Name: Ayako Kurimoto

Year: 1997

 

     The first time I took English was when I was thirteen  years old. The first English teacher I had was lively during class and spoke English loudly and clearly. She continued to study English even after she became a teacher. She always gave us much homework and made us write a lot of English sentences, called transcriptions, and read long but not difficult sentences out loud to stay in English as much as possible. Because I wanted to be like her, I did every homework she gave me.

     The most useful study for me was learning favorite phrases by heart. She made us learn more than twenty topics a year which were of various length by heart. It helped me learn to speak English without translation. The second teacher not only taught English but also often told us about his experiences in foreign countries and explained about the history of the English language. It increased my interest in English. The teacher in high-school introduced a huge vocabulary from words used daily to technical words ---.I could spread my view of English thanks to his class. Learning English just by text books is boring. One of my school teacher always made us translate English into Japanese during his class. I learned from him that we should use not only our eyes and hands but also ears and mouths to study another new language.

     I did a home-stay in Oregon state for three weeks when I was fifteen years old as a school program. After coming back to Japan, I noticed three things which I could not do before. The first was a little confidence that I can talk to native speaker with my English and at the same time, I found my English far from perfect. The second was smiling while talking. I did not come to feel afraid of looking into someone's eyes when I talked to them. The third was the increase of my interest in America. I wanted to major in English language after graduating from HS.

     I thank Nanzan University very much because I could find many role models here. I am sure that a good teacher can make good students. Thanks to a lot of role models in the University, I do not lose my interest in English in spite of hard classes and much homework. One of my role models is Mrs. Mori, a LL teacher assistant. Her English is far from Japanese English though she is Japanese exactly. She can translate difficult words into easier ones in English quickly. It is very useful for me to learn a lot of expressions even when they have almost the same meaning. Another is a Work Shop teacher, Mrs. Akita. She is a vivid teacher. Because she has a thorough knowledge of Asia, she knows Vietnam English , Malaysia English and so on as much as American and British English. I think it is very important to see a world with comparison. She always does that. There are a lot of role models for me to respect and it is very useful to follow their example. When it comes to my class, there are also a lot of role models for me. At the beginning, one of my friends always shadows what others said in every English class. The second is one who writes an action log legibly with many pictures for every class. The third is a diligent girl who has a clear goal to pass the first step test (Eiken).

     In addition to that, I learned several ways to feel English closely in the class. For example , to make a mistake leads to my success and there is always something to learn in any situation. I noticed that speaking English is not just my goal but one of my ways to communicate with others. To think like that can prevent us from being overwhelmed by ourselves and lose interest in English.