Science Tutorials in an English-Language
Program for Science Students
Kimie YAMAMURA
Diego Tavares VASQUESTom GALLY

Introduction
English has become the common language of the scientific community, and scientists are usually required to publish their findings in academic journals in English. Many efforts have been
focused on improving the English-language skills of future andworking scientists from non-English-speaking countries. However, by focusing mainly on linguistic and communicative issues,
the contributions of language educators have often overlookedsome important elements of the scientific process: the transmission of knowledge and expertise within scientific communities—
especially small-scale, local communities, such as laboratories,
research teams, and people in mentor-mentee relationships—
and the connection of that transmission process to the acquisition and use of linguistic skills such as research-paper writing. In
this paper, we look at how scientific knowledge and expertise aretransmitted within a pedagogical context that replicates many of
the features of actual scientific communities, and we discuss therole that English-language education can play within the scientific process.

Scientific communication
The primary medium for conveying the results of scientificresearch is the research paper. As explained by the Brazilian educator Marcos Villela Pereira, the purpose of a scientific paper is toconvince the readers of the reliability of the obtained results andto assert that the discoveries are true (2013, p. 218). To be
accepted by scientists as truths, the phenomena described in a73

KOMABA JOURNAL OF ENGLISH EDUCATION

paper need to be rigorously investigated not only by the paper’s
authors but also by other individuals and institutions. Scientificwriting, as the applied linguist Caroline Coffin has stated, istherefore characterized by rigid expectations for particular text
types (2005, p. 49), with the language, structure, and format ofscientific papers being largely standardized so that knowledge
can be extracted from them easily and so that the claims of different papers can be compared.
Perhaps the most conventional overall structure for scientific papers is IMRaD—Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion. The Introduction section explores the background of the
topic, discusses what is known and unknown about it, and raises
a research question. This research question is explored based ona hypothesis that usually involves a prediction, suggesting a
possible way to answer the research question. The Methods section contains all the necessary information—including materials,
conditions, and procedures, which are usually listed chronologically—so that other scientists can obtain the same results if they
follow the methods presented in the paper. The obtained results
are usually presented in the Results section, with raw data being
processed statistically and presented in the form of figures ortables so that readers can easily and visually understand theresults. In the Discussion section, the obtained results may becompared with those of previous research and are interpretedwith reference to the hypothesis. Descriptions of possible
improvements to the research or pathways for future study arealso important topics for this section (Coffin, 2005, p. 23). The
body of the paper usually ends with a Conclusion section, where
the findings are summarized. With some variation—sometimes
the Results and Discussion sections are combined, for example,
or the detailed methodology might be relegated to an appendix—scientific papers are generally structured in this way.
Each of these sections is written based on certain rhetoricalrules and registers. For example, in the Introduction, the present
tense is used to describe known and unknown information,
while the past tense is used to refer to the results of previous
studies (ALESS, 2012, p. 83). The Methods section is usually
written in the past tense, except for previously known facts, andwith verbs in both the active and passive voices (ALESS, 2012,p. 104). The Results section begins with the most important
74

SCIENCE TUTORIALS IN AN ENGLISH-LANGUAGE PROGRAM FOR SCIENCE STUDENTS

result that answers the research question raised in the Introduction (ALESS, 2012, p. 122). Throughout the paper, an objective
tone is used, with little or no suggestion of the authors’ subjective perceptions or views.
These linguistic features of English-language scientificpapers create challenges for many scientists who use English as asecond or foreign language. The use of tense in English, forexample, can be difficult for native speakers of Japanese, inwhich aspect rather than tense is grammatically dominant. The
emphasis on an objective, impersonal tone can also be problematic for scientists who have mainly learned English through pedagogies that emphasize everyday conversation and the expression of personal opinions.

Scientific methods
The conventions of scientific writing in English are not arbitrary.
Rather, they are closely related to the process of science itself andhow scientists perceive reality. Science is generally supposed tobe the pursuit of an understanding of the world, which is presumed to have order and regularity. Elucidating its mechanisms
is considered to mean getting closer to the truth in order to promote human progress.
Yet, as the physicist Ukichiro Nakaya has pointed out, science is not almighty. One cannot explain all natural phenomena
with science; one can say that something is true only when one’s
obtained knowledge is consistent with the knowledge obtainedby others (Nakaya, 1958, p. 2). While denying the existence ofultimate reproducible phenomena, Nakaya also stated that thescientific method functions to solve problems only when reproducible problems are extracted from natural phenomena (p. 2).
Therefore, a scientific discovery may said to be the perception ofsomething as a truth only when it is reproducible.
Nakaya also said that one of the features of the scientificmethod is quantification (p. 3). Once natural phenomena arequantified, they can be investigated using mathematics. According to Nakaya, physics is considered to be the basis of science,and the basis of physics is measurement. Therefore, the basic scientific method is to extract and to investigate certain phenomena
by measuring them (Nakaya, 1958, p. 40). In this view, the basis
75

