Name: Ai Nanami       

Year: 1996          

 

                                                                                                                      

     My junior high and high school put stress on English education. I had English classes like grammar, reading,  composition, and conversation. I studied English every day. Among these classes, I liked the conversation classes most. About twenty students studied together with a native teacher. The content of the textbook for that class was interesting. We often did works like LL class now. We tried TOEFL, sang songs in English, saw movies without Japanese, and used many other materials. I sometimes had to record my speaking. It was homework and I had to tell my opinion about the topics which were given.

     At that time I did not like this kind of assignment. But now I really think it was helpful. In this class I had a conversation both with the teacher and with classmates. This conversation between the students did not go as well as we do now. As to other classes, they were helpful, too.      Although I did not like and am not good at grammar,  by doing a lot of problems, I was able to have a little confidence in it. In the reading class,  we of course had a textbook. And still more our teacher gave us a lot of reading materials like articles from newspapers. These were interesting. My English teachers used English about half of the class time. Of course the native teachers always used it. I spent six years following this schedule. I was in a lucky environment.

     Before I came to the university, I expected that I would have to study about more difficult things in every class and that studying at university is quite different from that of high school. I did not think English study at the university was so enjoyable. So I was surprised a little to find myself enjoying oral English classes. I was also surprised at the success of the English conversation with the classmates. At first, I hesitated to use English with other Japanese classmates. It was kind of embarrassing. I felt something strange and uncomfortable. But soon I got used to it.

     Remembering the year as a freshman, I have really enjoyed the conversation with friends using English. I think this is great progress for me. This might be a change of my ways of language learning.

     In this school I think I learned a good attitude. I learned to think about things positively. I believe that the effort of not only me but also all of the classmates changed the atmosphere of the classroom. I was very happy to have wonderful classmates.

     The area that I want to improve in still is pronunciation. In the class, I can hear the great conversations with beautiful pronunciation here and there. Not only from those who spent a long time in a foreign country but so many students have good pronunciation. At that time I feel mine is still poor. Last year I tended to be preoccupied with what I was going to say next and forgot how to talk. One of the goals this year is to improve the way of speaking. I think I am better at listening than at speaking. The reason for this might be LL class. I get very nervous when I have to speak in front of people, even a few people. So the videoing was very hard for me at first. But I got used to it now. I want to believe the proverb, "Practice makes perfect.”

     During my next three years at university, I want to try many things to improve my English. University gives us a lot of chances. I want to use them as much as possible. Last year I was busy getting used to everything. Now I know many things and I will use them. I do not want to forget the first year because I learned so many good things. They were very helpful and useful for language learning. For example, shadowing and self-talk were great. I think I did not realize that kind of thing works well in language learning before. Maybe I had misunderstood the way of learning. I want to continue the things which fit me.

     Last I want to give advice to next year's first year students. They should enjoy themselves in classes. If they worry too much about every little thing, language learning might not be interesting. So if they relax and enjoy classes, they are sure to make progress in English. It will be great!