I sat down with our Visiting Lecturer, David Shea after his lecture to ask about his impression of the students at Connect. It was very interesting to see that his class provided thought provoking questions and students really enjoyed it.

David is originally from Georgia, but has been working in Japan since 1993. He has been teaching content based courses such as Contemporary film, Discourse of advertising, Writing presentation and Academic literacy skills in order to develop English proficiency. He joined as a full time instructor at Keio University in 2000 and is still working there. He first visited Myanmar in 2014 with some of his university students and realized that he would like to come back again to contribute more for the young people here.

He is back this year and is teaching a short course called the "Discourse of Advertisement," to the students at Connect. When asked how he finds his classes, he replied that he enjoyed the classes a lot, as students asked perceptive questions and found that they are bright, energetic and committed. He thinks that it is really important to create an open, friendly, supportive and comfortable atmosphere for students to contribute. He is satisfied with the way students responded as they can interpret the concepts behind the story of each advertisement. Not only was he surprised but also glad to hear answers that he didn't expect or thought about before.

He uses a structured and interactive teaching style with a dialogic approach. He thinks it gets the students involved and engaged as the instructor and students learn from each other instead of just him lecturing alone.

One last thing that he wants to tell the students is a famous quote that is commonly known in Japan - "Boys, Girls, Be Ambitious!" He also tells the students to be constructive and positive with their lives, as it is always encouraging for the world to have people who are committed.

By Olive Too