Report draft

To my group members, I wrote down the final draft of our report below in order to have comments from you all. In this blog, please feel free to have comments on the draft I edited. I have revised some of your contents in order to fit each of our parts together as one final report draft. To others in the class, although the following text is the draft of our group's final report, please read the text before the class. We hope we could have discussions about the contents in the class tomorrow.

Six stories on studying abroad

Kenichi’s story
It is only me in the group who has never gone abroad, but I want to go to New Zealand in order to study English and its culture.
The reason why I want to go overseas is because of my ALT teacher when I was a junior high school student. He was from New Zealand. He was so kind and taught the class not only English but a lot of other things including foods, beautiful scenes and the people in his mother land. When I heard his story, I came to want to have a different experience and decided to go to New Zealand someday. I talked with him after the class. It was the first time for me to talk with a foreigner. But it was so exciting because I could express myself by using English, not Japanese!
I once had a chance to go to New Zealand during my high school years, but I missed that chance! I regretted it so much.
So I will by all means go to New Zealand next spring vacation. To realize my goal, now I should save money and study a lot. It must be hard for me, but I will do my best to make my dream come true.

Hirono’s story: “My story in New Zealand-AUT International House-“
I have spent two weeks in New Zealand to study English. I always went to school every morning and studied English there during the course period. The language school was called AUT International House. There was a diversity of students who had come to New Zealand from all around the world. My class was no exception. There were Chinese, Korean, Taiwanese, Vietnamese, and Peruvian students in the class. They were very friendly and positive in their studies.
There were only about ten students in the class, so my classmates and I found it lucky to study English in such a small class.
My class teacher, Tim, gave us many kinds of lesson in the class. She indeed devised various ways of learning English. Thanks to her teaching methods, we could learn English cheerfully. For example, she used music in the class. The song was James Blunt’s ‘You’re Beautiful’. Each of us had a separate piece of paper which was written parts of the lyrics of the song and we had to arrange papers to make the lyrics correct in order. We listened to the song as long as we could find the lyrics of the song. After the lesson, I found it very useful for me to listen to the music to improve my English listening skill.
We also did some group activities in the class. We did games such as spelling quiz, tried to find words described by Tim. One day in the group, I talked about myself since the topic I got was ‘What’s your best memory in your life?’. I also talked about my future career when I got the topic of ‘What do you want to be in the future?’. My classmates could know about myself at the same time I could know about them more.
The life in AUT IH was so precious for me that I am very grateful to all the people I have met in the school. I learned not only English but also many ways of teaching English during the course in AUT International House.

Mizuki’s story
As a month-long home stay program during the summer break, I went to the United States when I was a junior high school student.
While I was in the States, I wasn’t good at speaking and listening to English. I made mistakes in every time I talked, but my host family helped me to improve my speaking English skill in order to make myself feel comfortable in the house. But I enjoyed a stay in the United States and experienced a lot of wonderful things during the stay. Everyone I had met in America was very friendly.
As soon as I came back to Japan, I found it interesting to learn English and to study International Relations. Now, I really want to study abroad again, and I want to learn a lot of things while I am in overseas. So I need to keep practicing English in order to make my dream come true.

Chiaki’s story
I have been to Auckland, New Zealand for six weeks during the spring break this year. I learned English in the language school of AUT every week. Over the weekends, I went sightseeing.
My classmates were mostly from Asia, although some students were from Europe and South America. Chinese and Korean students are the majority in the class.
During the course, my classmates and I learned 4 skills of English－listening, writing, speaking and reading skills of English－to improve English. It was a good experience for me to learn English with foreign students in the class. I learned many things from my classmates. Communication was not easy at all when we misunderstood each other in English. My classmates didn’t pronounce English like a native speaker of English, of course, as I didn’t, too. It took some time to get over the problem of communication.
I went to many tourist places in Auckland including Sky Tower, the museum, the aquarium, the zoo and so on. I saw a beautiful night view when I was in the highest building in the southern hemisphere of the earth. It was amazing!
Auckland has a lot of beaches and volcanoes. The sea was really beautiful. I climbed the big volcano called Rangitoto on the last day of my stay in New Zealand. It took over an hour to get to the summit, I was tired, but the view from the top was great!
There are many things to see do in Auckland. The city in the best place I’ve ever visited in my life. I had a really good time in Auckland, New Zealand.

Takashi’s story: “My experience”
I had been to New Zealand for two weeks during my high school years. The reason why I could go there is that I had a special opportunity to take. The high school celebrated the hundredth anniversary of its foundation and it made a special program in which a certain number of students could go to New Zealand for a short period of time. I applied to the program, but there were so many students who had already applied, so I had to take an exam for selection. My exam result was very poor, but I proved in the interview that communication in English is different from obtaining a high score in a test. Luckily in the end, I got the ticket to study abroad.
In Auckland, I stayed with the family which had emigrated from China. We talked a lot of things such as Nebuta. I also talked with them about my dreams, hobbies, and so on. Of course we talked about communication in English. My host mother said like this, ‘I have never studied English because I emigrated from China, but I could become to communicate in English. Nevertheless I can’t read and write English.’. So I realized then there is almost no connection between communication in English and to get a high score in exams. Based on this experience, I think it is important for me to keep practicing English to speak the language fluently.

Kazusa’s story: “My stay in Dunedin, New Zealand”
It has been about two years since I came back to Japan from New Zealand. It is just like a yesterday, though. Why I decided to study abroad was to know a different culture and to learn International Politics in the English-speaking environment. Selected as an exchange student between two universities, it was as if I was on board of the airplane flying all over the destinations to submit the documents and finally the plane arrived at New Zealand with two friends of mine who had also been selected as two of the four exchange students from Hirosaki University to the University of Otago in 2004.
I spent first three months improving my English skills at the University of Otago Language Centre. Since the class was designed to provide its students with academic skills, teachers taught us how to write essays, how to present a good presentation and how to manage study schedule in order to be successful in the university. It was an intense program, so I can’t forget what I have done in the class. That was a valuable experience for me to get prepared for a study at university.
Taking courses during a semester in the University of Otago was different and hard. Not only did I need to concentrate to take notes in the classes, but I had to write essays in each of the classes I had taken, about the volume of 1500 words each, in order to get a higher grade at the end of each class. Fortunately, I took credits in all the subjects in the end. But everything I experienced in Dunedin was different from what I did in Hirosaki.
Let me say in the end that everything you may have heard of is true in terms of costs and job opportunities after graduation. But it doesn’t mean you can’t have your own experience of studying abroad which is different from my own. In other words, it’s entirely up to you whether or not you are going to experience something special overseas during the university’s life of your own.

On behalf of our group, thank you for reading. See you tomorrow morning.