BoeingHigherEducationProgram

2014 Visiting Kofu Higashi High School Report ９March 11, 2014

　This is Xiaozhou Jia, a first year master course student of Electrical Engineering department of the University of Tokyo. I was very lucky to be admitted to join in the Kofu Higashi High School visit on Mar. 11th. It was really a great experience and I benefited a lot from this visit.

　When I attended the orientation for this visit, I learned our goal was to communicate with high school students in English, try to learn from each other. Kept that in mind, I prepared some slides about my hometown and school life. After arrived the high school, the first impression was the students all appeared to be shy, which was totally different from what I used to believe. From Japanese TV series and programs, my impression for high school students was they are genki, they love laughing and talking, which are all symbols of being young. Later on I started to talking with them, I found them very enthusiastic and serious about this event. Some of them prepared really nice presentations, from which I learned a lot about Japanese culture and society. On the other hand, it was a little bit hard for them talking with us in English without any difficulty. I encouraged them to try their best. And I told them what they need is just speaking out without worrying, some students do made their moves. I wish they could be brave in the future as well, not only on speaking English, but also on other aspects.

　I remembered one student who showed me some information about Japanese bushido and Takeda Shingen, which was one of the famous bushi in Japanese history. Since I’m reading Tokugawa Ieyasu recently, I am impressed on his introduction on Takeda, which was some ideas from another perspective. We talked a little bit about this famous figure in history and I was far more than happy to find someone who shares the same interest with me.

　Meanwhile, I think this program could be improved by making the group smaller. We foreigner students had to be responsible for a group consisting about 10 students. As a result, we had to make some of the part very short and some students did not talk too much due to time limit.
我叫贾晓洲，是一名来自中国的留学生。现在是东京大学大学院电气工学专攻的修士一年级学生。在3月11日参加了去甲府东高中的交流活动，很高兴有这样的机会跟日本的高中生面对面的进行一些交流。我自己在跟高中生交流中被他们的认真、热情感染，也从这次活动中学到了很多关于日本文化、社会、历史之前完全不曾知晓的知识。
日本的学生从中学开始系统的学习日语，到高中最多也就五、六年的时间，对他们来说用英语无障碍的交流确实有些困难。然而，只有克服不敢说的情绪，不断的练习才会有进步。刚开始的时候同学们都很少说话，自己也变得有些拘束，后来随着交流的进行，大家也都放开了，自己不断的鼓励他们，诱导他们尽可能多的把自己想的东西说出来，虽然有些对话还没有尽兴，但是还是收货了不少新的东西。
同学们在这次活动之前每人都准备了一个可以给外国人介绍的关于日本社会的片段。在我介绍过自己的家乡和学校生活之后，就轮到他们用英语介绍他们准备的成果了。看得出来有的同学是花了很多时间准备的，他们的认真和才华让我非常感动，也一直记着其中几个同学和他们准备的小片段。记得有一个男生跟我说他特别喜欢武田信玄，正好自己最近正在读日本战国相关的书，跟他聊了聊武田信玄。还记得有一个很可爱的女生跟我讲日本女生化妆的情况，这些都是非常有意义的交流，希望以后还有机会可以参加这样的活动。