Activity Report of Open Application Course vol.13
Science and technology exchange program with high school students of Vietnam
Report from Shibuya Junior & Senior High School
The Shibuya Junior & Senior High School invited 10 students and 1 faculty member for a period of 8 days from the 23rd to the 30th of July, focusing on the graduates of Lee Ton Qui Middle School in Hanoi, Vietnam. The Shibuya school has continued exchanges with the youth of Singapore, China, Vietnam and other Asian countries for more than 15 years, and the interest of the students in Asia is also high. They invited the students this time, as the Shibuya school has become a Super Global High School (SGS) designated school.
The invitation for this time was planned based on two major themes. The first theme was collaborative experiment with the students of the Shibuya school, and the second theme was recognition of advanced science of Japan and stimulating interest in Japanese science and technology.
Specifically, the collaborative experiment was conducted in two fields. The first one was the “COD measurement” which is also key to solving environmental problems in Vietnam, and the second one was “Observing DNA of rice plant” using the Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) method. Since the study content of science in the Vietnamese high school was not known, the purpose and procedure of the experiment, and the fields that were to be studied in advance were sent in the English language, and the confirmation of experiment contents was made. The collaborative experiment was conducted in English as the main language, and they carried out two experiments over three days, with the help of a few interpreters. The Vietnamese high school students participated with great interest in the two experiments, as science studies in Vietnam were focused on classroom lectures.
The planning aspects, such as the method of introducing Japanese advanced science, stimulating interest in Japanese science and technology, and encouraging the motivation to study abroad in Japan in the future, in order to enhance interest in the Japanese advanced science of the second theme, and the method to deal with the language tool that connects these, were carefully examined.
Tokyo University requested the cooperation of the Vietnamese International Student Association, to explain the advanced science and technology content to high school students accurately and in an easy-to-understand manner, and adopted the method of introducing Japanese advanced technology in the Vietnamese language. The advanced technologies such as Robotics engineering, Genome analysis etc. can be easily introduced with the cooperation of the teaching faculty of each laboratory. The introducing person was a Vietnamese international student, and the questions were diversified such as about life in Japan, how to study abroad in Japan, etc. The interpreter was requested from the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies where the Shibuya school has a high-level collaboration agreement, and was also requested from the college students from Vietnam studying in Japan, and it seems that studying abroad in Japan has doubled the feeling of being closer to Japan.
In the post questionnaire, there was a very good opinion from everyone, especially that they were very interested in studying abroad in a Japanese university. This program was safely concluded because of the cooperation extended by many people who cooperated with this invitation. Thank you very much.
Translator’s remarks: “Ao dai” is a Vietnamese traditional garment, worn by both men and women, but now most commonly worn by women. In its current form, it is a tight-fitting silk tunic worn over trousers. Ao means “shirt”, and Dài means “long”.