静岡英和女学院 中学校・高等学校

On June 3rd we were lucky to play host to a group of thirty students from Taiwan. The students were in Japan as part of a school trip and spent the morning with us learning about our school in both English and Japanese.

The day started with the students attending our morning service. The Principal made a special effort to convey the message of his service in English and he even used a little bit of Mandarin Chinese too.

After the service had ended, our visitors split into two groups with half joining a biology class and the other half joining me and the students of 6B for a special English conversation class. It was a good chance for our students to practice their English with students of a similar age. I was very impressed by the pronunciation of our visits from Taiwan.

For the second lesson of the day, out visitors split into three groups with one group joining a calligraphy class, another joining a home economics class and the final group joining an English class.

Finally, the Eiwa students and our visitors from Taiwan took a trip to Sengen Shrine. The Eiwa students explained what the shrine is for and some of the local history of Shizuoka and in return, the students from Taiwan performed a dance.

Although we could only meet for a few hours, I was impressed at how well our students and our visitors got along. It goes to show how important communication is. On the surface, it is natural to think that people from different countries are different. However, by talking, in English, Japanese or Mandarin Chinese, we can learn that really, we are not so different at all. I hope that experiences like today give our students the confidence to talk with students from other countries in the future.