From Australia Report on St. Andrew’s CC 2017 Term 2_170423

Now it is the time for St. Andrew’s Catholic College to welcome their Term 2 for 2017.  As for Otsuma Nakano exchange program there, new students have kicked off their study at St. Andrew’s.  We are more than proud to introduce Kanna Kuramoto, who is one of the exchange students for Term 2, and the first report on her outstanding Aussi life in Cairns.

Hello, everyone!  This is Kanna Kuramoto from Cairns, Australia.  I have spent one week in Cairns since I came here.  In Cairns, it is often raining.  It makes me feel a little blue, but after the rain, there is a rainbow arching over the sky, so I can see beautiful view. Even though I have stayed here for only one week yet,  I can share my interesting Cairns life with everyone! Here we go!!

My buddy is Hannah, who came to Otsuma Nakano High School to join our student exchange program for three weeks.  She is in Year 10, so I am taking the classes of Year 10, too.  I can usually understand the contents of each class with the help of my dictionary for looking up my unknown words, but it is very hard to listen to fast English words and sentences spoken by teachers.  I listen to lectures very carefully in every class.  Especially, Religion class and English class are so difficult to me. In the Religion class, during first 10 minutes to 20 minutes, we do “Meditation”.  It is called MEISOU in Japanese.  A teacher plays meditation music and students close their eyes and lie down on the floor.  At first when I saw such a sight, I was surprised at it, and thought “what happened?!”.  But because Hannah told me that it was meditation, I could understand that action. Now the time of “meditation” becomes my relaxing time. (hahaha!)

In the English class, I learned how to update the presentation. The teacher gave me my own homework.  It is a reading task. I have to read a book written in English, and after reading I have to write an essay about the book.  I was told that I should hand in the essay in the final week of studying abroad, so now I’m reading that book with looking up my unknown words.  It is very happy task for me to do. The book was chosen by Hannah and her friend, Lauren. They chose a book very earnestly. In the library, they argued each other like “This book’s English is too difficult” or ”This story is too heavy”, and so on.  It made me happy, and I thank them for choosing the book.  

I want to write much more things on this report, but if I write all things, this report will be very long, so I end this report here.  I need to practice much more to be a native speaker, so I’ll absolutely continue to do my best with positive thinking mindset and smile!!!

Thank you for reading this report.  See you in two weeks!!

皆さんこんにちは！ケアンズに留学中の倉本栞汀です！私は今、ケアンズに来て１週間が経ちました。ケアンズでは、雨がよく降っています。それは少し残念ですが、雨が降った後にはいつも大きな虹がかかってとても綺麗なので、雨の天気でもいい景色を見ることができます。私はまだケアンズに来て１週間ですが、この１週間での楽しい経験を紹介していきます！Here we go!!

私のバディは以前大妻中野に３週間留学に来ていたHannahで、彼女は１０年生のため、私も１０年生の授業を受けています。授業の内容はわからない言葉を調べながら勉強するとわかるのですが、先生の話を聞くのがとても難しく、いつも先生の早いスピードの英語を必死になって聞いています。特に、宗教の授業と英語の授業が難しく感じました。宗教の授業では、授業の最初の１０〜２０分、”meditation”という、”瞑想”をします。先生がパソコンから瞑想用の曲を流し、生徒は横になって目を閉じます。最初、生徒みんなが椅子から降りて寝転がった時は”何が起きたんだ？！”とびっくりしましたが、Hannahが瞑想だということを教えてくれました。今では、meditationの時間は私のリラックスタイムです。笑

英語の授業では、先生が私に私用の宿題を用意してくれました。それは、本を１冊選んで読み、それについてのエッセイを書くというものでした。提出するのは留学の最後の週と言われたので、わからない言葉を調べたりしながら、楽しく読んでいます。本は、Hannahと彼女の友達のLaurenが真剣に選んでくれました。図書室で、”この本の英語は難しすぎる”や”この話は重い”などと話し合いながら選んでくれ、私は彼女たちに感謝しました。

まだまだ書きたいことはたくさんありますが、長くなってしまうのでここまでにしておきます！私がネイティブスピーカーになるにはまだまだ練習が必要です。これからも、明るく笑顔で、全力を尽くします！！！

このレポートを読んでくれてありがとうございました。私は絶対に成長してみせますよ！では、また次のレポートで！