The opportunity to study abroad is usually a rare and short  experience. Fortunately, that is not the case here at Shiga Gakuen. A class full of students who spent a year in Canada or New Zealand is not uncommon, and makes for fun, high-level learning every class hour. In the hallways you can meet students from Australia, China, the Philippines, and many other countries.

My Canada life

Hello, I’m Mizuki. I came back from Canada a month ago. I still sometimes speak English accidentally such as “I see”, “Oh my!”, “Sorry”.
Everyone around me is Japanese and everything I hear in Japanese and everything is small for example superstore, foods and buildings. So it feels weird even though I’m Japanese.
Now I want to share some of my experiences. Six of us were staying in city called Richmond. It is near Vancouver. We could go there by bus about an hour. It is a peaceful place but busier than Shiga.
In Richmond there is a big shopping centre called Richmond Centre as big as Apia near the school. We went there almost every day. There are many things you can buy.
There are many Asian in British Columbia. There are many Chinese in Richmond, Japanese in Vancouver, Korean in Coquitlam. Our expectation before going there was we will be surrounded by white people. We were disappointed about that. We were worried that if we could really learn English in a place where we hear more Chinese rather than English.
In my ESL class everyone beside me was Chinese. So I felt kike I was in China. However, spending many days there we made many good Chinese friends and many many other nationality friends too.
Six of us went to three different schools. Two of us went to the same school which is Steveston Secondary School. Everyone of us had to choose four courses. Some of our favorites were Cooking class, Fit Girl class and Guitar class. Some of us had many homework. Some of us did not have any. Depends on teacher, I had a lot.
During one year we had to take our own responsibilities. I think everyone got more independent and stronger. And also one of the biggest thing we learned from one year study we learned of course English but also importance of people around us. I hope you will feel the same way as we did. Thank you.

My New Zealand life

Hi, everyone. I’m Kazuhiro Wakamatsu. I went to New Zealand to study English. I was exited to go to New Zealand, because I could learn English. When I was in Japan, my English was so bad and I didn’t like English.
On the first day at school, they looked at me a stranger. I felt uncomfortable.
In ESOL class, My ESOL teacher could speak other languages. One of those languages was Japanese which she spoke very well. So she could help me a lot.
There were many Asian students, Korean, Chinese, Taiwanese, Thai, and a student from Hong Kong. They were a little bit noisy but they were kind.
They taught me a lot of English. And my guardians in New Zealand, Nicola, Dwayne, Trish and Clive taught me English too. Clive helped me which my social studies homework. He always helped my homework.
At school, my classmates were so kind to me. When I didn’t understand, they used easy English to explain so I could understand.
I joined the tennis club. I made new friends in the tennis club. It was so fun and I enjoyed playing tennis with friends. I enjoyed more than tennis, there was a camp and skiing. Camp was so fun. I did rock-climbing with classmates. It was so exciting, and skiing was fun too.
During holidays I went to hang out with my friends. My friends took me to eat yummy foods and drinks. They took me to many places and my guardian Trish took me to nice cafes and she took me and y friend, young Seok, on many trips with her husband. Young Seok is Korean. He stayed at Trish’s house. When Trish and Clive went on a trip, young Seok stayed at my house.
He has two computers, I borrowed one computer from him. So when he stayed at my house, we watched movie everyday. It was so much fun.
My New Zealand life was so meaningful and I have many good memories.
Thank you for listening to my speech.

Come and join the fun!

The international, friendly atmosphere is enjoyable for both students and teachers. Who knows how international you may bocome?