Mai Takeishi

6 years in the US

Fourteen months have passed since I entered this university. I am in the Faculty of Foreign Language. I can’t remember exactly when I first met this language English, but it has become a part of me and I know that it also will be for the rest of my life.

When I was two years old, I left Japan with my family and went to the United States. I lived in Indiana for the first four years, and two more years in Texas. The foundation of my English skills and my life was built in the six years that I have spent there. Starting from going to kindergarten, I was thrown into an environment of speaking in English. I guess this was the best way for me to learn by being surrounded by it. There wasn’t any other language that I could use to communicate with people around me, so I had no choice but to speak in English. At kindergarten, I sang songs and spoke in English while I played, so I was able to learn automatically. It was a good thing that I could learn without thinking that I’m learning something or studying something. Kindergarten was only during the morning, so in the afternoon my mother took me to the baby-sitter’s house. She taught me many things like, how to count in English, pronounce, and read alphabets. Her house was the place where I first learned how to read. Even though I didn’t know what they actually meant, by reading one page she would give me one M&M’s. I remember that I didn’t have much fun, but this chocolate as a reward surely did feed my appetite for reading and learning more. Elementary school was also a place where I learned how to speak and read. Since school for Japanese residences were only on Saturdays, I went to the same local school with the kids in my neighbor on weekdays. I’m sure there were many difficulties and struggles for the first few years, or several years, but fortunately or not, I don’t remember much of them.

Three years in Japanese junior high school was the main time I learned how to write. Since I was taught to write as I heard until second grade, my spelling abilities were terrible. I finally started learning how to write and the three major skills, speaking, reading and writing, began to function about equally, but unfortunately there were few classes to speak in. I read and wrote using text books most of the time. In the higher grades, the less we spoke in English. In order to get rid of this bad situation, I started going to an English conversation school, but this didn’t last long.

High school was almost the same thing as junior high. Only I had fewer classes to speak. To learn grammar and to increase vocabulary were the main things I did. I was fed up with doing the same things, but sometime around there, I started listening to American pop music and started watching Hollywood movies under the influenced of a friend. This happened to be my turning point. Learning new words from the lyrics in songs and from the lines in movies were exiting. The idea that I was learning new words I wouldn’t get from textbooks and from school was fascinating to me at that time. It’s easier to memorize words and idioms when there are used in a sentence. It was even easier for me when somebody was actually saying it. Whenever I watched movies, I wrote down words I couldn’t understand and never heard before. Since then, I could learn with spontaneous enthusiasm.

In university, we are required to express what we think whether to speak or to write. The past fourteen months have made me realize that I’m mostly lacking in speaking. It also made me realize that I have forgotten many things I had learned before. Therefore, my goals are clear. Also, I’m pretty sure that my goals will increase and change day by day. From now on, I will continue what I have been doing so far and find other useful ways to improve my English. I think I have spent too many idle years in junior high school and high school. Now I need to challenge myself and be aggressive. This class really helps me a lot in these points. The activities in class accelerate my enthusiasm and people stimulate my motivation. I hope I will turn into a different person by the end of this year and be able to stimulate other people.