1 Welcome to Ming Chuan University! (Although it’s now Week 3!)

2 English for PhD students Teacher: Simon Smith ( 史尚明 ) – “Dr Smith”, “Simon” or “ 老師 ”: OK – “Smith” or “Teacher”: not OK This semester’s course: – English presentation skills (40%) – Academic writing skills (40%) – Reading skills (20%)

3 About me… I first came to Taiwan in 1991 I have been married to a Taiwanese woman, Emily, for 12 years We have two boys, Owen (8) and Iain (3) I come from… BA in Linguistics and Chinese, Leeds MSc in Machine Translation, Manchester PhD in Statistical Language Modeling, Birmingham Post-doctoral year at Academia Sinica This is my fourth year at Ming Chuan

4 Why take this course? It’s taught (mostly) in English – Your English reading, writing, listening and speaking will all improve It’s taught in a Western way: you will – think critically – discuss issues with classmates and teacher – question what classmates, teacher and even famous social scientists say You will learn to – describe your own ideas, and others’ ideas, in a logical way, by giving a presentation to the class – write a medium-length essay, in the Western tradition

5 Class rules Attendance is mandatory – Assistant class leader please take attendance at break time – More than 4 missed classes (whether for sickness, sports, laziness, 病假, 公假, or any reason) – 0%! If you arrive late, you must apologize and explain the reason Please don’t eat hot food Please switch off your phone Please don’t chatter while I’m speaking Work only on class material during class time

6 Class website Here you will find – Something about me and my research interests – These PowerPoint slides – Syllabus, recommended reading and websites – Your grades »Check grades on-line after work is returned to you

7 Student introductions (3-5 minutes) Your name Your family Your hometown Your pets Your partner, if any Your travel experience Your academic background (first and higher degrees) Your professional background Your research plans Your career plans

8 Your English website Start to make an English website This week, create an online résumé – Include information from your introduction – Make it look attractive Later, you can add more information about your study and research the link to me, within 2 weeks – That’s before 16th October

9 Information needed Are you all studying exactly the same courses? What other courses do you have? How many credits do they count for? What textbooks do you use? Are any other courses taught in English? How much of what I say do you understand?