Esther Helen Ratcliff

Date(From)

2023/04

Date(To)

2024/06

Subjcet

First Year English Seminar
Academic Discussion Skills
Second Year English Seminar
Integrated English A
Career English (Total Presentation)
Discussion Skills
Listening and Presentation
Critical Reading and Discussion

Summary

The majority of classes I teach fall under the First Foreign Language department. Classes taught include the following: Critical Reading and Discussion, Listening and Presentation, Discussion Skills, Academic Discussion Skills, Reading II and from 2024, the new Global Citizenship Program. Activities in these classes include giving presentations, having group discussions and extensive reading program using graded readers from the LARECE centre. My students in Discussion Skills also had the chance to attend the guest lecture, the ambassador to Rwanda in November 2023.



I also have two classes in the English Department, which are First Year English Seminar and Second Year English Seminar. In the former, students are preparing to take the IELTS exam, so classes are spent developing skills for the different parts of the exam, such as doing timed readings, improving writing skills and practising for the different parts of the speaking test. Students are also introduced to academic writing later in the year. In SYES, students further develop their academic writing skills and learn about how to use research outside sources and refer to them in their writing.



Lastly, I also have one class in the Career English program, called Total Presentation Workshop 1. Over the course of the year, students learnt two approaches to giving persuasive presentations, including how to use ethos, pathos and logos. This class also focuses a lot on teaching students how to lead discussions.

Contributions I wish to make this year:In the classroom, there are two specific areas I want to work on. Firstly, I would like to focus on showing students how the activities and skills they learn in my classes relate to their future lives. For instance, when students work in groups doing group presentations, teaching them explicitly about how teamwork skills will benefit them in the future. This will help them to see the link between what they learn in class, with skills they can use in their professional life. The second aspect relates to a reflection I have had over the last year. It is related to students being over-reliant on their smartphones. An area I think students need help with is techniques for not relying on their smartphone and/or translation sites to help them express their ideas. An approach to solving this is to help students to use more circumlocution, i.e. using strategies to express themselves even though they might not know the exact word they want to use.


Outside the classroom, I want to focus on making students better autonomous learners. I can do this by showing students where they can access materials and/or extra programs going on at university. Even when teachers tell their students where they can access further resources, students might not necessarily be proactive. One way I can do this is taking my students to the library and LARECE centre to see where they can access materials. In this way, I think students will be more likely to make use of resources, which will help them to take responsibility for their learning.

Date(From)

2024/06

Date(To)

2025/06

Subjcet

Academic Discussion Skills
Study Skills
Second Year English Seminar
Integrated English A
Career English (Total Presentation)
Exploring Content: Reading and Writing
Exploring Content: Listening and Speaking
Critical Reading and Discussion

Summary

Teaching Activities:

The majority of the classes I taught last year (2024-2025) and this year (2025-2026) fall under the LARECE First Foreign Language courses. Classes include the following: Critical Reading and Discussion, Exploring Content: Listening and Speaking, Exploring Content: Reading and Writing, Academic Discussion Skills, and Integrated English A class. Activities in these classes include giving presentations, having group discussions, improving writing skills, and improving knowledge of academic vocabulary.

I also have one class in the English Department, which is the Second Year English Seminar (SYES). In this class, students develop their academic writing skills and learn about how to incorporate research from outside sources into their writing. Themes cover Professional English, English studies and English Education.

I also teach a 4th year Career English class called Total Presentation Workshop 1. Throughout the year, these students learn two approaches to giving persuasive presentations, such as how to use ethos, pathos and logos. This class also focuses on teaching students how to lead discussions.




Contributions I wish to make this year:

In the classroom, there are two areas that I wish to focus on this year and next. First, is how to promote autonomous learning from within the classroom. To do this, I allow students to access their online learning content in the class. This helps establish positive routines for self-study and also helps me as the teacher, to be a facilitator as I can help the students who cannot access the content, or do not know how to use it effectively. This area is directly related to my current research focus, which continues to be helping to make students better autonomous learners. My research, which I presented at JALT PANSIG in May 2025, shows that the extent to which learners feel autonomous, greatly depends on the advice and help from the teacher.
I will also present research related to creating learner autonomy and Learning Management Systems at JALT Computer Assisted Language Learning conference in July 2025.

The second area that I wish to develop more is integrating digital literacy into my classes and materials. This is an ongoing active research project that will help me to better equip my learners with the right skills to navigate different technology. This might involve teaching students how to be critical when using AI-generated material or highlighting the drawbacks to using certain technologies for learning. This area follows on from my action research from last year, which was related to helping students not to rely heavily on their smartphones as translation tools in class. Combining these two approaches will help my students become better independent learners.