Final Talks

 I had my group of 4th year students give short talks about their thesis efforts so far.  Next Monday and Tuesday are presentations (graded, I presume) about their theses.  Some are very well-developed and some not so much.  That's to be expected, though.  They all spoke in English and without a microphone.  They were unsure if a microphone would be provided next week.  I pointed out most of them were very quiet.  Part of that is nerves from being in front of a crowd and part of it is speaking a foreign language.  My advice to all of them after everyone was finished was to practice.

By practicing they will be able to know what they are planning to say and how to form the words.  It's kind of silly how much I take for granted being able to pronounce English words.  I don't have perfect pronunciation, by any means.  However, I think most of the native English speakers reading this don't have to sound out anything I write.  You could probably just read it out loud without any preparation.  Unfortunately, I can't think of any specific examples off the top of my head, but more than a few times I've been talking with a native Japanese speaker, and they have struggled to say certain phrases.  Even when they can say each word in isolation with very little trouble.  They just have no practice flowing one word in the phrase into the next.  

I also pointed out that it will make projecting easier so people in the back of the room can hear.  When you feel confident that you know how to say something, it is easier to say it loudly.  Another advantage I reminded them of is practice will help them respond to questions that might be asked.  

It's very hard for faculty here to find time to devote to practicing this type of speaking.  This is not a slight against them at all.  It's the reality of needing to cover more ideas than there is time to cover them.  Giving research talks doesn't rank highly on the "Important Skills" list.

I want to share one thing from a student writing about corsets in the Victorian era.  "...the standard of women's beauty was set by the viewer, the men.  It's not for women, but for men's ideal [woman] being like this."  This will be an interesting paper to read, and I'm kind of sad I won't get to read it.  She is clearly taking the position that, at least in the Victorian era, it was wrong for men to dictate what women should look like and how women should behave.  It's not much of a stretch to drop the "at least in the Victorian era" from that statement and read her summary as applying to societies today.

More packing tonight.  I'll also weigh my bags to make sure things are distributed fairly evenly.  That way if I miss any last minute items I can stuff them into one bag at random.  This assumes I won't have 45 kg (99 lbs) of stuff already packed in the checked baggage.  That's really unlikely.  Even with all of the name stamps.