KOMABA JOURNAL OF ENGLISH EDUCATIONof the scientific method is extracting quantifiable phenomena,and being a scientist means perceiving the world by means ofquantification.
This is why science requires skills that are usually not present in the humanities or in some of the social sciences, such as
using instruments, keeping laboratory notebooks, and making
graphs. The development of such skills is, hence, critical foryoung novice scientists, and often those skills are nonlinguistic.
In a case observed by Tomoharu Yanagimachi in a laboratory at aJapanese university, for example, a professor tried to teach atechnique for performing an experiment to a student who was
not a fluent speaker of Japanese; rather than explaining the technique in words, the professor told the student to learn it by looking at the demonstration carefully (Yanagimachi, 2006, pp. 132–
133). The philosopher of science Thomas S. Kuhn similarly statedthat scientific terms should be presented together with concrete
examples of how they function in use so that the phenomena
and the language can be learned together (Kuhn, 1970, p. 191).
Furthermore, Kuhn said that a scientist must work to solve
problems about the behavior of nature, and that the solutions
must not be personal but must be accepted by a group of professional peers (Kuhn, 1970, p. 168). What is more, he wrote, a novice must learn the methods of science through social relationships in a group:
Looking at a contour map, the student sees lines on paper,
the cartographer a picture of a terrain. Looking at a bubblechamber photograph, the student sees confused and brokenlines, the physicist a record of familiar subnuclear events.
Only after a number of such transformations of vision does
the student become an inhabitant of the scientist’s world,
seeing what the scientist sees and responding as the scientist
does. The world that the student then enters is not, however,
fixed once and for all by the nature of the environment, on
the one hand, and of science, on the other. Rather, it is determined jointly by the environment and the particular normal-scientific tradition that the student has been trained topursue. (Kuhn, 1970, pp. 111–112)
In short, learning the methods for science means learning
76

SCIENCE TUTORIALS IN AN ENGLISH-LANGUAGE PROGRAM FOR SCIENCE STUDENTS

from experienced members about how to perceive scientific reality. Thus, a group of people doing science, usually called a scientific community, has its own way of thinking and behavioral patterns that novices must learn from members of the group in
addition to learning the appropriate language.
This community, however, is not a single group, but consistsof multiple subgroups. A novice—often a science student at acollege or university—may encounter a professional scientist for
the first time in a university science class. He or she may takeseveral science-related classes and have different scientists as
instructors. Later, the student might have an advisor for researchand join the advisor’s laboratory. The person will also have
many colleagues who are science students, postdoctoral
researchers, or professional scientists. He or she will have opportunities to get to know scientists from other laboratories or institutions as his or her academic activities outside the campus
increase. The novice scientist may join a private study group
after school or after laboratory work. The individual thus
encounters various scientific groups in the course of learningand professionalization.
This process for developing scientists is not restricted to science classes or laboratories. As the anthropological linguist Jay L.
Lemke has suggested, people in most communities must actuallyparticipate in multiple communities or practices in order to master or to be counted as having mastered the practice of a certain
community (1997, p. 43). Those communities do not need to beorthodox, mainstream communities; even a peripheral community, such as the one described in this paper, may provide novice
scientists with an important learning environment.
In light of these perspectives, this paper aims to understanda scientific way of interpreting the world though the interactions
between science teaching assistants and students taking an
undergraduate class in English-language scientific writing andpresentation. The paper also explores the significance of providing science students with opportunities to learn the principles ofscience in an English-language program.

Investigation site
We conducted our investigation during the school terms from77

KOMABA JOURNAL OF ENGLISH EDUCATION

October 2014 to June 2015 at the ALESS Lab, a support facility
for the Active Learning of English for Science Students (ALESS)
program at the University of Tokyo (UTokyo) in Japan. ALESS is
a one-semester course in English writing and presentation
taught to all first-year UTokyo undergraduates who expect tomajor in the natural sciences, medicine, or engineering (about
1850 students each year). In the 13 once-a-week class meetings,
the students are introduced to the structure and language of scientific papers and, by the end of the semester, write their own
papers in the IMRaD format and give presentations to theirclasses about the content of their papers. Those papers and presentations are based on simple scientific experiments that thestudents themselves devise and conduct, either individually orin small groups, so the course syllabus also includes the basics ofexperimental design. The syllabus has been designed andrefined by the ALESS faculty, who are themselves experienced
researchers and have advanced degrees in fields such as chemistry, biology, and medicine as well as applied linguistics andother areas of the humanities and social sciences.
The ALESS class is, perhaps needless to say, considerablychallenging to most of the students, very few of whom have evereven seen a scientific paper in English before taking the course,
let alone written one, and most of whom have never had to comeup with an original experiment on their own. The university has
therefore established two support facilities to assist students
with the ALESS assignments outside of class: the Komaba Writers’ Studio, a writing center where students can make reservations to receive one-to-one tutorials with graduate-student teaching assistants, and the ALESS Lab. The ALESS Lab’s main role isto help the students enrolled in ALESS to design and conduct
their experiments and to analyze their results so that they cancomplete their papers by the end of the term. The Lab isequipped with consultation space and some basic experimental
equipment, including microscopes, analytical balances, a spectrophotometer, and a constant temperature bath. Some of theequipment, such as thermometers and hygrometers, can be borrowed by students for use at home or elsewhere on campus.
The main role of the Lab is the consultation provided by theteaching assistants (science TAs), who are graduate students
majoring in science at UTokyo. Currently, the Lab is staffed with78

