スクリプトは事前提出されたものですので、ビデオの音声とは異なる場合があります。

Kosen Students, Be Motivated!!

Tokuyama National College of Technology

One day, in a Kosen classroom, the exam papers were returned to students…

Teacher (Kim): All right, let me give your test papers back.
Joe: Whoo! We'll see miserable results this time...
Shun: Yeah! We played Mahjong almost every night. We can't expect good results.
Teacher: Mr. Shigeyama. You managed to pass this time.
Joe: Amazing! I've got 62! I've barely passed!!
Teacher: Mr. Matsuoka. I'm sorry but you couldn't make it this time.
Shun: Oh! 59!! I failed!
Joe: You deserve this score!
Shun: Never mind! I'll pass in the re-test!
Teacher: Why do I have to give credits to a student like him?

Have you ever seen such a scene at your Kosen?

Most of our Kosen students, including us, have a tendency to be demotivated. Many of them read comic books secretly or sleep during class and are satisfied with just earning credits. They are typical at our Kosen. We asked many students at other Kosens whether they find the same kind of students, and it turned out that we all share the same problem.

What do you think will happen if this awful situation continues? We will lack knowledge of our special fields and end up losing our chance to contribute to our society. Needed by nobody.

But are we truly demotivated? No! Observing students around us, we have noticed that they take some things seriously and are eager about doing them. Actually, most of them like to play computer games.

Then why are they well motivated to play them? First, it's fun to play games. They are enjoyable. Also, they can stimulate us because they give us chances to see greater players. We are always surprised to see how well they are playing games. This stimulus is strong tonic. In addition, since we don't want to lose, we naturally compete with each other and easily concentrate on them.

Thus, we need these three elements, Enjoyable, Tonic, and Competitive, to boost our motivation.

We assume these elements can be used for anything to improve our motivation. Then why not apply them to our studies? That's how we started our new approach: the "ETC" approach! For starters, we tried applying this approach to our poorest subject: English!

Our presentation focuses on how we dealt with the problem of our demotivated English learning attitudes by means of the ETC approach. We will also show some of the good results this approach has brought about.

First of all, we put the Enjoyable element into English learning. We started promoting "English Extensive Reading" for our Kosen students. Extensive Reading, "ER" from now on, is an enjoyable method of learning English by reading many easy English books. Since the contents of the books are interesting or funny, we want to read them without being told to.

This example shows that the Enjoyable element is what makes us feel like doing something spontaneously.

Next, we tried to add the Tonic element to our English study. In the world of games, there exist a few extremely good players. We have a strong yearning toward them and try to get closer to their level. We thought that the same thing would happen if we meet great achievers in English. So, we went to the University of Tokyo and observed how the members of "The English Debate Society" were doing their activity. We were astounded to see how fluently, persuasively and logically they spoke English. They are now our role models. This experience has given us an irresistible driving force to study English harder.

So, we can say that the Tonic element is something that gives us great stimulus and drives us to get closer to our role models.

Finally, we employed the Competitive element into our English learning. We proposed that our Kosen hold a class competition of ACE for the lower graders and TOEIC for the higher graders. ACE stands for Assessment of Communicative English. Our teachers agreed to our proposal and announced that the top class and the top three students would be awarded. A lot of students started preparing for the tests harder than we had expected. They wanted to win against their rivals to get awarded.

Thus, we can say that the Competitive element is something that makes us feel that we want to win against others.

In order to make the three elements function synergistically, we did activities where they can be put together. First, we developed an ER management and enlightening system. It works on a computer screen like this and counts the number of words each student has read automatically. Most ER books are interesting and funny! (ENJOYABLE!!) The screen always displays the top 5 students of the day based on the number of words they have read. (TONIC!!) You can also refer to other students' or your rivals' ranking. (COMPETITIVE!!)

Next, we held an English quiz competition with the ESS members at Oshima Shosen. We prepared English quizzes separately and asked them to each other. We found their quizzes very funny and different from ours. (ENJOYABLE!!) We were surprised to see some students figuring out correct answers quite easily. (TONIC!!) Of course, we wanted to win in the game. (COMPETITIVE!!) After the competition, we three started the ESS at our KOSEN.

As a conclusion of our presentation, let us show some achievements we have made so far. First of all, the ER management and enlightening system has increased the number of books borrowed a day. It has tripled from about 50 to 150 on average! Also, after hearing our delightful experience of the quiz competition, more and more students are joining the ESS. As a result, the number of the members has increased from 3 to 11.

These results show that the students' motivation has been enhanced significantly. And now, more and more Mr. and Miss "Motivateds" are being born. As a result of their boosted motivation, the average scores of ACE and TOEIC increased by about 50 points and about 30 points respectively.
Also, as a concrete outcome of our ETC approach, let us show how our TOEIC scores have improved. First, Mr. Matsuoka's TOEIC scores: from 320 last year to 600 this year. Next, Mr. Kimura's TOEIC scores: from 460 to 755. Third: Mr. Kimura's TOEIC scores: form 525 to 875 !

From now, we are going to apply our ETC approach to other subjects such as math and electric circuits.

Also, we would like you to try the ETC approach at your Kosens. We are pleased to help you carry out any activities using this approach.

We hope all Kosen students will be able to play an active and important part in various areas of engineering all over the world!

Kosen students, Be Motivated!!! Thank you.