Enhancing Japanese Student Engagement: The Voice of Experience

Okayama University has seen recently an upsurge in the number of courses taught in English. While students generally like the English-medium courses for the abundance and novelty of information available in them, they tend to show hesitance to participate, which sometimes leads to dissatisfaction with the courses. International faculty members also feel something is amiss because they do not understand why students fail to be responsive. Clearly, enhancement of student participation and mitigation of the alienating teaching experience of international faculty are challenges to effective administration of global studies. To that end, the quiet cultivation of optimal demographics for Englishmedium courses is currently the most effective strategy.