It’s only my second post and I’ve already been extremely lazy with updating this blog (sorry future-self!), so you’ll have to bear with me while I try and cram the last couple of months into one jam-packed post without too much waffling!
For the first time ever, Daiwa scholars have to take part in a 1 month language course in the UK before jetting off to Tokyo, and that’s what has been occupying me so much recently – albeit it did finish a couple of weeks ago… The 1 month course was held at EJEF in High Wycombe, and for a place just a short 30 minute drive outside of London it’s very green (so I’ll happily take it as an excuse to say I’ve lived in ‘the country’ now 😉 ). As far as we’ve been told, the 1 month study is to give us that slight edge in order to improve our chances of passing the JLPT N2 exam sometime next year (which is our expected target) – no pressure.
To be honest, I don’t really know where to start; if I had procrastinated less over the past month I could have published multiple updates and properly organised my thoughts, but that’s not exactly a feasible option now. I guess I’m now in a position where I can give a ‘well thought-out’ summary on the month as a whole, so that’s what I’ll do.
In terms of schooling, all six scholars were taught in the same class at EJEF by three different teachers who alternated over different days, and our course material was primarily the “Japanese for Busy People I” textbook. My only qualm with this book (which I’ve used before) is the fact that everything is in romaji, as opposed to かな (kana). There is a kana version, but we were advised against it for the class. Using a romaji-only book made the course easy to start, but with the downside of slowing our kana reading speed. I would have preferred being plunged into the ‘deep’ end and end up with a more impressive and natural reading speed. Of course, as we’re only the first cohort to study at EJEF our feedback on the course should have a noticeable effect on how the next batch of scholars are taught. We managed to complete the book from front to back and even learn an odd 50 or so kanji (漢字 – those scary Chinese characters D: ). The course as a whole was really well structured and I definitely feel as though I’ve learned a lot and it will be invaluable to my settling into Tokyo upon arrival. Definitely a worthwhile addition to the scholarship programme!
When we weren’t in class or completing our daily homework at EJEF’s neighbouring bar, the “Cedar Club”, we were probably having one of our 6 daily cups of tea in the coffee room, practicing table tennis, playing pool, or mingling with the Japanese students (mainly in English because we’re ‘slightly’ incomprehensible…). That’s actually what I really liked about EJEF; I was able to speak at lengths to Japanese people and practice what I was learning, whilst easily being able to switch back into English to carry on a conversation when the going got tough. Probably not something that will be possible when I’m in Japan, so I tried to take advantage of it while I could! All in all, I made a lot of friends who I hope I’ll be able to see again sometime in the future, be it in Japan or back in London at some point.
Another advantage of this past month was that us scholars were given the opportunity to get to know each other quite well, definitely a one-up on saying hello for the first time when we get on the plane to Japan! Coming from a school where everyone is science/ engineer-oriented I was admittedly a little apprehensive being the only scholar from such a background, but I couldn’t have asked to be around anyone better! Although we have dissimilar academic backgrounds, we all share many interests and have a lot in common – and best of all we all get on very well, so much so as if we had known each other for a year, not a month.
At the end of the course at EJEF we were initially supposed to give a short presentation to the staff and Japanese students (in Japanese of course), but instead we ended up enacting a play based on scenarios in the textbook as it allowed us to make better use of the grammatical structures and vocabulary that we had learned throughout. Long story short, it ended up being a fun but very embarrassing play including a slightly improvised ‘dance’ (if you can call it that) at the end, but it was all worth it when the audience joined in! Special props to Alex for directing and orchestrating the entire play 🙂 .
The only thing I haven’t yet touched on was my accommodation. I stayed with a British family about a 5 minute walk from the EJEF compound with one of the Japanese students. It was an interesting situation, mainly involving me reluctant to return most days knowing the resident dog wanted to eat me (I don’t think she did, but her bark said otherwise). Apart from that, any time I spent at the homestay was mainly in my room as we (myself and the Japanese student) weren’t allowed to stay downstairs and talk after dinner. It was a slightly annoying situation as we wanted to speak to each other and get as much out of the language exchange as possible, but we lived with it as one would. In retrospect I would have preferred staying in the accommodation in the EJEF compound instead of with a family, but it’s good practice for my future homestay in Japan, so no complaining here 😛 .
Anyways, I’ve rambled faaaar too long and so I’ll leave it here for now and get back to preparing myself for my flight (which is next week D:)!!
Hopefully you were able to make it through that wall of ramble, and if you did – congrats. If you didn’t, you’ve not missed out on much (apart from this message, perhaps). Anyways, you can probably guess by this point that I’m not too reliant on perfect organisation of my thoughts or impressive writing styles – I’m an engineer and I’ll happily use that as an excuse for my poor writing style, so sorry not sorry.
PS: My future posts will hopefully be less full of ramble, and have more pictures. I forgot to take any whilst at EJEF but I’ll remember next time 😉 .
cultural jettison 