SCIENCE TUTORIALS IN AN ENGLISH-LANGUAGE PROGRAM FOR SCIENCE STUDENTS

about 20 science TAs under the supervision of a manager who
has a Ph.D. in chemistry. The specialties of the science TAs varyfrom biology, chemistry, and physics to mathematics, psychology, and the history of science. The manager is responsible forrunning the Lab, organizing the staff shifts, taking care of difficult consultation cases, and other miscellaneous tasks.
The Lab is open from 12:00 to 3:00 p.m. on weekdays during
the semester. The students can come to the Lab without priorbooking. Generally, two to three TAs work at a time in one-hourslots. The manager or a receptionist assigns one TA to each student or group, and the students and TA sit together at one of thesmall round tables in the middle of the room. The typical lengthof a consultation is about 10 to 30 minutes.
The students start visiting the Lab to ask for advice soonafter the semester begins. During the first two weeks or so, themain topic of the consultations is how to find research papers
that can serve as background for their studies. The TAs introduce important journals in the target fields and suggest keyword
choices for online searches. From the third week, the main topic
of the consultations gradually shifts to how to design the experiments. At this stage, the TAs provide practical advice on doing
experiments by giving concrete examples; the goal is to ensurethat the students will be able to finish their experiments andobtain their results by around the middle of the 13-week term.
Most of the students are encouraged to perform their experiments at home or on campus using everyday materials. In addition to checking out smaller equipment for use elsewhere, somestudents are assigned a small workspace in the Lab itself so thatthey can use nonportable instruments, such as the constant temperature bath or high-precision scales. In this case, at least one
TA with knowledge and experience is assigned to give advice onmanaging the workspace and handling the instruments. Finally,
from around the sixth through ninth weeks, many students comefor advice on the results they have obtained. The most frequent
questions at this stage are how to analyze the data statisticallyand how to present the data in a graph or table. Once students
have their data ready to write up, they are more likely to seek
help with the actual writing at the Komaba Writers’ Studio, so
the Lab becomes less busy. In all of the consultations, both thescience TAs and writing TAs try not to interfere with students’79KOMABA JOURNAL OF ENGLISH EDUCATION

ideas or to give instructions that conflict with those given in classby the ALESS instructors.

Photograph 1: The ALESS Laboratory crowded with students and TAs. The
consultation tables are in the center of the room, and the experimentworkspace is along the wall.

Data collection
In order to learn what actually takes place during consultations
at the ALESS Lab, researchers visited the Lab once or twice aweek and observed tutorials during the school terms from October 2014 to June 2015. The major participants were science TAs,
who were all UTokyo graduate students in the natural sciences,and first-year undergraduates enrolled that semester in ALESS.
Twelve tutorials between science TAs and students wereobserved and recorded on both audio and video. Additionally,
after each tutorial observation the researchers either interviewed
the science TAs or asked them to fill out a questionnaire. All of
the participants gave written consent for data collection. Since
the researcher who mainly conducted the data collection was notfamiliar with the Lab, the Lab manager introduced theresearcher to TAs and played the role of a gatekeeper. The
researchers also made an effort to fit in with the TAs, such as
talking with them when they were free and helping out withreception work when the Lab was busy. In many cases, theresearchers could observe sessions freely, but the manager some80

SCIENCE TUTORIALS IN AN ENGLISH-LANGUAGE PROGRAM FOR SCIENCE STUDENTS

times told the researchers not to observe certain sessions becauseof the circumstances of the students and TAs or the crowdednessof the Lab.
During the tutorial sessions, the researchers used a video
camera for visual recording and a laptop computer for audio
recording. The video camera was fixed next to the consultationtable, and the computer was placed on the table around which
the participants sat. When necessary, such as when students andthe TA stood up from the consultation table and walked to ashelf to fetch an instrument, the researchers panned the camera
to follow them.
The collected data consisted of audio and video recordingsof 12 tutorial sessions and field notes taken by the researchers.
The audio and video recordings were transcribed and annotatedfor analysis using ELAN (Brugman & Russel, 2004). This paper
focuses on three sessions that represent typical science tutorials
at the Lab and that illustrate how students who take part in thetutorials are guided to a better understanding of the scientificprocess.

Science tutorials
Tutorial S01: Dō yatte hyōka suru no ka
TA01 was a graduate student in a chemistry-related doctoral
program and a teaching assistant with more than two years ofexperience in tutoring at the Lab. When three students, A, B, andC, came to the Lab in a group, the Lab manager introduced thestudents to TA01, who was free. All three students were firstyear science undergraduates taking the ALESS class. The three
students and TA01 sat around a small round table in a corner ofthe room.
TA01 began the tutorial by asking if they had come today
for advice on their experiment. His way of starting the conversation was nice and friendly. His personality elicited smiles andlaughs from the students, and they answered yes in chorus.
TA01 then asked a further question: Had they come up with any
concrete ideas for their experiment? In response, student B said
they had several ideas, and they would like to hear the TA’scomments about which experimental design was most feasible.
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KOMABA JOURNAL OF ENGLISH EDUCATION

