智慧生醫博士學位學程 竹村和浩 老師
Ph.D. Program in Biomedical Artificial Intelligence 
Assistant Professor Kazuhiro Takemura

In this year's EMI course, the most noticeable changes in students' learning were connected to the two major adjustments I made after participating in the EMI teacher community. The first change was to strengthen teacher–student interaction by embedding more questions directly into the lecture slides. I intentionally created multiple short moments in each class where every student was asked to respond, even with a simple explanation or confirmation. At the beginning of the semester, many students seemed hesitant to speak, but as these opportunities became a regular part of the class, they gradually became more comfortable expressing their thoughts in English. Some students who were very quiet at the beginning of the semester eventually began asking spontaneous questions or sharing brief comments about the content. This shift suggests that a consistent, low-pressure invitation to speak can significantly reduce students' anxiety in an EMI environment and help them engage more actively with the material. This approach was inspired by the EMI community’s emphasis on lowering linguistic barriers and encouraging frequent micro-interactions.

The second change involved increasing student-to-student interaction. After completing each topic, I provided a small discussion task that required students to talk with their classmates before we moved on. Taiwanese students were allowed to discuss in Chinese if needed, but the final summary always had to be presented in English. Since the class included several international students, these activities naturally created opportunities for cross-cultural communication and collaboration. Over time, I noticed that students' explanations became clearer and more structured, and their confidence in using English for scientific reasoning improved. Even the quieter students seemed more active during group discussions, and they showed better engagement when we returned to the full-class setting.

Taken together, these two adjustments led to a noticeable improvement in how actively students participated, how confidently they spoke in English, and how deeply they engaged with the course content throughout the semester. In this EMI course, my main focus was to increase the level of interaction in the classroom. This idea came directly from the EMI teacher community, where many discussions emphasized that students need frequent and simple opportunities to speak in order to feel more comfortable using English. Based on this idea, I intentionally redesigned my lessons so that interaction was built into the structure of every class. Rather than treating questions as optional additions, I made them part of the slides themselves, and I tried to create small moments where each student had to say something, even if it was just a short explanation or a confirmation. I learned that interaction does not need to be complicated; what matters is consistency and lowering the psychological barrier to speaking.

Preparing these questions was more difficult than I expected. Designing problems for homework or exams is straightforward for me, but designing simple, approachable questions for in-class interaction took a surprising amount of time. I often spent longer thinking about the question than preparing the content itself. However, through the teacher community and through my own trial and error, I realized that questions do not need to be deep or highly analytical. Even very simple questions are effective in helping students stay engaged and preparing them to ask their own questions later. After accepting this idea, preparing questions became a little easier.