Learning Model | Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University

Service Learning Program: Learning the importance of using language to communicate

After completing my first year at APU, I participated in a three-month Service Learning Program offered by Old Dominion University (ODU) in the state of Virginia in the United States. This program combines language and service-related learning through internships (work experience prior to taking up employment), externships (work experience that is not directly related to a job search), volunteer activities, and other activities.

I decided to take part in the program because I wanted to find out how much my English language ability had grown after one year of study at APU by testing my abilities in an English-speaking region, and I thought it would be a valuable experience to experience working abroad in preparation for future job hunting.

During the first half of the program, I attended English language classes at a language school with students coming to learn English from all over the world. Grammar had always been my forte so I was placed into the advanced class, but I struggled to keep up with the other students when it came to speaking and listening. I almost gave up trying to demote my class. However, I was encouraged by an American teacher saying "Be Confident!", And I was able to strengthen myself by actively interacting with language partners and local students. In the end, I was able to complete the debate competition, which was one of the lesson tasks.

In the second half of the program, I had an externship for about a month at a local radio station called "iHeartMedia". The representative of the company became my mentor. I participated in different departments every day and was able to observe and experience various tasks. Specifically, it was very exciting days for me to actually accompany the sales staff or have them show me the radio recording and editing work up close. Even though the mentor was busy as a representative of the company, he picked me up by car every day and asked various questions about Japan. It was impressive that he took me seriously like that.

Perhaps because I was touching on the American national character of expressing my opinion clearly, this program allowed me to firmly convey the departments I wanted to experience. I felt that I especially learned the attitude of not being afraid to convey my opinion. Also, because the mentor talked to me regardless of the nationality or position, I myself decided to interact with people without prejudice.

Domestic Exchange Program: Ritsumeikan University

In the fall semester of my third year, I went on exchange for six months to the College of Social Sciences at Ritsumeikan University, Kinugasa (Kyoto) campus. I wished to study media and culture at another university and had originally planned to go to the United Kingdom on an exchange program. However, when I explored the details on APU's domestic exchange programs, I realized that, instead of going overseas, I could study culture and media in Japan at Ritsumeikan University and could simultaneously strengthen my Japanese language proficiency. This helped me decide to aim for pursuing graduate studies in the United Kingdom after finishing at APU.

All of the classes at Ritsumeikan University were held in Japanese, which was a bit of a struggle, but the Ritsumeikan University writing support really helped me. Once I got accustomed to studying there, I joined a program where my language partner and I constantly peer-taught each other in Japanese and English, and I made friends with the members of a student group that provided support to exchange students. I also hanged out with fellow APU students who were on this exchange program, and I learned a lot about the Kansai region throughout this program. In the end, I was glad I went on exchange in Japan because if I had gone overseas, my Japanese language ability would not have improved like it did.

Moreover, studying at Ritsumeikan University afforded me a chance to look at APU more objectively. I recognized that, because of the truly international environment at APU, APU domestic students differ from students at other Japanese universities. This is because they are used to having international students around.

SEND Program: Taking aim

In summer of my second year, I participated in the SEND Program, which is an educational internship. I went to a junior high school in Loei, a province of Thailand, and worked in a team with two other APU students to teach Japanese. During the first week, the three of us realized we had different ideas because we had different goals, and as a result we clashed with each other. The three of us were working in different directions; while my goal was to motivate students and to increase their eagerness to study Japanese, another team member was more interested in creating classes than in managing the classes. The third member was focused on how much our students understood the language cards that we made ourselves.

With everyone working in their own way, sometimes I had to teach classes without sufficient preparation. However, we understood that we were working as interns, and were responsible for our work. After discussing the situation in our team, the three of us shared our goals and established a cooperative framework in which we were able to work together and support each other.

Since this was a short one-month program where we needed to teach Japanese to students who did not even know basic Japanese phonetics, we decided that our goal was to enable students to remember general greetings and useful Japanese phrases such as oishii (delicious). By providing students with this experience, we hoped to inspire an interest in Japan, and from that to motivate them to study Japanese in the future.

Junior high school students are easy to understand. When we gave a class that they found uninteresting, they looked away. When they found our classes interesting, they listened eagerly. Depending on our actions, their interest in the Japanese language and their motivation for learning would change. With this in mind, we exercised our ingenuity, such as by writing Japanese, English, and Thai on the word cards we used in classes, so that even students who are still learning English could understand and participate.

I believe the experience of working with other people on the SEND Program, and realizing that our actions can influence and motivate other people drew me to human resource management, which I am currently studying at Hanyang University, where I am participating in an overseas exchange program.

Creating a comfort zone in unfamiliar terrirory

Now I am currently studying human resource management at Hanyang University in South Korea on an overseas exchange program. Because I worked hard on my English skills before coming on this program, my student life and classes provided in English are very fulfilling. However, there are no other Japanese people around me, and when I go out to town I find myself in an all-Korean language environment. Since I came to South Korea without studying Korean at all, at first the unfamiliar environment made me feel stressed. As a result, I participated in meetings and activities with other exchange students and regular students from the university.

Consulting with each other about our worries, and learning Korean from these students, I found my stress levels dropping, and now I rarely feel stressed. Because I believed that an environment where I was the only Japanese person should provide me with a unique challenge, I was constantly questioning whether I had fully utilized this opportunity, and whether it had contributed to my own development. I now feel that, thanks to my experiences, I will be okay wherever I go.