While student B explained their ideas, the other two students
kept quiet. It seemed that students A and C were leaving theleadership to B. But then B encouraged A and C to explain theirother ideas so that each student would be making a contribution,and the group mentioned a total of five research ideas relating tofood: the relationship between sweetness and peel browning of
bananas; the relationship between the number of buds on a
potato and its starch content; the relationship between the firmness of meat and the cooking time; the relationship between rotting/molding and ambient temperature and humidity; and thepurity of water. When student C finished explaining the fifth
idea, student B repeated that they had five candidate ideas andthat they would like to hear the TA’s comments on which experiment design was most feasible.
(1) Tutorial S011
1
TA01: eto, gutaitekini kō::2
kimitachi ni kimete hoshii no wa,
3ja, tatoeba, kō:, e? nandarona,
4
kono ((points at the notes))
5
niku no yakikata toka,
6
dō yatte, katasa ga kawaru tte iu koto o7itte mashita ne?
8→katasa tte dō yatte hyōka suru no ka,
9→dō yatte shiraberu no ka.
10
ST B: ((silence))
11
ST A: ((places his hand on his chin as though he is12
thinking about something))
13
ST C: ((silence))
14
TA01: tatoeba sa, e:to,15
kono ((points at the notes))
16→
banana no kurosa to tōdo to iu no ga,
17→nanka kō: keiryōteki ni kō:
18minna kyōtsū ninshiki to shite aru jan?
19
aru yo ne?
20
gainen, gainen to shite.
21→ ST B: hai.
22→ TA01: sūchiteki na mono toshite, dakara,
23
jissai ni tōdokei tte iu no ga aru kara.
24
ST B: hai. ((ST A & B show no reaction))82

SCIENCE TUTORIALS IN AN ENGLISH-LANGUAGE PROGRAM FOR SCIENCE STUDENTS

25
TA01:
26
27→
28→
29
30
ST B:
31
TA01:
32→
33
ST A:
34
ST B:
35
ST C:

de, ippō de,niku no katasa tte
dō yatte kimetara ii no?
dō yatte kō hakattara ii?
sō yatte kangaeta toki ni
hai.
honto ni kō:, nante iu ka, nante iu ka na, kō:,hyōka shiyasui ka na teiryōteki ni.
((nodding gesture))aa. ((looks at TA and nods))((nodding gesture))(1) Tutorial S01 (Translated version)
1
TA01: Err, specifically, what I would like you to2think about to make a decision is, for example,
3well, how can I say, like this ((points at the4notes)), how a different way of grilling meat
5changes the firmness of meat,6
you talked about the idea, right?
7
How do you evaluate the firmness of meat, or
8
how do you investigate it?
9
ST B: ((silence))
10
ST A: ((places his hand on his chin as though he is11
thinking about something))
12
ST C: ((silence))
13
TA01: For example, err,
14
regarding the idea ((points at the notes))15
on the relationship between peel brownness
16
and sweetness of bananas, we can use sugar
17
content metrically, and we know it as our
18
shared understanding, right?
19
You know it,
20
you know the concept, right?
21
ST B: Yes.
22
TA01: As numerical values, actually, we have23
an instrument for measuring sugar content.
24
ST B: Yes. ((ST A & B show no reaction))25
TA01: On the other hand,26
how do you decide27
the firmness of meat?
83

KOMABA JOURNAL OF ENGLISH EDUCATION

28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35

ST B:
TA01:

ST B:
ST A:
ST C:

How do you measure it?
When you think about it.
Yes.
Really, how can I say, how can I say,do you find it easy to measure the firmnessof meat with a quantitative method?
((nodding gesture))
Yeah ((looks at TA and nods))((nodding gesture))

Although the students’ attitude and their way of asking
questions might not be unusual for first-year undergraduates,
they asked TA01 questions as if they wanted him to decide theirexperiment. But instead of answering the students’ questions
directly, TA01 hesitatingly asked several questions to the students. For example, in line 8 TA01 asked the student katasa tte dō
yatte hyōka suru no ka (‘How do you evaluate the firmness ofmeat’), and in line 9 he also asked the students dō yatte shiraberu
no ka (‘how do you investigate it’). TA01 used the word hyōka
suru (‘evaluate’) first, and then he complemented the question byusing a different word shiraberu (‘investigate’). Since the three
students became silent—in a Japanese classroom setting, silence
generally means “I do not know”—TA01 kept on providing an
example of banana no kurosa to tōdo (‘peel brownness and sweetness of bananas’) as a typical keiryōteki (‘metrical’) investigation
method as shown in lines 16 and 17. Then, because only student
B answered hai (‘yes’) in spite of the effort TA01 made to confirm
the students’ understanding, TA01 provided another word,sūchiteki (‘as numerical values’), in line 22, and said jissai ni
tōdokei tte iu no ga aru kara (‘actually, we have an instrument formeasuring sugar content’) in line 23. Again, only student B
answered hai (‘yes’) while the other two students showed noreaction, but this time TA01 came back to the initial question
regarding niku no katasa (‘the firmness of meat’). In lines 27 and28, he asked the students first dō yatte kimetara ii no? (‘how do
you decide the firmness of meat?’) and then dō yatte kō hakattaraii? (‘How do you measure it?’). In this sequence of questions,
TA01 did not give explicit instructions to the students; instead,he suggested only implicitly how to investigate the firmness ofmeat by using the words hyōka suru (‘evaluate’) in line 8, shiraberu
84

