English Seminar (上級)
Some basic guidelines/instructions

1. Only English will be used in this class. Please ask if you do not understand!!! I will not be angry, and other members of the class will be grateful to you. (I know that I speak too fast sometimes!!) When you speak English, do not worry about making mistakes or if some people seem to speak more fluently than you do.

2. Your grade in this class will be calculated on the basis of your attendance record, your preparation for classes, your participation in classes, and all your other work. (For details, see the timetable, whichi will be uploaded in September.)

3 You are expected to attend, and participate in, all classes. If you sleep in class or fail to participate, or to do the required preparation work, you will be counted as absent. If you miss more than five classes, even for club activities, you will fail the course. If you are late for classes twice, this will count as one absence. If you are away because of illness, it would be a good idea to produce a medical certificate.
If you know that you are going to miss a class please tell me, for example by sending an e-mail.

4. You should prepare for each class. If you miss a class, please find out what you missed, and what the homework was, for example by looking at this website. Make sure that you do the homework and prepare for the next class properly. If you have to miss a class when you were due to do some group work or a group presentation, you should try to contact another group member and give them your contribution (for example as an e-mail attachment [添付ファイル]).

5. Your work should be your own. Do not copy from the internet, from other people or from previous assignments, or ask friends and relations to help you. If you cannot do the work without help, please tell me and I will help you. On the other hand, once you have done written homework, it is a good idea to get together with a friend from this class and check each other's homework for careless mistakes. (We will normally do this in class.)

6. When you do written assignments outside class, you should normally use a computer. Remember the format and other rules you practiced in Study Skills. Try to use your own words as much as possible. If you use information or ideas that you have obtained from books, newspapers or other sources, including the internet, you should make this clear, by using quotation marks if you are actually quoting, and by giving the source. This topic is covered in Study Skills, but we will look at it in more detail during the semester.

7 You will have two opportunities to give individual presentations. One of these will be the final presentation, which will be a presentation-style summary of your long essay. The other will be given at some point during the term. The topics of these two presentations can overlap, but they must not be completely the same.

8. All work must be ready on the date prescribed. (This includes both presentations, and reading and writing assignments.) If work is completed after the date given, your grade will be lowered. However, exceptions will be made in special cases, such as illness.

9. Help me to create a hard-working, friendly and supportive atmosphere in the class. If you do not understand something, please ask. If you have a suggestion about how the class is run, please share it. If I make a mistake or forget something, please tell me before the class is over and everyone less has left the room!


Good Luck! I hope you enjoy the class!

View the outline.

View the syllabus (to be uploaded in September).