Name: Eri Kawashima

Year: 1997

 

     When I was ten years old, I started to study English. It  was very fresh for me to study another language. I started to go to private school and my teacher taught me lots of things. First of all, I learned the  alphabet, and then started to memorize many words. I memorized words by playing card games and singing English songs. It was very fun and I enjoyed studying English. So I didn’t  have difficulty in learning English grammar. My teacher taught me having fun is very useful in learning. Thanks to her, I came to like English immediately.

     When I was fifteen years old, I went to the US with my private school classmates. It was my first visit to a foreign country. So before leaving Japan, I felt very nervous because I didn’t know about America so much, and I didn’t have confidence in making myself understood in English at all. But this trip to America had a big impact on me. I stayed with an American family for about two weeks. They were very kind and asked me a lot of questions about Japan. I could only answer them with my poor English. I was very happy when I communicated with native speakers in English. This homestay in the US was very meaningful for me. After coming back to Japan. I decided to learn English more deeply.

     When I entered HS, I started to study more, but against my will. I had to prepare and review for classes almost every day. If I had not prepared for the class, I couldn’t have understood the class at all. So I forgot to have fun studying. My goal was only to enter the university. When I was in the third year of HS, it got much harder. So I began to feel tired of English.

     However my attitude towards learning English has changed since coming to Nanzan. We have many chances to improve our English ability here. First, the OC class is very useful. I couldn’t speak a lot in the first class, because I felt very nervous. But I could notice speaking English wit my classmates is a lot of fun. I can enjoy talking with them. For that reason, I think making mistakes is the most important thing in learning languages. If we hesitate to make mistakes, we get more negative. Moreover we can’t realize what to do. So making mistakes can help us make progress in our English.

     Second, there are many foreign teachers and exchange students in Nanzan that we can talk to. Even if we have never been abroad, we can study English in an environment as good as abroad. We can  greatly improve our English ability at Nanzan when we make an effort.