SCIENCE TUTORIALS IN AN ENGLISH-LANGUAGE PROGRAM FOR SCIENCE STUDENTS(‘investigate’) in line 9, kimeru (‘decide’) in line 27, and hakaru(‘measure’) in line 28. Similarly, TA01 used the words keiryōteki
(‘metrically’) in line 17, sūchiteki (‘as numeric values’) in line 22,
and teiryōteki (‘quantitative’) in line 32. All of these terms in Japanese refer in some way to quantity or quantification, withteiryōteki referring particularly to a fixed or determined quantity.
TA01’s way of giving advice on research design in this way
clearly corresponds to Nakaya’s assertion that one of the featuresof science is the concept of quantification (1958, p. 3). What TA01
actually did in this passage is explain how to investigate a certain natural phenomenon in a constant way using numeric values.
After that, TA01 gave further advice on how to generate
new ideas, how to utilize background papers, how to try to beoriginal, how to understand the concept of prediction, and how
to develop a discussion. Then he concluded by telling the students to consider for themselves which research design was mostfeasible based on the perspectives he had introduced to them.
When he was asked by the researchers to comment on the tutorial after the students had left the Lab, TA01 said what he always
told students in tutorials was the same as what he had been told
by his supervisor.

Tutorial S04: Jōken ga sorotte iru and kyakkanteki na sūchi
daseruTA04 was a graduate student in a master’s degree program in abiology-related field and had two months of experience tutoringat the time of observation. Although his experience as a teachingassistant was short, he had taken ALESS when he was a firstyear undergraduate. In the questionnaire filled out by TAs after
tutorials, TA04 mentioned that he was interested in the ALESS
program more now than when he had been a student in theclass. When student D, a first-year science undergraduate taking
the ALESS class, came to the Lab one afternoon, a couple of tutorials were taking place in the room but the Lab was not busy
compared to lunch hour sessions. Student D was introduced to
TA04 by the Lab manager, and they sat around a small roundtable face to face. TA04 asked in a friendly manner for the student to tell him his question. The student D hesitantly talked in asmall voice about his idea of dropping an object from a high85

KOMABA JOURNAL OF ENGLISH EDUCATION

place onto sand. The student D did not ask a question directly,
but it seemed that he wanted some advice on his experimentidea.
(2) Tutorial S04:01
1
TA04: betsu ni (.) sono (.) ona,
2→
nankai ka jikken suru wake ja nai desu ka
3→sono toki ni [kakujitsu ni onaji suna,
4
ST D:
[hai.
5→ TA04: onaji ryō o tsukatte ite
6de (.)[de (.)
7
ST D:
[hai.
8→ TA04: jibun de mite taira ni natte iru
9→tte iu fū ni shitere ba,
10→sore wa sono kaku jikken goto ni
11→jōken wa sorotte iru to omou shi.
12
ST D: ((nodding gesture))
13→ TA04: kaku jikken goto ni jōken ga sorotte iru
14→
tte iu koto ga hoshō dekiru
15→
to iu no de are ba
16
(0.2)
17
mattaku mondai nai to omou node.
18
betsu ni (ii desu).
(2) Tutorial S04:01 (Translated version)
1
TA04: Well, you’re going to perform2
the experiment several times, aren’t you?
3
At that time,
4
if you can use exactly the same sand,5
ST D: Yes.
6
TA04: with the same amount,7
and, and,8
ST D: Yes.
9
TA04: if you can check the flatness visually,
10
I think you can say that11
the experimental conditions will be the same.
12
ST D: ((nodding gesture))
13
TA04: As long as you can prove that14
the conditions for all the experiments
15
are the same,86

SCIENCE TUTORIALS IN AN ENGLISH-LANGUAGE PROGRAM FOR SCIENCE STUDENTS

16
17
18

(0.2)
I think it should be all right.
It should be (no problem).

