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On Thursday, July 10, the Center for Academic Practice and Resources held the 2nd TA Seminar of the 2025 at the Student Plaza (1st floor) on the Higashi-Hiroshima Campus. The theme of this session was ¡°What Does It Mean to Truly Communicate? ¡ª Communication Strategies in Educational Settings.¡± The seminar aimed to explore not just how to ¡°convey¡± information, but how to ensure it is truly ¡°understood¡± in educational contexts.¡¡

A total of 11 participants attended the event, including 4 undergraduate students from the School of Letters, Engineering, Informatics and Data Science, as well as 7 graduate students from the Graduate Schools of Humanities and Social Sciences, Advanced Science and Engineering, and Integrated Sciences for Life.

The seminar began with a talk by a student staff member of the center, discussing the difference between ¡°conveying¡± and ¡°communicating.¡± This was followed by two workshops where participants actively exchanged ideas based on real-life educational scenarios involving communication breakdowns and their possible solutions.  

In Workshop 1, participants reflected on their own experiences of failed communication and explored possible causes. Key issues included cultural differences, overly abstract or technical explanations, and one-sided communication that fails to consider the listener¡¯s reactions. Workshop 2 built on these insights with group discussions on how to respond when communication fails. Using the key points raised earlier as prompts, participants proposed concrete strategies for improving communication in educational settings.  

Post-event feedback included comments such as: ¡°I now understand what I can do to better communicate.¡±, ¡°It was meaningful to share perspectives with people I usually don¡¯t interact with.¡± Some participants also suggested improvements, including: ¡°I¡¯d like to learn useful phrases for translating between Japanese and English so I can communicate more smoothly with students who don¡¯t speak Japanese in class.¡±,¡°It might be helpful to switch seats during the workshop to encourage a wider range of discussions.¡±  We hope to reflect on this feedback in planning future seminars.  

The next TA Seminar is scheduled for the fall semester. Details will be announced on the website and via Momiji as soon as they are finalized. All of us at Center Academic Practice and Resource look forward to welcoming you again.  

Center Academic Practice and Resource, Student Staff: Yiran Zheng

Graduate School of Integrated Sciences for Life