Akihiro Matsumoto

Four years abroad: three years in Singapore and one year in Utah, U.S.

I have been learning English for 14 years. My first experience to touch English was when I was 6 years old. I started to go to an English school for children. I studied the alphabet and some words like Apple, Dog, Run, and so on. However, I don’t remember much maybe because I was too young. I quit after 2 years and moved to Singapore.

I lived in Singapore for 3 years from 8 years-old until 11 years-old because of my father’s job. When I was there, I went to a Japanese school and of course I spoke only Japanese in the school also at home. I didn’t have much opportunity to learn English at that time. But my Japanese school had an English curriculum only twice a week. I think it was better than nothing. I studied or rather played in English, singing a song and watching English movies. It was really fun for me. After 3 years, my English improved a little. I remember I could say, “How much is this?” or “ What is this?” which is necessary to live.

I came back to Japan and entered Japanese JHS. I can say this was my first studying English. However I didn’t like to learn English at all. Because studying in JHS was boring for me. It was my first time to learn grammatical things, which were really complicated. And it was a different way to learn English than enjoying and singing. My stock of English ability that came from the experience of my stay in Singapore helped me during my JHS years. But I faced on a problem after entering HS. I didn’t have any knowledge of English because I had been escaping from learning English Grammar. I couldn’t get good points on the test, and my grades were bad. I was very tired of studying English grammar. I didn’t agree with the Japanese education system that we don’t study useful English, which is talking and listening, but we only study reading and writing. So I started to think I wanted to be an English user so I decided to study abroad in the U.S.

I left for America, Utah State, in the middle of the 2nd year of HS school. This experience changed my life a lot. I went to a public high school. Of course my English was very poor at first. So it was hard to communicate with people. I couldn’t understand what they were saying and I couldn’t speak at all. But everybody was very kind to me so I had lots of opportunities to meet people and talk. Gradually, maybe after three months, my listening ability improved and I started to understand what they were saying. But I still had a big difficulty with understanding lectures. After another three months, my English ability improved rapidly. I found that if I could hear what people said, it helped my speaking because I could imitate what they were saying. After one year abroad, my English got much better than before.

After I got back to Japan, I entered Dokkyo University and I noticed it was not enough. I can speak and listen, but I need to know grammar. I am taking a teaching course in this university and if I teach someone, it is necessary to teach him or her the structure of English sentences. But I can’t!! So now I am studying English grammar for the first time in my life. But now, I often think what is the good way to learn English. I think that most important way to learn a language is having fun, not studying grammatical things. Because language is not only the way to enter the university but it is a tool to communicate with someone. We have to think about this education style and we have to change something for the future.

I want go abroad to England and I want to study a little bit more. I want to have an English ability that is useful for my future job.