When student D said hesitantly that he was wondering how
to fill a container with sand, TA04 replied nankai ka jikken suru
wake ja nai desu ka (‘you’re going to perform the experiment several times, aren’t you?’) as shown in line 2. Then, TA04 added
sono toki ni kakujitsu ni onaji suna, onaji ryō o tsukatte ite, jibun demite taira ni natte iru tte iu fū ni shitere ba (‘if you can use exactly
the same sand, with the same amount, if you can check the flatness visually’), as shown in lines 2, 3, 5, 8, and 9. In doing so, he
implicitly suggested that the student perform the experiment
several times using the same amount of the same sand, and he
did this by asking for confirmation as if the student alreadyknew what he was supposed to do. In addition, judging from
TA04’s utterance sore wa sono kaku jikken goto ni jōken wa sorotte iru
to omou shi (‘I think you can say that the experimental conditions
will be the same’) in lines 10 and 11, it can also be assumed that
he implicitly told the student how to maintain the same conditions. Similarly, in lines 13 to 15, in order to respond to the student’s question on how to fill a container with sand, TA04 said
kaku jikken goto ni jōken ga sorotte iru tte iu koto ga hoshō dekiru to iu
no de are ba (‘As long as you can prove that the conditions for all
the experiments are the same’). Again, TA04 emphasized consistency in the experimental conditions by repeating the phrase
jōken ga sorotte iru (‘the conditions for all the experiments are thesame’), suggesting that the student make sure to keep the conditions consistent in all the experiments. In this case, however,TA04 did not provide only simple ideas or tips on how to perform experiment. In addition, he not only gave ideas on how to
perform experiment but also suggested a scientific method forextracting an observable phenomenon.
This focus is even more apparent in the next extract, Tutorial
S04:02. Here, the topic has changed to the student’s next question. The student explained his idea of dropping objects with different densities from a high place, measuring the depth of thedent made by each object, and taking pictures of how the sandwas disturbed by the different objects.
87KOMABA JOURNAL OF ENGLISH EDUCATION(3) Tutorial S04:02
1
TA04: aa:::, naruhodo ne.
2aa, sore wa
3
(1.2)
4→
ii desu ne.
5→
fukasa tte iu no wa
6→sugoi teiryōteki ni hakareru kara
7→
sore wa mo kyakkanteki na sūchi daseru shi.
8
sore to hosokuteki ni,
9
to iu ka,10
sore to wa mata betsu ni,
11→sono jibun no kansatsu shita yōsu to shite,
12
kore ni wa kō iu tokuchō ga atta
13
mitai na koto o14
tatoeba pēpā ni kaku wake desu yo ne?
(3) Tutorial S04:02 (Translated version)
1
TA04: Ah::, I see.
2
Ah, that is
3
(1.2)
4
a good idea.
5
Because the depth is very quantitatively
6
measurable, it makes it possible
7
to obtain objective numerical values.
8
Additionally, to complement the results,
9or I should say,10
separately from the quantitative results,
11
as a phenomenon observed by you,12
you might like to write about the features of13
the experiments with different objects,
14
perhaps, in your paper, right?
In line 4, TA04 said ii desu ne (‘a good idea’) for the student’s
idea of paying attention to the depth of the impact craters. In line
6, TA04 added the reason, saying sugoi teiryōteki ni hakareru kara(‘very quantitatively measurable’), meaning that paying attention to the depth was good because it was quantifiable. Similarly
to TA01’s utterances in the extract from Tutorial S01, TA04 used
the words hakaru (‘measure’) and teiryōteki (‘quantitative’), which
stand for one of the core concepts of science. Additionally, in line
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SCIENCE TUTORIALS IN AN ENGLISH-LANGUAGE PROGRAM FOR SCIENCE STUDENTS

7, he said sore wa mo kyakkanteki na sūchi daseru shi (‘it makes it
possible to obtain objective numerical values’). TA04’s use of theword daseru (‘able to extract; obtain’) suggested that the student
was supposed to extract numeric values from natural phenomena. Furthermore, TA04 concluded that fukasa tte iu no wa sugoi
teiryōteki ni hakareru kara sore wa mo kyakkanteki na sūchi daseru shi(‘Because the depth is very quantitatively measurable, it makes it
possible to obtain objective numerical values’), that is, he
implied that measuring something quantitatively can yield
numerical values to express observed phenomena. What he told
the student is thus consistent with the concept suggested by
Nakaya that the basis of science is quantification (Nakaya, 1958,
p. 40). What TA04 told the student can therefore be said to be thescientific method itself. Moreover, in line 11, TA04 said sono jibunno kansatsu shita yōsu to shite (‘as a phenomenon observed byyou’). TA04 used the word jibun (‘you’), suggesting subjectivity,and contrasted it with the idea of kyakkanteki na sūchi (‘objective
numerical values’) mentioned earlier. By doing so, TA04 successfully made a distinction between quantitative and qualitative
methods.
Tutorial S09: Kō yatte…
TA09 was a graduate student in a master’s program in the social
sciences and had been a tutor for one year. TA09 was good attaking care of novice TAs, and in fact he mentioned on the TAquestionnaire that he enjoyed talking with first-year undergraduates. Student E, a first-year science undergraduate taking the
ALESS class, came to the Lab for advice on how to conduct his
experiment and which instruments to use. Access to instruments
and techniques for using them are frequent topics in tutorials at
the Lab because they are essential for performing experiments.
Student E was initially introduced to another science TA, who
was a novice. In the middle of the tutorial, TA09, who had longer
experience at the Lab, was called to explain how to use an oldstyle pipette instead of the novice TA. TA09, who had an oldstyle pipette in his right hand, walked to a sink cabinet and demonstrated how to use the pipette using tap water.
(4) Tutorial S09
1
TA09: e::tto, ue o (.) mazu, ue o kaihō shite (.)
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KOMABA JOURNAL OF ENGLISH EDUCATION

