are good students and because of this, I am challenging all of you! Try your best - I will support your effort!

Today, I would like to post something extra for two students - two helpful hints for ASUKA TAKANOHASHI and HARUKA TSUCHIYA - and share with the Hoshi ESS (English Speaking Society) too!

I don't have any video for the both of you today, but I have advice for you I hope will help you.

ASUKA - on your pre-teaching survey, you said you enjoy reading novels, and that you want to read them in English. Here's what you can do:

If you like famous Japanese writers such as, for example, Haruki Murakami, find an English translation of one of their novels that you like, and that you can get easily. It's best to start out with a book you already know. Read it in English the same way you would in Japanese - don't look up any words in the dictionary (though you could make a semantic network if you like, or a word list, as you go along). Don't try to translate - read for pleasure. Since you will know the story already, the meaning will be the same - the only difference is the language. Take your time to read - don't struggle with it. You don't have to understand every word - so long as you get the main ideas, you're okay.

For a book you like that you can't get an English translation for - try to find a similar kind of story in English. Don't try a difficult book - try for something that you believe you can read at a level that is a little lower than what you can read easily in Japanese. The most important thing is also to get a book that you don't struggle with, and that you can read for pleasure. And when you read, do the same thing as I said above - don't try to translate - read only for pleasure. If you struggle with it, it will not be fun.

HARUKA - on your survey, one thing you said is that you like to learn more medical terms in English. Here's what you can do:

This is something I will show the class as another word-learning technique - but I'll share it with you first.

Many English medical terms come from Greek and Latin root words. So take a prefix (the 1st part of a word) that you can make as many words you can from. Make a word list or semantic network with them. If you know the prefix, you will know the basic meaning already.

In your textbook, go to the back of the book - pages 156-161. In them, there is a long list of these root words, with examples and Japanese meanings. Take a look at them. Some of them match in meaning with the Japanese words - especially with the kanji. If you can also connect the kanji with the root meanings, you will be able to guess the meanings of many medical terms.

Hope this helps you.

See all of you next week!