Name: Naoko Kato

Year: 1997

 

 

     I started my English study When I was 11 years old. At that time I went to private school 3 times a week after class. At first I didn't have much interest in English. One day my teacher made me read the text book in front of my classmates. When I finished reading the teacher and my classmates praised me. From that day I became English Hungry.

     When I entered JHS I began to exchange letters with an American boy. I couldn't write so much because my English was so poor but I tried hard. His letter was too difficult for me to read. I often asked my English teacher to help me. It was good practice to write and to read. To my regret our relationship soon died. Nevertheless I still loved to study English. So I decided to go to Meito SHS which has special English course. In Meito SHS I was in Eigoka (special English course). Everyone in my class was English Hungry. I had such a wonderful environment. I had native English teachers, returnee friends and so many English classes. In Meito a lot of people can also be an exchange student. I decided to be one. Fortunately I passed the examination and I could be an AFS exchange student.

     In 1994, I was only 15 and I left Japan for Australia to stay for one year. I lived with my host Mum and sister. Of course they didn't understand Japanese so I always had to speak English otherwise I couldn't do anything that I wanted. That was a precious year in my life.

     I still keep in touch with them. I write to them and sometimes we talk on the phone. My host sister sometimes speaks so fast on the phone, not only fast sometimes she speaks popular words like HS girl in Japan. So that I have difficulty understanding her. If I ask her to speak slowly and in a normal way she does it for me.

     In Australia I went to public HS and I was involved in Year 11. My favorite class was ESL. In ESL I had nice friends. Most of them were Asian and had had 2 or 3 years English. We helped each other all the time.

     One day after the class I was so blue because I couldn't  understand what people say and couldn't make myself understood. I felt like I didn't want to speak any more. I think I looked so dull and dumb. Then one of my ESL classmate came to next me. He was from Vietnam and had lived in Australia for 3 years at that time. He said to me "Just relax and take it easy. I was also just like you. Everybody had exactly the same feelings as you. Don't worry I understand you."  His words sounded like the words of god to me. Since then I could try to speak to my ESL classmates.

     As I became good friends with them, I noticed a very important thing. They speak so many kinds of English. Like Vietnamese English, Chinese English and Indonesian English and so on. Of course I speak Japanese English. No matter what kind of English, we could have communication. Before I noticed this, I tried to speak English like native speakers. My idea was speaking like that was really cool. Now I know it is no shame to speak Japanese English. We are Japanese and we don't have to pretend to be American people. People who speak English, whatever, their accent, they can understand you.

     In the ESL class I was better than the other students in reading and in writing because of my education in Japan. However, I was the worst speaker in the class. The English education program in Japan is very poor at speaking. We don't have enough chance to speak in English in Japan.