Now I’m a university student, and I study English as my major. I’m a senior, however, I can’t speak English well. That always makes me feel inferior. But recently, I’m changing little by little. Writing about my LLH is a good way to introduce my changes.

When I was a primary school student, I started to learn English at the English conversation school. At that school, I sang English songs and played games using English. I enjoyed doing that. I didn’t think I was studying English, but I liked to go to the English School every week. This school taught me fun of learning English. I continued going to the English school until I graduated from HS.

Most Japanese students start to study English when they enter JHS. For that reason, English became my best subject. Because I had already studied at the English school, I could get good grades easily. Although English was the subject that I liked the most, JHS classes were different. We studied mainly grammar and our teacher’s pronunciation was very strange for me. In addition, it was embarrassing to pronounce English correctly like a native at school. Everyone used katakana English. So I, too, pronounced like that on purpose.

After entering HS, I had to study English harder to prepare for entrance exams. We studied grammar in detail, and we needed to memorize a lot of vocabulary and idioms. Sometimes I had to memorize strange constructions in sentences that I think native people never used. But I wanted to enter the university, so I studied hard in order to get a good grade. One day I showed a native teacher of English school my textbook used in HS. She laughed a lot, and she said that my textbook was very strange, many expressions in the book were not used presently. Since I heard that, I came to question English education in Japan more and more.

Actually, I wanted to go abroad to study English when I was a HS student. My parents agreed with my dream because they understood how I liked English. But teachers in the school were opposed to it. My HS was an academic school, it means it’s important that all students pass the entrance examination. In my school, when students go abroad to study for one year, they had to repeat a year. It was a big problem for me. My teacher thought that having a leave of absence made me look bad to universities. He recommended me to go abroad after I entered university. Finally, I gave up going abroad at that time. To tell the truth, even now, I regret this decision.

And then I entered this university. Although I could get good grades in English in HS, and I continued going to the English conversation school once a week, my speaking ability was very poor. So I expected that I would become a person who could speak English very well when I finished university. And also, I expected that there would be many native teachers in the university and I could take good English classes. I was looking forward to studying English very much

However, I was shocked at my first English class. Another classmate spoke English very well, and I was so embarrassed with my poor English. When I was a freshman I was in the high-level class, most classmates had experiences living abroad for a long time. I totally lost my confidence to speak English. Now, I think I should have done my best at that time, but I was shy and I was afraid of making mistakes. I couldn’t be positive to practice speaking English. My English didn’t improve.

Gradually, my desire of learning English declined. I couldn’t take English classes that I wanted to take when I became a sophomore because of the system of university. My conversation class was not good, many students spoke in Japanese, and I didn’t like that. And also, I became busy with club activity. I belong to dancing club and I really enjoy dancing. But I had to give up going abroad again because I had a dance partner. In my club rule, if we have a dance partner, we can’t go abroad for a long time. Not only me but also many another club mates cannot decide whether to choose going abroad or dancing. After all, I choose dancing. Last year, I didn’t have any chances to speak English. I totally gave up being a good English speaker.

Then I became a senior. I was concerned about my English ability as I think I didn’t improve at all. So I decided to take many English classes this year even thought I already got enough credits to graduate. Then I took the exploring learning class. I was surprised at many things, for example, action logs and videoing. But the most surprising thing was all of the students enjoyed speaking English, they were very positive to learn English. I met many friends who have no experiences to stay in abroad but they can speak English very well. They motivated me a lot. I came to enjoy speaking English naturally. And I learned that it’s very important to make mistakes. Now I don’t care to make mistakes and I know it’s very important to practice speaking English a lot. I came to have a desire to learn English again. I’m changing!