안녕하세요 :)

어느새 2022년 1월 시작을 위한 영국유학준비반이 시작되었습니다~

지난 6월 수업이 엊그제 같은데 벌써 11월이 되었네요 :)

날씨도 이젠 진짜 겨울이에요~

우리 학생분들의 옷차림도 다 무거워진 것 같아요 ㅎㅎ

이번 수업 과목으로는 금요일엔 물리, 수학, 영어가, 토요일엔 화학과 생물 수업이 진행됩니다.

Our university preparation classes at SAUK have just gotten underway!

While on Saturday we are hosting chemistry and biology courses. 

[이소희 대리 한글 후기] 

물리 수업은 소수정예로 총 2명의 학생과 선생님이 진행하게 됩니다~

출석률 100% !!!

작은 방에서 오순도순 수업하는 모습이 너무 보기 좋네요~ㅎㅎ

금요일반의 첫번째 수업은 물리 수업!~

대부분의 학생들은 고등학교 때부터 물리수업을 들었지만~ 꽤 오래전 일이라 가물가물 할 수 있어요 ㅠㅠ

하지만 총 6주차의 수업을 통해 물리 과목을 격파하실 수 있습니다!!!

아래는 물리수업 1주차 과제 내용이며, 총 6주차까지 진행됩니다. 

[튜터 마이크 영문 후기]

On Friday we welcomed our students who will be taking physics as part of their upcoming modules. I really enjoyed physics when I was a high school student, but that was so long ago!

Here was their first assignment, how much would you be able to do?

Nerina 물리 담당 튜터 선생님~

실제로 호주대학교 물리 과목 파운데이션 튜터 출신으로~

현재는 수년간 한국에서 물리 담당 튜터 선생님으로 활동하고 계신답니다 ^^

우리 학생분들~ 앞으로의 수업이 정말 기대가 되네요!!~

I’m really looking forward to seeing what other material and concepts they will cover in their upcoming classes.

동시에 다른 교실에선 수학 수업이 진행되었습니다.

수업 수업은 파운데이션과 A레벨을 준비하는 학생분들이 듣기에 공통적인 주제로 진행되어요.

수학수업에 참여하는 학생들의 대부분 전공은 경영, 비즈니스 분석, 보험통계, 정치학입니다. 

아래는 앞으로 진행될 주차별 수업 개요입니다!​

At same time, we had our mathematics class. This is a very common course for students to take as part of their A-Levels or foundation courses. The students in our math course have a diversity of majors such as political science, actuarial science, business administration and business analytics. 

Therefore, our class outline has to cover as many common topics as possible. 

학생분들은 다양한 수학적 배경이나 지식을 필요로 하기 때문에 

각각의 학생들에게 맞는 교육과정을 고안하는 것이 어려웠어요.

하지만! 이번 수업을 통해 가능한 한 모든 학생이 적합한 롤을 찾을 수 있도록 하는게 SAUK 영국유학준비반 목표랍니다.^^!!

Each student will need various mathematical background or knowledge, so it was hard to devise a curriculum which suits each student. However, this course will do a fine job to prepare everyone as broadly as possible.​

 열정적인 우리 학생들의 모습~~

그리고 수학 담당 튜터 Mike 선생님 :)

Mike 선생님은 전 국제고등학교 수학 교사 출신으로 미국인입니다~

그러니 당연히?? 모든 수업은 영어로 진행이 되겠죠 :)

실제 파운데이션 교재로 진행하는 SAUK 영국유학준비반 수학수업~~~~~ 

금요일의 마지막 수업은 아카데믹 영어입니다.

수학수업과 유사하게 영어 수업은 전공에 상관 없이 모든 학생들이 수강해야 하는 필수 과목이죠 ^^

영국 대학교에선 영어수업 이름을 EAP (English for Academic Purpose) 또는 (Extended Project) 또는 Academic English라고 불리지만 대학교마다 쓰이는 명칭이 다르답니다~

SAUK의 아카데믹 영어 수업에선 아카데믹한 라이팅 스킬, 리서치 스킬과 더불어 IELTS와 유사한 수업 또한 진행됩니다. 

