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International Students Visit Nashville - Summer 2007


	Mr. Leach Is All Wet!

Some international students who have had Mr. Leach as their English teacher have known that he was “all wet” meaning he was not to be taken too seriously. In recent years, Mr. Leach has been getting wet on a regular basis by swimming. In the past, he swam in junior high and high school on a small summer team. Later, he was fortunate to be one of the managers for his university swim team. That experience led to his later becoming a professional swim coach. At U.T.M., for more than twenty years there never seemed enough time to swim on a regular basis. However, since the Spring of 2001, he has been swimming three mornings each week before starting his work day at Gooch by going to the Elam Center pool to swim. At first, he was swimming to strengthen his left ankle and foot which was injured over the Thanksgiving holidays in 2000. Later, he began training for competitive swimming after a challenge made by the some of the U. T. M. cross-country athletes.

In 2005, at the Tennessee State Senior Olympics, Mr. Leach set five state swimming records in his age group. As a result of his competition at the 2006 State games, he qualified to represent the state of Tennessee this last summer of 2007 at the National Senior Olympic Games held in Louisville, Kentucky. Because of teaching summer classes, he was not able to take a whole week off to compete.

Presently, Mr. Leach is taking a vacation away from the Elam Center pool to prepare a new subject for the Level Six University Prep course. After Christmas, he hopes to get back in the pool and once again represent TIEP, UTM, and Martin at the Tennessee Senior Olympic games. But no, he does not think he will represent the United States in Beijing, China this next summer at the Olympic Games.

Thank you to our inside source...

Mr. Frank Leach

Visiting Professor from Hirosaki

UT Martin and Hirosaki University in Japan continue their sister university relationship by having Mr. Tokuji Noro as this year’s visiting exchange professor. Mr. Noro received his B.A. in Education with a concentration in Teaching English as a Foreign Language from Hirosaki University. While pursuing undergraduate studies, he received a scholarship from the Ministry of Education in Japan to spend nine months abroad, and In 1981 and 1982, he attended The Intensive English Program at UTM and also took undergraduate courses in education and linguistics. After receiving his degree in 1984, Noro taught English in high schools in Aomori Prefecture for 18 years.

While teaching, he attended graduate school and completed his MA in Education in 2000. In 2002, he became Associate Professor at the Center for Educational Research and Practice in the Faculty of Education at Hirosaki University, a position he still holds. At Hirosaki, he teaches English Teaching Methodologies, Applied Linguistics, and English Phonetics at the undergraduate level and Second Language Acquisition and Language Assessment at the graduate level. His other responsibilities include coordinating a classroom based research program in which volunteer teacher participants learn to conduct research that aids them with material and curriculum development and teaching techniques and helps other teachers improve their teaching effectiveness.

Noro was at UTM in 2005 under a grant in aid conducting research on listening comprehension anxiety. He has written and compiled a series of articles on his research that have been published in academic journals in Japan. This past April, he received a 4 year extension of the grant to continue his research, and that in part is what brings him to UT Martin as the 23rd visiting professor from Hirosaki. Noro says, “ Although I can conduct some of my research in Japan, being here gives me the unique opportunity to be my own subject.” He goes on to say, “ Since there are so many international students here, I can also talk to them about their language learning experience and deepen my own understanding of the listening comprehension process.”

While at UT Martin, Noro will be making some presentations to classes in the English Department and will also be involved with several of the English Writing Center’s events and activities. In addition, he is serving as a conversation partner and cultural resource in the Modern Foreign Language Department’s Japanese courses. He is also scheduled as one of the speakers in a series of presentations on Japanese culture by the Center for Global Studies and International Education to take place the latter part of November.

Noro is single, and his interests include hiking, skiing, fishing, and listening to classical music. He will be here at UTM through December 17th.

International Food Fair 2007

Students from Mali,

Salimata and Aboubacar,

serve delicacies from their country.

Taiwanese students
prepare with a smile.

Saudi Arabian students

display their flag.

32nd International Food Fair

Students from India, Japan, Korea, Mali, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan and Turkey participated in the 32nd annual International Food Fair, one of the events of International Week at the University of Tennessee at Martin. TIEP and international regular curriculum students work together to prepare typical dishes of their cultures so that UT Martin faculty, students and members of the Martin community can sample them. Many of the international students came wearing traditional clothing helping to recreate the atmosphere of home.

This year the ambience was augmented by the performance of the UT Martin Percussion Ensemble under the direction of Dr. Julie Hill. With special guest performer, Dr. Evaristo Aguilar, from Universidad Autonoma de Tamaulipas in Tampico, Mexico. The group performed music from many parts of the globe including Africa, Brazil, Egypt, Italy, and Mexico and brought everyone to their feet.

Saudi Rhythm & Dr. Julie Hill & Percussion Ensemble

Volume 5 - pdf to print	Fall 2007 Past Issues: Archive
Web: www.utm.edu/tiep	E-mail: tiep@utm.edu

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