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Session 3260

Teaching Technical Courses in Japan in English

Yuko Hoshino, Masakazu Obata, L. Wayne Sanders, Keiichi Sato Kanazawa Institute of Technology/Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology

abstract This paper discusses an attempt to overcome the problems in teaching technical courses at an engineering college in Japan. One American engineering professor was invited to teach such courses for one term in collaboration with Japanese professors of engineering and of foreign languages. Fundamental problems and constraints are discussed with our experiences and the concluding suggestions and recommendations are presented.

1 introduction

Recently, in technical colleges in Japan, there are many attempts to educate undergraduate and postgraduate students in technical courses in English. The main objective of the courses is to educate students who are expected to work after their graduation as global engineers to be the support and driving force of Japan in the English-speaking world of the 21 st century. The global engineer is difficult to define itself, however, he/she will be generally required to have acquired at least the five abilities: basic engineering knowledge in English, communication ability in English, creativity, management ability, and international sense (1,2).

Kanazawa Institute of Technology (KIT) (3), Japan has made to start at its Mechanical Engineering Division an attempt to teach students technical courses in English by a native English-speaking professor associating with Japanese teaching staff. This attempt aims to clarify in advance the teaching problems to prepare for regular engineering courses in English. After the extensive preparation, two engineering courses in English were offered in the fall term, 2001, starting from the end of August and ending the middle of November. Both courses, technical report writing for undergraduate students and the compressible fluid for postgraduate students, met once a week for two sixty-minute periods (120 minutes per week for each course). The courses were offered for the first time at KIT to meet mechanical

“Proceedings of the 2002 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright© 2002, American Society for Engineering Education

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Obata, M., & Sanders, L., & Sato, K., & Hoshino, Y. (2002, June), Teaching Technical Courses In Japan In English Paper presented at 2002 Annual Conference, Montreal, Canada. 10.18260/1-2--10241