2→
3
4
5
ST E:
6→ TA09:
7
8
9
10
11
12
13→
14
ST E:
15→ TA09:
16
ST E:
17
TA09:
18
19→
20
21
ST E:
22
TA09:
23→
24
25
ST E:
26
27→ TA09:
28
ST E:
29
TA09:
30
31
ST E:
32
TA09:
33
34
ST E:
35
36
37
TA09:
38
ST E:
39→ TA09:
40→ ST E:
90

kō yatte mazetede, shita o akete((demonstrates how to do it to the student))((looks at the demonstration))kō:: totte((takes up water in the beaker using thepipette))soshitara (.) mippei sarete iru n dekō iu fū ni tamotare te iru kanji nande
ato wa matasakki wakotchi o akete kōaa::
kō yatte saigo kō (.) mo ikkaiaa::chotto umaku ikanakatta nasaigo (.) saigo no hito oshi gasaki mitemasu?
((shows the last push again))naruhodo.
kō iu katachi deja chotto yatte mite((gives the pipette to the student))((Tries to take out water from the beakerusing the pipette))
ichiban ue made irecha dameaa:::gyaku ni gomu ni ima haitte iru n dakedo
tsukaenaku naru karaaa:::tatoeba kore ga ryūsan yōeki tokaso iu no datta ra
so desu nē((Tries to take out water from the beakerusing the pipette))saigo chanto oshite yatta ra
aa:: naruhodo.
ja mo ikkai itte mimashō kahi hi hh

SCIENCE TUTORIALS IN AN ENGLISH-LANGUAGE PROGRAM FOR SCIENCE STUDENTS(4) Tutorial S09 (translated version)
1
TA09: Well, release the top part first of all,2
and then mix it in this way.
3
And release the bottom part.
4((demonstrates how to do it to the student))
5
US09: ((looks at the demonstration))6
TA09: Take it up in this way.
7((takes up water in the beaker using the8pipette))9
And this seals in the water
10
and keeps it this way.
11
After that12(first of all)13
open this part in this way.
14
ST E: Ah ha::15
TA09: Do it this way, and lastly,16
do it like this, again
17
ST E: Ah ha::18
TA09: I was not able to do it well,19
the last, the last push.
20
Are you looking at the tip of the pipette?
21((shows the last push again))
22
ST E: Yes, I got it.
23
TA09: OK, have a try.
24((gives the pipette to the student))
25
ST E: ((Tries to take up water from the beaker
26
using the pipette))
27
TA09: Do not let water go up to the top.
28
ST E: Ah::29
TA09: The water is now running up to the rubber part,30
and this makes it impossible to use the pipette.
31
ST E: Ah::32
TA09: For example, if this were sulfuric acid or
33
something like that.
34
ST E: Yeahh
35((Tries to take up water from the beaker using36
the pipette))
37
TA09: Push it properly until the end.
38
ST E: Ah:: I see.
39
TA09: OK, let’s do it again.
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KOMABA JOURNAL OF ENGLISH EDUCATION

40

ST E:

He-he hh

While TA09 demonstrated how to use a pipette using tap
water, student E stood by the TA watching the demonstration. In
lines 2, 6, 13, and 15, the TA frequently used the demonstrative
word kō (‘this’) to mean ‘in this way’. As in the case with thestudy by Yanagimachi (2006), in which a professor tried to passdown his technique to an international student, TA09 taught atechnique that he thought important by demonstration, not only
by words. Additionally, in line 19, TA09 said saki mite masu? (‘Are
you looking at the tip of the pipette?’) to attract the student’s
attention to the technique. Instead of explaining how to do it verbally, he requested the student to look closely at the tip of thepipette. In this way, the instructions on how to use an instrument
involved mostly actions.
Furthermore, TA09 sometimes gave instructions somewhat
firmly. In line 23, for example, he said ja chotto yatte mite (‘OK,have a try’) to let the student practice by himself. In line 27, TA09
said ichiban ue made irecha dame (‘Do not let water go up to thetop’), and in line 39, TA09 said ja mo ikkai itte mimashō ka (‘OK,let’s do it again’), and had the student practice repeatedly inorder to make sure the student understood how to use it. Hearing the instruction, as shown in line 40, the student let out a wry
laugh hi hi hh (‘He-he hh’), for this method of tutoring might
have seemed a little bit too much to him.
Overall, such advice accompanied by actions is given in amore directive way than those for the experimental ideas in S01
and S04. This may be because instructions accompanied byactions can be given in a more apparent and explicit way thanverbal instructions, but it may also be because using an instrument consistently can be crucial for obtaining consistent results.
The pipette, for example, is an instrument for taking up a certain
amount of liquid, and there are many types of pipettes with different capacities. Being able to use a pipette properly makes it
possible to quantify phenomena consistently.

