国際交流センター

大学　　　　　：College of Saint Benedict and Saint John’s University　　　　
学部・学科　　：外国語学部英語コミュニケーション学科　国際ビジネスコミュニケーション専攻　　　　　
留学期間　　　：2021年2月23日～3月18日　　　　　　　　　　　
氏名・学年　　：Y・Kさん（参加時：2年生）　　　　　　

　　I experienced amazing days with the students in America for 3 weeks. I’d like to report my experience here.
There’re some reasons why I took the program. First, I was supposed to go to other countries to improve my skill and get more experience. However, my dream has crashed by the pandemic so I couldn’t figure out what I should do instead of it, but I heard that we can take a virtual program from my professor. For the second reason, I’ve always wanted to be the environment where I have to speak only English. I thought that it’s really good opportunity to make my dream come true. Also, I wanted to find something which I can do under such a serious situation because of the virous. For the reason, there was no choice and decided to join the program without any hesitation.
　　Before the program starts, I set a goal, “Be active”. American classes are really different from Japanese one. The biggest difference is, the students always express their opinion and discuss about something each other. It’s really hard for Japanese students to do same thing as American students. Because we don’t do that so often in Japanese classes at university. I thought if I do same thing in the classes, my skill will be improved. So, I promised myself to do that in each class, each time.
　　On the program, we had 5 different classes. In those classes, we learned about American culture, Japanese culture, pronunciation and so on. We discussed about films, our cultures, and health. And the professors gave us many assignments so we could practice and learn so many English and culture. The preparation and review were necessary to keep up with the classes. In EFL, we talked about many topics and express our opinion each other. Also, we learn about how to pronounce and read English. In Movie class, we watched some films and expressed our opinion, then discussed about the film. In culture class, we learned about American culture. We found so many differences between two countries. In Japanese class, we taught American students how to speak Japanese and our culture. In cultural communication class, we talked to American students and discussed about so many things. Especially, Japanese culture and American culture. In the class, I learned so many differences between us and American people.
　　In this program, I could speak English a lot, think about culture differences, and met many new friends. One of my goal was, to make some friends and to tell other students my opinion enough. I could achieve those goals on this program. As I mentioned at first, I wanted to know what I can do in this situation. The answer is, I could learn English with my classmates and American students, also did many activities in English then I could do something with English. I realized that it’s really important to keep using English and think about something in English. Also, as I mentioned, I could attend at many classes so actively. I’m sure I could achieve my goal.
　　From the classes, I realized that it’s really important to have opinion in each class. If we have our opinion enough, we can discuss about anything so well, and our vision will be bigger. Also, before the program, I was not curious about other cultures and didn’t know about other cultures. However, since I joined the program, I learned so many things with my friends and told each other our cultures, then I realized that it’s important to know about other cultures to communicate with people who have different backgrounds and cultures. From the experiences, I’d like to keep learning English, different cultures and be curious about other countries. After our situation gets better, I definitely go to other countries to improve my skill and learn about culture. Also, I learned some part of differences between Japan and America so I’m going to tell people about that then make their vision will be bigger.