Professor Mike Igoe from the State University of New York at Fredonia visited SUSTech from March 11th to March 17th. He conducted a series of nine seminars on public speaking and presentation skills, learning English, understanding American society, writing right, media ethics, etc.
Over the years, Professor Mike won a lot of awards in public speaking and he was a television consumer reporter for over 30 years before he switched to teaching in Universities. Recently he won an award from the Broadcast Education Association for the Best Instructional Video on Good Storytelling.
On March 10th when Professor Mike arrived at SUSTech, he attended the third meeting of the Voice of SUSTech, a public speaking club supervised by Dr. Zhuo Li and Matthew Jellick. There he demonstrated effective and lively public speaking skills, observed and gave constructive feedback on students presentations. He received very positive responses from students and the gathering was fruitful and fun. During the week of his visit, he was also invited by Dr. Zhuo Li and Dr. Elaine Ng to their public speaking and English classes to meet their students and shared with them public speaking and learning English skills. He answered students’ questions about public speaking, English learning, and American culture. “Professor Igoe is the right person,” Dr. Li said. “He’s a seasoned public speaker, publishing about and teaching public speaking. His rich experience and practical suggestions are great treasure to my students.”
Possessing charisma, a sociable personality and a great sense of humor, Professor Mike was well-liked by our students. Obviously students were engaged and inspired creatively by his talks and sharing of his experiences as a TV consumer reporter before he taught in academia. He was asked a lot of sensible questions related to his presentation topic after every seminar.
The two most popularly received workshops are the ones on “English colloquialism” and “Learning conversation English.” Students generally found the talks substantial, interesting, and inspiring. The seminars provoked their interest to learn daily life English in a lively and fun way. The following are snapshots of students’ brief comments on the workshops:
“I think the workshop was perfect because it taught us various practical words. The part I liked most was the interaction with native speakers.”
“It’s great, the part about bargaining. I was interested in the process.”
“Because of cultural differences, we are not native speakers. It’s important to know some colloquial English that can help us learn more about a country.”
“It’s interesting and useful. Two parts both caught my attention: the first part let me know new things and the second one taught me how to learn English better.”
“I think Prof. Mike was outstanding, he spoke fluently and loudly, which was impressive.”
“It’s great. The teacher was very funny. The colloquialism caught my attention because I learned many expressions that I have never heard of.”
Professor Mike’s visit benefited both our students and staff. We look forward to similar events organized by the CLE in future. This kind of function is a very meaningful activity conducted to help students enhance their interest, widen their scope, and motivate them to learn English outside conventional classroom setting through social interaction and exposure to a native-speaking environment.
By Elaine