Discussion
The extracts of the three tutorials illustrate how interactions
were conducted between the science TAs and the students. On a92

SCIENCE TUTORIALS IN AN ENGLISH-LANGUAGE PROGRAM FOR SCIENCE STUDENTS

superficial level, such conversations in the ALESS Lab can be categorized into how to design scientific research and how to perform experiments, with Tutorial S01 focusing on the research
design and S04 and S09 on the experiment. Developing ideas forresearch design and using instruments for experiments seem tobe different stages of a scientific writing project, but actually, allof these activities lead to the same issue: how to perceive reality.
In Tutorial S01, for example, the major consultation topic is how
to investigate a certain natural phenomenon using a consistentmethod and numerical values. The main topic in tutorial S04 is
how to determine a quantifiable phenomenon. The featured
extract from tutorial S09 is advice on how to use a pipette, that is,a procedure to determine a certain natural phenomenon physically.
Although the three tutors conducted their tutorials in different ways, they all exhibited a common goal: to quantify
observed phenomena for reproducibility. Through such tutorials,
the ALESS Lab provides an environment for students to learn
one of the core concepts of science. Thus, although the Lab is a
support facility for an English-language program, the focus of
the tutorials at the Lab is not language but the scientific processitself, and interaction with science TAs provides first-year science undergraduates with admission to a scientific community.
This raises the question, however, of the significance ofteaching scientific concepts in an English program. Some may
argue that this is the proper role of specialized courses and laboratories. But the educational significance of this kind of learning
environment can be seen in how the sequence of scientific procedures relates to writing. By actually engaging in the design of anexperiment aimed at elucidating physical phenomena, the students come to understand better the context in which they need
to use specific rhetorical rules, such as the IMRaD style, avoidance of subjectivity, voices, and tense. They realize that theserhetorical rules reflect a scientific method and a scientific way of
behaving and thinking. As Kuhn suggested (1970, p. 191), they
can learn the scientific language together with concrete examples
of how it functions in use. They become able to understandwhat, for example, the word teiryōteki means both rhetoricallyand in practice. Additionally, through designing experiments,
discussing with peers, performing experiments, and analyzing
93KOMABA JOURNAL OF ENGLISH EDUCATION

the results, they learn just how much time and labor are required
to write a single paper. Last but not least, they learn experientially what should be included in a scientific paper as findings
and how to do that in English. Thus, learning scientific writing is
synonymous with learning the entire process of describing a procedure to extract a certain reproducible phenomenon fromnature.
A program for English language education, even whentraining science students, is usually considered to be an outsider
to any scientific community. This may be due partly to the gaps
between the cultures and customs of the humanities and the natural sciences. However, as one must participate in multiple communities in order to master—or to be counted as having mastered—the practices of a certain community (Lemke, 1997, p. 43),
learning environments for science students should not be exclusive to specialized courses and laboratories. Scientific writing is ameans for sending a message to a scientific community that acertain natural phenomenon has been extracted reproducibly
under certain conditions. With English now the de-facto common language of the physical sciences, English-language education should help science students acquire more than just linguistic and rhetorical skills. As shown by the tutorials in the ALESS
Lab, English-language education for science students need nolonger be an outsider to the scientific community. Instead, it canbe a subgroup that shares a common purpose with it—training
future scientists so that they can share their findings with theworld through English.

Acknowledgments
We would like to express our sincere gratitude to Dr. Takahiro Nakajima forallowing us to observe ALESS Lab tutorials, and to Dr. Gavin Furukawa
and members of the Tokyo Discourse Group for advice on discourse analysis. We would also like to thank the science teaching assistants and students
who participated in the study.

Note
1. Transcribing has been done in the Jeffersonian system (Jefferson, 2004).

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SCIENCE TUTORIALS IN AN ENGLISH-LANGUAGE PROGRAM FOR SCIENCE STUDENTS

References
ALESS Program, The University of Tokyo, Komaba. (2012). Active English forscience. Tokyo: The University of Tokyo Press.
Brugman, H., & Russel, A. (2004). Annotating multi-media/multi-modal
resources with ELAN. In Proceedings of LREC 2004, Fourth International
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Coffin, C., Curry, M. J., Goodman, S., Hewings, A., Lillis, T., & Swann, J.
(2005). Teaching academic writing: A toolkit for higher education(pp. 23–49). Routledge.
Jefferson, G. (2004). Glossary of transcript symbols with an introduction. In
G. H. Lerner (Ed.), Conversational analysis: Studies from the first generation(pp. 13–31). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Kuhn, T. S. (1970). The structure of scientific revolutions. (2nd Ed.). Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
Lemke, J. L. (1997). Cognition, context, and learning: A social semiotic perspective. In David Kirshner & James A. Whitson (Eds.), Situated cognition: Social, semiotic, and psychological perspectives (pp. 37–56). Mahwah,
NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Nakaya, U. [中谷宇吉郎] (1958). Kagaku no hōhō [科学の方法]. Tokyo: Iwanami
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Brasileira de Educação, 18(52), pp. 213–228.
Yanagimachi, T. [柳 町 智 治] (2006). Jissen ni umekomareta intarakushon:
Rikei kenkyūshitsu ni okeru jikken no shakaiteki soshikika [実践に埋め込まれたインタラクション：理系研究室における実験の社会的組織化]. In Naoki
Ueno & Reiko Sawyer (Eds.), Bunka to jōkyōteki gakushū: Jissen, gengo,
jinkōbutsu e no akusesu no dezain [文化と状況的学習―実践、言語、人工物へのアクセスのデザイン] (pp. 125–153), Tokyo: Bonjinsha [凡人社].

Appendix A: Transcription conventions
(0.5)
(.)
[
hh
((gesture)):(guess)?
→Time gap
Pause
Overlap
Breathing out
Non-verbal activity
Stretched soundThe transcriber’s guess at an unclear utterance
Rising inflection
Part to be discussed in the analysis

95