|
1. What prompted you decide to participate in the "JSPS Science Dialogue" program?
Science Dialogue program is an ideal opportunity to contribute personally to the mission of promoting the scientific advancement in Japan by JSPS. I was also interested to interact with the Students and the teachers in a high school in Japan and learn more about the educational system here in Japan. Also feeling from my heart and sole to serve for little students as a part of my duty staying in Japan, I took this opportunity to interact the local community utilizing my scientific knowledge and sharing the same with them. I also wanted to give a knowledge base about recent scientific advances and the future trend so that my children can uplift themselves to give the science to a global shape.
2. To what did you give greatest attention in preparing and giving the lecture?
I gave the most attention to try and make my presentation understandable and enjoyable by high school students. In my mind, first and foremost the lecture was to give the students practice in listening to English. I therefore designed my presentation using simple and small English sentences. I chose a topic which belongs to chemistry and biology from the High school level to the elementary idea of future research trend. I delivered very slowly so that my students could understand my English and also the science which I showed them.
3. Did you find it difficult to give a lecture in English to Japanese students? Could you give some advice to future lecturers on how to facilitate communication with Japanese students?
It is not so much difficult to make the Japanese students understand to an English lecture. In an every presentation we should treat the students from very close and like a children we should teach them. Thus during my presentation I made an effort to speak slowly and clearly. So, I found the students glad and happy and from heart and sole they interacted with me. Even they were enthusiastic to know how I adopted myself here in Japan, in a different country of different culture. Thus, from the discussion between the teachers I could understand that the lecture was very much successful, students and teachers were very much happy. My presentation was made more successful due to the translations that my host Prof. Isao Saito gave to the students when I dealt with a slide containing particularly difficult concepts. Yet, it is better to display the lecture one week prior to the Teacher of that School and also to the students so that they can aware and can interact much more in respect of question and answers nicely.
4. Could you give your impression with regard to participating in this program?
I found participating in the program to be a very rewarding and enjoyable experience. More importantly I became glad to interact to the students and give them a knowledge base about my country and also my research project here in Japan. I think it is good for academicians to get out of the laboratory from time to time and explain what they are doing to the public. In fact, one of the most challenging aspects of being a scientist is to translate scientific concepts, results into readily understandable language to the public. Giving a lecture to Japanese high school students therefore gave me a unique and incredibly useful experience in this technique.
I was particularly happy by the warm and heartiest reception both by the teachers and students of Soma high school. I had an enjoyable day all around, which was made more enjoyable by the fact that the students seemed genuinely happy to have met me and also seemed to enjoy my lecture. From the conversation between the teachers I became understand that they were very much glad with my lecture and they appreciated me very much. Overall, I felt the day was a great success of my stay in Japan. My foreign origin brings me with the added responsibility of serving as an ambassador here in Japan for my own country. Thus, the program is very meaningful as I felt that it gives me the opportunity to serve the country a bit which is supporting my stay and research environment.
5. Was it meaningful in terms of your fellowship activities?
Yes, I feel it was and it is meaningful. I think that one aspect of having a fellowship here in Japan is of course to conduct research, but I also feel my role here is to inspire the people around me about science, convey the message of science and to help in creating new collaborations between scientists around the globe. Being the collaborative research scientist I think that parallel to my research it is my duty to give the massage to the young people about the role of science in the "real" world and the relevance to their everyday experiences. Thus, this program might allow them to make links between what they are learning at school and the world of work, motivating them to study and giving them an understanding of the diversity of careers that are available to them. By enlarging their knowledge to current scientific research, techniques, and above all the society may spark an interest and enthusiasm for science and society that will inspire a future scientific advancement.
6. In what ways do you think the students benefited from the program?
It is my impression that students benefited from this program because this was an opportunity to interact with foreign scientist at their school level. The lecture itself gave the students experience in listening to spoken English, learn about an area of science that they had perhaps not encountered before. Another benefit for the students was that they got some valuable information on recent scientific advances. This type of lecture may motivate and inspire young students to future science. Though the school level is not the time to take a decision for their future career but the Science dialogue program brings them the idea and inspiration for their future direction of life. Thus this program gave me an opportunity to be a positive role model for students in Japan who are considering entering into a scientific career.
7. Could you give some overall advice or comments to future participants in the program?
Science dialogue program is a thoroughly rewarding experience for both the JSPS fellow and the students. So, every fellow should take part and JSPS also should involve as many fellows possible to take part in this program. While preparing a talk for the students, the own research should put into a wider context so that people can understand the importance of a fellows work and the individual work should not be the all of the content. The presentation should contain more scientific i.e. more pictorial not linguistic to watch and listen to. The main goal of the Science Dialogue program is to inspire the young students to be the next generation scientists. The presentation should therefore be designed to work up to the level of the high school students, not at the level of university post-docs or professors. Even a well-educated and mature audience will lose focus when overwhelmed by technical terminology in a presentation. So, content material should be simple, presented in scientific way to generalize it. It is an opportunity to give information to the people and to inspire them about one's country. In this way if one can present then the presentation will be a great success and could able to make the interested and inspire them to do the best they can in their studies, perhaps in ultimate pursuit of a scientific career.
|