위 사진은 수업 전 아이스 브레이킹 시간으로 간단한 게임을 진행했어요 ㅎㅎ

동사와 명사를 붙여서 맞추는 게임인데 소리를 내지 않고 몸동작만으로 알아 맞춰야 되는 게임 :)

사진을 찍는 저도 너무 웃겨서 몰입되었다는...ㅋㅋㅋ

열정적인 우리 학생의 몸짓 좀 보세요!!! 

The last course of the day was our Academic English course. Similar to mathematics, English is an absolute essential course all students take regardless of their major. Each university might name their course something slightly different. However, names such as EAP (English for Academic Purpose), EP (Extended Project), or Academic English are common names. In these classes student may take English class that resembles an IELTS course, in addition to working on their academic writing and research.

위 사진은!~ 영어 수업의 실라버스에요.

본 수업의 궁극적 목표는 아카데믹한 글쓰기를 어떻게 하면 매끄럽게 쓸 수 있는지!! 에 대해 배우는 시간이 될 거에요.

각 주제에선 연구 논문의 모든 구성 요소를 사용하게 될거고, 

1,500개 이상의 단어를 사용한 에세이 작성과 발표 수업이 진행될 예정입니다.

SAUK 영국유학준비반 수업 커리큘럼은 실제 영국대학교 수업을 반영한 수업 과정이랍니다~

굉장히 비슷한 성격이라는 점!~

Above is the syllabus for this course. The goal will be to expose students how to do proper research for academic writing. Following along that theme, will be all the components of a full research paper. The class will culminate with a presentation and final essay of over 1,500 words. This assignment and curriculum will mirror what they will have to do in the near future. 

열정적인 우리 학생분들 ㅋㅋㅋ

비록 첫 수업이 낯설고~ 어려울지라도, 

실제 파운데이션 또는 A레벨 과정 전 본 영국유학준비반 수업이 굉장히 많은 도움이 되실거에요 :)

그럼 2주차 때 뵐게요!!~​ ​ 

Even if students struggle or have difficulties now, the hope is that this experience will enable them to handle the rigors of university life which awaits them just around the corner.
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Week 2 Physics, Math, English

Some people think the first day of studying is the hardest day. While I don’t disagree, I actually think the second day is even harder. It can be easy to start something and quit, but it takes perseverance and determination to want to keep going.

With that being said, I was very satisfied to see our students demonstrate their commitment to their educational preparation.

During physics class last week, students learned about Newton’s 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd laws. Further they studied the properties of solids, liquids and gases. Here is a slide from the PPT, with some fantastic diagrams to further enforce the material in a visually appealing way. 

To start mathematics class, we always go over homework problems. I usually have students go to the board and explain how they solved a problem of their choice. After that, I will go over any difficult problems they could not understand.

Here I was explaining how to set up a proper system of equations in order to solve the given word problem.

After that, we moved on to covering the properties of various functions and linear transformations. Students need a solid understanding of graphing and distinguishing between different types of functions. Can you easily identify what different types of slopes look like?  

This is the type of basic information that students most certainly learned, but being able to explain it in English could be challenging. Oh, and I am excited to show you next week the homework assignment I gave to students!

For the final class of the day, everyone came together for English class. We started off by doing some riddles, which I love. Our clever student was able to solve more than half of the 10 I provided, which was extremely impressive! Here’s a fun one…

Do you know the answer? It is ENT. Why? The original pattern is the first letter of each number from 1-7. (O)ne, (T)wo, (T)hree…So the answer is (E)ight, (N)ine, (T)en. I love riddles <3

After the warm up, we looked at a sample of one student’s essay and provided feedback in groups. This was reviewing paragraph and overall essay structure learned in week 1. From there, we investigated how to think critically when choosing credible sources to use in our academic essays. Here I am explaining the misleading trends students might come across in newspapers, journals or magazines that are biased.

