World Youth Meeting 2002 in Nagoya

Our Ideal International Exchange and English Education in 2005

Fukui commercial high school ・ International business course

Erika Dekura, Natsumi Yamamoto, Yuka Tanaka

G’day, everyone! What’s up?

We are very happy to be here with you today.

We’re from Fukui Commercial High School. My name is Erika, my name is Natsumi, and my name is Yuka.

Ok now, let us start our presentation. Our topic is “Our Ideal International exchange and English Education in 2005”.

What is “International Exchange”? We think, “International Exchange” means to “understand the world”. Then, we will ask you “WHAT DOES “THE WORLD MEAN TO YOU??” Probably, most of you will have your own answer. For instance, it may be “countries”, “cultures”, “saladbowl”, “peace”, and “war”.

Then we will ask you again, “who makes these things such as countries, cultures and so on. Please think about the answer. Yes, “people” makes them. In other words, “International Exchange” is to understand the people all over the world. They are different from us. They have different cultures, different customs, and different languages. But, please do not forget “It’s not good or bad, it’s just different!”

How can we understand people with different cultures, different customs, and different languages? What is the best way of communication? Yes, English! We can communicate in “English”.

Here, let’s focus on English. Ok, everyone, please make pairs. Please shake your hands with your partner. Everybody finds the partner? Listen, you have 1 minute to talk with your partner in English. Don’t speak Japanese, English only. You can talk anything you like. About yourself, about the world cup, about today, just anything is OK!

1minute later

Thank you, please stop talking!! How was it? Did you talk a lot? Could you tell what you really wanted to? Some of you were shy and hesitated to talk in English,　 weren’t you? Why do you think Japanese people are not so good at English? You know, all of us have learned English at least for 3 to 5 years. Maybe we can find some problems in our English class.

We had questionnaire to find problems. We will show you the result of our Questionnaire. The students of Fukui commercial high school Chukyo university students and Taiwanese students answered these questionnaires. Please have a look at the screen!

We started off the questionnaire by asking whether they like their English classes or not.

Erika: Do you like English classes?

Taiwanese 1:

Erika: Why?

Sam: As you can see from the result, it was surprising to find that many students don’t like English classes.

Next we asked if they want be a better English speaker.

Erika: Do you want to be a better English speaker?

Taiwanese 2:

Sam: According to the result, although most of them want to be a better English speaker, they don’t like their English classes. So we thought that they have some complaints about it. From these result w decided to ask further question.

Erika: Do you have any complaints about your English classes?

Taiwanese 3:

Erika: What kind of complaints do you have?

Taiwanese 3:

Sam: Let’s have a look at other students complaints.

l The class is to fast to catch up.

l It’s difficult to understand.

l It’s boring.

l It’s useless.

l They learn too much grammar

l It is teacher-centered class

On the other hand, we wondered what their Ideal English class is!! So we asked this question.

Erika: What is your Ideal English class?

Taiwanese 4:

Sam: As you can see from the result,

42% of the students want to learn English conversation.

29% of the students want to communicate with ALT.

22% of the students want to learn not only English but also foreign

cultures.

7% of the students want to learn grammar for the exam.

Now you understand, many students like English and want to be a better English speaker, but we have some complains about English classes. We want to practice and use English a lot. Let’s speak English more in English classes.

Next, let’s think about another way to communicate with the world.

“The Internet.” Can connect us with the world directly. The Internet has a great possibility to understand the world. We can communicate with people in other countries without going to the foreign countries. We can exchange e-mail at an amazing speed. W can have chat with people all over the world in the Internet! We can see many websites, no matter where we are or no matter when it is. How wonderful this way of communication is!!

　Now you understand that we can communicate effectively using English and Internet.

If we have computers and projector in English classes in 2005, what kind of class can we have? Please look at our skit with Taiwanese students. The skit is about our ideal English class in the future.

Like this, we can meet a lot of new people around the world and gain many different opinions through the Internet or TV conference. It can change our way of thinking and our point of view. These lead to broaden our horizon!

Moreover, we can know our culture is not the same. Something usual in our culture is not usual in a different culture. For example, it is usual to take off shoes at the front door in Japan. But it is unusual in some other countries. We can find a lot of differences. Cultures are different. Languages are different. But at the same time, we realize people in the world are the same as us. Therefore, we can understand different things and the same things in the world. As a result, we will be able to understand “ourselves” better.

As you found out, educational situation will be improved enough to give students wonderful opportunities to communicate with foreigners very often and gain new knowledge. Despite this fact, we will tell you the most important thing. The world never comes to you. You yourself approach the world. Please be positive!!! If you become positive, for example, you try to speak English more, or you try to take part in international exchange activities, the world will give a lot of gifts to you. Also we should face the world, Japan and yourself, and love Japan!!!

Let’s be positive to become part of the world and change yourself!!