Every Year we have many students traveling abroad on both short and long term exchanges and trips. In addition, every year there are many students studying here from many countries around the world.
　Last year we had students studying in Canada, New Zealand, and Ireland, France.
　The following reports were written by three of those students.

Hard experiences made me strong in CANADA.

"I'm sorry, Mr.Hall. I couldn't keep up with what we learned today. If you have time, could you explain what we were learning about? So do you mind if I stay longer in this class?" I asked Mr. Hall this almost everyday after school, when I couldn't understand. The Social studies class' teacher was Mr.Hall who had worked at IKUEI high school about 10 years ago. He showed me a business card from when he worked there. During class, I told him that I was an exchange student from IKUEI. After that he was soooo happy and excited and he talked to the class about Japanese things. That day's lesson passed only talking about Japan.

Before I met him, I was worried about school and my English, but he was so nice to me and he believed me, that I couldn't speak and understand English very well. He always tried to speak slower and used easy words for me. You know, my English pronunciation was a bit different from other Asian students, so many teachers thought that I was a Korean and I could understand what they said, but that I pretended I couldn't. This shocked me greatly. One day, I was talking to Mr.Hall about these things after school, and he said "Eri, I know you are trying to do your best. But Eri, why are you here?" then I said, "I want to learn English and I want to speak English more." "Right! That's why you're here. Don't try to understand your classes and what everyone else is learning about. Understand that, Okay?" "And it's Okay for you to stay here after school, he added with a smile." I said "Thank you, Mr. Hall." And started to focus on improving my English, asking questions to my teachers, friends, and host-family.

In school, there were a lot of international students and often they would separate into their own cultural groups. For example, Chinese with Chinese, French with French, Korean with Korean, Latin with Latin and so on. But I wanted to interact with all cultures. So I needed to have courage to communicate with everybody and get over the high cultural wall.

Fortunately, I had two house mates in my host-family. One was an Austrian girl and the other one was a Brazilian girl. My host-family was Mexican, and they were always happy. The Austrian girl, who's name was Julia, went to the same school as me, so we were always together. That was really good for me, helping me to improve my English. She was nice. We often went shopping and to parties together, and we did our homework together too. Her English was really good, so during our conversations, she would correct my English, helping me. At first, I had many Asian friends and some Canadian friends. But Julia was different from me, she had European friends. Naturally, we were in different cultural groups at school. But Julia and I didn't like this. So I introduced my Asian friends, sometimes Chinese, sometimes Korean, to her and her European friends. And Julia would introduce her friends to us. At first, they were shy, probably because of meeting new people and from a different culture too. However, gradually, they began to talk a lot, and it changed so that we began eating lunch together almost everyday.

After school sometimes, I went to a beach called "English bay" with my friends. It was such a beautiful place. I loved it there and while I was there, I thought about my family and friends back in Japan. That time made me refreshed and gave me confidence. While we were there, my friends and I talked of our time abroad. We promised that, after we went back to own countries, we would keep in touch and remain friends forever.

Every Friday, I went Downtown with friends, to shop and join in the parties. Sometimes, I would spend this time with my host-family at a party at home. I ate too much, and I worried about my weight. Therefore I went to the gym by myself and took part in dance lessons three times a week. That was really fun and made me feel refreshed.

Through my friends, I learned about many cultures, not only Canadian. As you know, Canada has many different ethnic groups, so I could see many Europeans, Latins, Asians, including other Japanese, as well as Iranians and many others as well. Because of this, I now have friends from many different cultures.

However, during my social studies class, I was asked to explain about Japan, the culture, government party, population and economy. I found this very difficult to explain to them, because I didn't know enough about things. There were times when I had to search the internet for the knowledge I needed. As a Japanese, I was ashamed of myself. I learned about my own culture and country in Canada.

One day, the school principal asked me to speak at the school event for Remembrance Day. Remembrance Day is a memorial day in Canada for World War Two. The speech was a good chance for me to show the teachers and students of my school about Japanese things and I decided to wear YUKATA for it. I did the speech in both English and Japanese, and afterwards, I taught many female students and teachers how to wear YUKATA. They were really interested in it and I was glad, because I had learnt at IKUEI how to wear YUKATA, so I could show them how to wear it properly, too.

