Kosaku Hasayama
I participated in the study abroad program of the University of Shimane and studied at Langara College in Vancouver, Canada, in August 2018. I was simply interested in visiting a foreign country, but my experiences in Canada changed the meaning of studying English. I feel strongly I want to improve English and my desire to share ideas with many people around the world increased.
My life in Canada was all immersed in English for 24/7. I went to school every day to study English all day. All the classes at Langara College were conducted in English. It was very exhausting. At home I talked to my host family in English because it was homestay. I realized that my talking ability of English was low because I often could not express well what I wanted to say. But even so in Canada, I needed to express my ideas. For example, if I do something at home in my way and it is not right in Canada, my action will cause trouble to the host family. So I needed to ask questions and make my requests. I strongly wanted to be able to speak more with host family.
Using gestures was very helpful for my communication. I learned how to use gestures at school. I tried to use gestures to express my opinion in English, and I gradually was able to convey what I meant to others. After coming home, I always tried to put what I learned at school immediately to my conversation to the host mother. My host mother was a bit surprised at my improvement, and she praised me. It seemed that she understood well what I meant. I was happy to tell what I meant and I was touched by the fact that it was easy to convey the things I would like to convey by engaging gestures even in my poor English.
In Canada, I could make new friends, but I could not make friends other than Japanese. Why? It is because I don’t have strong English ability. I thought I had to improve my English ability. If I have more English ability, I could talk more with others. I think that I did not have the courage to talk to foreign people from myself, because I was worried that my English would not be understood. I strongly wanted to learn more English in order to be confident about my English ability.
In the end, I went to Canada and had a wonderful experience. I felt that I had to improve my English ability and I want to talk a lot with foreign people. The study abroad program gave me a new goal to me.