It was another fun week of Friday classes, looking forward to week 3!

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 Week 3 Physics, Math, English 

We are almost at the middle point of our program. By now, students and tutors have started to become quite familiar with each other. The class structure, homework, lecture style and expectations are quite clear. In addition, students definitely know each other’s name, major and where they will be going to university next year. It takes a few weeks, but it’s quite nice that we’ve arrived at this point. Let’s take a look at what happened in this week’s classes.

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 Velocity, period and frequency seem to be some of the key topics from this particular week’s lesson. Our student is enjoying her private lesson with our physics wiz, soaking in a tremendous amount of new knowledge each week. In addition, the homework load is quite heavy, but our star student graciously accepts the challenge. Here is what the assignment was. 

A common theme for all our classes is the focus on explanation, and understanding of all material taught. We are not teaching for an exam, or for any multiple-choice tests. We are all trying our best to develop the minds of our students to be success during their study abroad life. 

After that, we compared and contrasted the differences between logs and exponential functions. Students took notes well and followed up with some practice examples and a short discussion. This is definitely an example where we could simple just solve calculations and word problems. However, the fundamental knowledge behind the definitions and understanding the differences are extremely crucial.  

After math class, everyone joined together for English class. The goal of our academic English class is to get students experience with writing, researching and paraphrasing at the university level. As such, there are many steps and procedures that are important to cover slowly. One of the major topics from this week was paraphrasing. We started discussing, in our own perspectives, what this means. After that, we used outside resources to enhance and supplement our understanding. 

It can be overwhelming each week for our students. They are usually taking multiple classes, all taught in English. For those with no experience living or studying abroad, it is a true culture shock and unique preparation experience. In addition, students are adding a number of skills to their toolbelts every class. As a result, I hope students can keep up and transform the knowledge into ability. See you next week! Let's keep preparing well together :) 

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Week 4

As we begin the second half of our SAUK university preparation courses, I’d like to give a shoutout to all our fabulous instructors. Teaching any subject at the university level is no easy task. The amount of knowledge and background information needed to properly instruct and answer student inquiries is vast. In addition, the time invested into each class is not just the hours in the classroom but the amount of preparation that goes into making suitable class materials, choosing homework problems and providing insightful feedback to student

 Even though I try my best to prepare for all the possible questions I may receive, I definitely make mistakes or can get confused. So again, a huge thank you to our instructors who graciously invest their time for the betterment of our students. Here, I was mentally preparing how I would explain a lot of the homework problems I had given the previous week for homework. 

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This week in mathematics class I’d like to highlight one of our star students. She finished our preparation classes with perfect attendance, joining every single one of our math and English classes. What makes this feat even more impressive is that she traveled each week from Daejeon and often came a bit early. Here you can see her getting some 1-1 time in before the class started. Thanks for all your effort and time during our 6 weeks of studying together :) We will miss seeing you each week, please keep in touch~

This week in physics class our tutor introduced the notion of static electricity. Throughout class there were a lot of important concepts and laws discussed like fields, circuits, Coulomb’s Law and Newton’s 3^rd Law. As with any new concept, learning just from a book at times is not sufficient. Therefore, our instructor used interactive resources to more easily depict the applications she was trying to teach.

Physics certainly is not an easy class. If you’ve been keeping up thus far, you must have noticed the amount of homework she assigns each week. Our star physics student has been keeping up and hasn’t let any challenge stop her so far. It’s not easy to find a qualified native English speaking physics tutor, so come join us if you’re interested! By the way, if this was your weekly homework assignment, do you think you’d be able to keep up?

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Switching over to English class, you can see how I organize my English class. I always attach a PDF version of the class materials, with all the links used in class. Students are anxiously preparing their final presentations and essays.

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As a warm up activity, we learned about mad libs today. A mad lib is a fun English activity where you create a story based on supplying your own verbs, nouns, adjective into a pre-made template. Beforehand however, I thought I would introduce a mad lib example from Jimmy Fallon’s talk show with special guest Benedict Cumberbatch.

