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1. What prompted you decide to participate in the "JSPS Science Dialogue" program?
I very much enjoy teaching at the university level and was fascinated by the opportunity to give a lecture at Okayama Prefectural Okayama Ichinomiya High School for high school students. In addition, I was interested to create a new image and popularity about science, especially chemistry and hopefully making science an attractive career option for high-school students.
2. To what did you give greatest attention in preparing and giving the lecture?
My main focus in preparing the lecture was to take into account the student's background.
As a university lecturer, my talks are usually in front of an expert audience, while these students have only very little to know about chemistry. To make the presentation visually appealing to the students, I gave greatest attention in preparing my powerpoint slides with lots of examples and visual aids to help illustrate key concept.
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?
In my case, the students had some English knowledge, but little practice listening to or speaking it. I found it to be very helpful to have prepared a summary alongside with a glossary of the most important terms, to be handed out to students before the talk. Of course, you should keep in mind the things that make your lecture better: speak slowly and clearly (and adjust the lecture for that), create good, clear slides. It was not as difficult as I had expected. The biggest uncertainty for me was having no idea about the level of the student's English, proficiency or their chemistry background. Including basic words that are used in the presentation in Japanese on the slides along with the English counterparts is an additional advantage.
4. Could you give your impression with regard to participating in this program?
I enjoyed participating in the program very much, and I found both the challenge of preparing a talk for high school students and giving it very rewarding. In particular, I was very excited to see that students were not only interested in the subject matter, but also highly motivated and eagerness to listen and learn about science, I believe it was a success for the students as well. It was interesting to see a Japanese high school and meet with the students and I would say the reception was extremely nice and was really very impressed by the students friendliness. Participating in the science dialogues also gave me the opportunity to visit a high school in Japan, furthering my cultural education about Japan. It was an excellent experience and I enjoyed listening to and talking with the students, very happy to mmet very nice JSPS staff and high school teachers. I had a great time, great experience, great sessions, and it was fruitful all the way.
5. Was it meaningful in terms of your fellowship activities?
Of course, I found this talk to be an excellent opportunity to consider my area of research from a different perspective and I have learned a lot about presenting it to non-experts. It was also very interesting to discuss the talk and the general approach with my host, and it turned out to be an interesting activity to do together outside of research. Some of the students even showed genuine interest in my lecture material, which was very rewarding for me. More importantly, I believe I transmitted some of my excitement about chemistry to the students, hopefully, encouraging them to continue to work hard on their own interests, whether it will be "scientific" or otherwise.
6. In what ways do you think the students benefited from the program?
The students got an overview of how chemistry most importantly in our life,. I believe that the students benefited greatly from the programme, I also think that the students now can make a better informed decision if they are considering a degree in chemical science at some point.
Besides that, the exposure to a foreigner who speaks a different language is an interesting challenge, both intellectually and culturally. In the best case, it could help them in choosing their future careers. In my own personal experience, actual scientific work differs quite a lot from the things they teach at high school.
7. Could you give some overall advice or comments to future participants in the program?
The most important thing to keep in mind is that the target audience is teenagers, who have likely no background in your area of expertise. It is essential for a good talk to take that into account and I do recommend being aware of the differences between giving a research talk at a conference and a lecture in the context of this program. Not only do the participants have hardly any background in the field, it is also very possible that essential tools/machines won't work. Create simple slides with little text; avoid complex formulas and definitions; keep in mind that you don't need much scientific depth for this talk. Use as much visual aids as you can. Also, use plenty of simple examples that the students can relate to. Practice your talk, speaking slowly and clearly, and allowing time for questions and clarifications. This helps to avoid misjudging the time and having to rush through the talk. If you need to use technical terms, prepare a glossary of them with their Japanese translations and hand it out before the lecture. Consider telling the student a little about yourself-they've likely not had much experience with foreigners. For example, a few slides from your home country can be very interesting. Personally, I think that using powerpoint slides to show pictures or diagrams is a good way to help students understand the lecture more easily.
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