Name: Kenichirou Nasu                                                                                                                           

Year: 1996

 

    At the beginning of April, I was very surprised at the OC class because it was quite different from ones in my JHS and HS. In my JHS and HS, teachers tended to put emphasis on entrance examinations, so in English classes I learned grammar, translated English into Japanese, and did a lot of exercises. At first in university, the materials in OC class looked strange and I wondered whether I could really improve my English in these ways. I had never used videos and juggling balls in English class in my JHS and HS so at first  I simply thought that this teacher just likes to play and sing songs with fun. However, that was wrong. These were all effective strategies.

    Having finished my HS, I was able to solve some difficult English exercises because I had trained for the entrance exams. But I could not speak English so well because I had never conversed with someone in English in my HS. I was very anxious and very afraid of speaking English at first in OC class. And I was surprised to see some classmates speaking English fluently. I thought if I spoke to them in my poor English, they would laugh at me..... But the materials enabled me to talk with them. Every day we all had conversation with others.

    The video log is also the same case. That was fortunate for me because I "had to" speak to good English speakers; that is, I had a chance to try out my English. However, I was still afraid, “Can they understand what I say? Will I make mistakes that confuse them?” This anxiety faded when I heard My teacher say "No problem! It is OK to make mistakes." I realized that I could not communicate with them if I was afraid of making mistakes. Since then, I decided to talk with classmates positively. After a while, I was able to communicate with classmates with a lot of fun.

    As mentioned above, at first the materials looked strange. But now, I really realize how useful they were.

    Juggling: I thought at first that juggling was just recreation, not for language learning. That was wrong. I have seen one article in Language Hungry about it.

    I quite agree with it. I also think that there are steps in language learning as well as in learning juggling. And in addition to this, we must believe that "we can do it!" both in language learning and in learning juggling. At first, we will not be able to do well, but we must not give up. With some beliefs, we would improve our abilities step by step and finally we will be professionals.

    Songs: I really loved it! In OC class and Workshop class, we heard and sang a lot of songs and watched various music videos. I knew many singers and many impressive songs. Songs are very easy to memorize. I think there are two reasons for it. The first is that songs have rhythm. With rhythm, the lyrics can come into our brain easily. The second reason why songs can be memorized so easily is that we can memorize them with a lot of fun. In general, people like to sing songs. That is useful for relaxation. Singing does not seem like study. We just enjoy. So it is natural that we memorize songs with ease.

    Making stories; I really appreciate this very much. That was an epoch-making strategy for me which I had never seen in my JHS and HS. When I was in HS I was not good at memorizing vocabulary. I had one vocabulary book and read it in the train for my HS. That was little useful because quite a number of vocabulary were simply listed in the book. I wish I had known this strategy while in my HS.

    In my teacher's OC class, there were various strange-looking materials. These materials helped me to learn English with fun. Of course, they helped me improve my English ability. Now, I am not sill fluent English speaker, but some day I would like to be a professional.