After viewing the example, students broke up into pairs and created their own. I think it’s always nice to start class with some type of speaking activity to activate their brains. 4 weeks down, 2 to go!~

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Week 5

We are approaching the final stretch of our university preparation classes. After this week, our last week is just around the corner!

​During math class we started with a review of matrix multiplication. This is definitely a concept that not many Korean students have vast experience with. Being able to put matrices into reduced row echelon form or finding the determinant are most likely new concepts to everyone reading. After going over some of the main concepts from last week, I proceeded to go over the homework questions that I had assigned.

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It’s quite convenient to have a nice white board next to the screen. I’m always thankful to our students who try their best to listen to my math instruction and, at times, my poor jokes.

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Moving to another type of math, physics carried on as usual! Class consisted of learning about properties of wavelengths and color. Afterwards, our tutor used some humorous images to illustrate why refraction can be funny~

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Here Nerina is explaining about Snell’s Law which is a relationship relating the index of refraction in a given medium and incident light angle to the index of refraction in the new medium and the refracted light angle. Are you confused? I am slightly! Looking at the formula I do notice the use of sigma and the sin function. As long as there are some mathematics functions and symbols, physics will always be interesting to me~

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The last class of Friday was English as usual. I think students are starting to finally feel nervous about their presentations and essays (which are due next class). Typically, students procrastinate until the last possible moment, although I tried my best to convince them not to. This project in English class is a great preview of what is to come in their ‘extended project’ (EP) English class during foundation. We try our best to prepare our students with as similar a project as they will encounter as possible. With our preparation and experience, students can feel confidence they can do a fantastic job in their real course next year.

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Week 6

Is it okay to say we saved the best for last? I think so!

This week in math class, I excitedly taught students about my favorite types of problems in statistics. Although statistics is a branch of mathematics, I think it is truly has my favorite mathematics concepts and ideas. I’ve always loved games and numbers, so statistics and probability are perfect ways to combine my interests with learning.​ 

Here you can see a blank normal distribution curve with the accompanying percentages based on the z-scores on the x-axis. Below is a typical example of the type of problem you’d be presented with in statistics class. In the real world, many variables are thought to be normally distributed in our human population. Things such as height, IQ and birth size are a few prime examples. By knowing a sample is normally distributed with a given mean and standard deviation, there is a myriad of accompanying data we can discover~

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By using the chart above, we can find the probability greater than, less than or between any z-scores. Hope you all had fun with my riddles and discussing various paradoxes.

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Nuclear physics sounds like a fun way to end the class, don’t you think? Honestly, it sounds quite challenging, but students who tend to study physics are smart cookies. Our physics tutor always prepares detailed power points with excellent diagrams. There is not enough space to display all of her work, but I’m sure you can get an idea with the samples shown in our blog.

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The more diverse examples of power points students can witness from our various instructors also gives them an idea of what to expect at university. Not every professor teaches, talks or prepares in the same way. Our students are lucky they can learn from so many unique individuals.

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As a final going away present, Nerina has left us with some important vocabulary and concepts to review. As well as some homework problems for good measure. Thanks for all your work as always!

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In between math and English class was our students’ last break time! I thought it would be fun to get some snacks to lighten up the mood. As you can see, snacks are always welcome and were enjoyed by all. What’s your favorite kind of Korean snack? Maybe I will buy it for next year’s class~​

My hope was snacks would take the pressure off of students as they prepared for their final presentations. I definitely think it worked! Students gave fantastic presentations and displayed a lot of confidence. As expected, some were nervous, but I think they were grateful for the experience. Preparing for studying abroad while in Korea, with friends and experienced staff is the perfect way to jump-start your next step. If you want to learn academic English, writing and presentation skills, we can support you!​ Lastly, here’s just a small peak into one student presentation topic.

Thanks for reading and following our blog! If you're looking to prepare your academic journey with us, please stop by or contact us​. It's been a pleasure to share with you all what we're doing here~

Sincerely,

-Mike-
SAUK Academic Support Tutor