“Cross-cultural project” with Miwada Gakuen

Gyuyoung Lee

 Firstly, I want to say thank you to Hosei for giving me this good opportunity.

 We started by introducing ourselves to each other. After dividing into a few groups, I met 3 students from Miwada. They seemed a little bit scared of speaking in English at first. I know how difficult it is for them to speak with a stranger and it was even in their second language. Thus, I wanted to make a bond between us. I started to break the ice first by giving some funny stories about me to them. Actually, since I have done tutoring with Korean students before, that helped me find some way to keep talking with them as well. It was also fun to see a lot of similarities between the teenagers back in my country and from Japan.

 They asked me a few simple questions like what do you like about Japan, what made it difficult to study in Japan, and also some questions related to my experience of studying abroad.

 It is always amazing that my story can also be the motivation for someone in this world. Through this experience, I found out that I love being a person who gives advice and encourages people even for those I met for the first time.

 At the last speech, I delivered this message to them, even though you all were all afraid of speaking in English, you guys made it till the end and you all should be proud of yourselves. Like what you experienced today, if you don’t give up and keep it up with your efforts, everything that you are dreaming right now will become true.