During these 10 months, I became stronger than before. And I learnt about how we should always be proud of our own country and culture. I think that Japanese young people should be proud of Japan's traditional culture. Now, the world is taking on a global point of view, but we shouldn't forget our own culture. If I hadn't gone to Canada, I might not have thought like this. I would definitely like to go abroad again, to study or to do something like volunteer service and work. My English is still not perfect, so of course, I want to continue to study it as well. I want to keep trying to learn other languages, and about other cultures and people.

I really appreciate IKUEI and my parents for creating that great chance for me to study abroad. Thank you so much.

My unforgettable memories with lovely people in Ireland

The first few months in Ireland, I could hardly speak English and couldn't understand at all what people were saying.

My host sister and I went to the same school, which was about ten minutes walk from our house. I always listened carefully to what people around me were talking about because I wanted to understand English as soon as and as much as I could. I also wanted to talk a lot with my host family and my classmates.

In about three months, I was almost able to talk with my host family and friends, and to my surprise, I also understood what people around me were saying. From that time, I came to like talking with people willingly.

In December, I went to my host mother's sister's house and we celebrated Christmas with my host sister's cousins. There were six girls in the house. When I met them the first time, I was surprised, because I've never seen so many young children. The children were really friendly and I learnt English a lot by playing with them.

In the early morning of the Christmas Day, the girls came to my room and said to me, "Kanako! Get up! Santa came!" When I went to another room, the room was full of presents and I couldn't believe my eyes. There were a lot of presents for me as well as for other children. I was happy because at that time, I felt as if they were real family members.

Before I went to Ireland, what I worried about most was about my host family. I hadn't known anything about them until I arrived at Shannon airport in Ireland. My host family smiled and hugged me. I liked the family at once. They always helped me in many ways. Even if I couldn't tell them what I wanted to say, they tried to understand what I was going to say.

Home life in Ireland is completely different from Japanese. I often went up town during lunch time and bought some stuff. Every town in Ireland is completely different from one in Japan. There are some churches and they look like small castles. I really loved Irish towns. I needed to study a lot of subjects at school such as English, Math, Business, Home Economics, Technology, Japanese, History, Science, Art, Music and so on. Home Economics was the hardest subject for me, because I got a lot of assignments in each class. I often asked many questions about the assignments to my classmates, teachers and my host family. They always helped me kindly. When I got good marks for those projects, I was really happy and they made my host family happy as well.

After I finished the term at the school, I moved to Co. Wicklow in the east of Ireland. I was staying with an Irish family and I shared my room with a 29-year-old Spanish lady. There was also a 55-year-old Italian man. They are adults but both of them came to Ireland to learn English. The Spanish lady had a very strong Spanish accent, so it was really hard to understand what she was saying. I sometimes got confused because I was almost able to talk with Irish people in English but I couldn't communicate with her very well for the first time.

I went to a language school with them in Wicklow for a month. All the other students in the school were from Europe. I was the only one from Asia. They came to Ireland for different reasons. The Italian man came to Ireland for the purpose of teaching English to his grand daughter. Some of them came to learn English as an au pair to earn money. According to a Polish man in the school, he couldn't understand English at all because he had never studied it until he came to the school. And because of that, he was bullied at his work. Some of the other students in this school have lost their job because of their low English skill.

Although many people in the school couldn't speak English well, we often talked about ourselves or our own countries. We also taught English to each other. When we spoke everyone made mistakes, but no one hesitated to speak English. Sometimes we went out to shopping or sight seeing. Before I went to Ireland I used to think Europeans can speak English fluently even if they don't study, but I found I was wrong.

Thanks to the Irish people I met, my English has improved a lot. During my stay in Ireland, I think I also grew up mentally. Sometimes I was confused and I didn't know what I should do in a different culture, but I learnt I need to understand different culture to communicate well with people in my host country. I think communication styles and people's views differ between cultures. And I think I also realized that I have to have a big mind and adapt myself to other cultures.