Haruna Shirai
Speech Contest Script
English for International Students

I would like to make Japanese Free Talk in Aichi University. It must help
international students learn Japanese.

Hello, everyone. I’m Haruna Shirai. Today, I will talk about the problem which
English causes for international students and suggest making Japanese Free Talk as
one of the solutions for the problem.

This year, I enrolled in Aichi University. One of my goals after becoming an university
student was to support international students, so I started to help them with their
homework in the Global Lounge. Fortunately, I soon became close with many students
from America, France and so on.

Then, when it comes to their Japanese abilities, in last semester, the difference
between them was big, so it was difficult to communicate smoothly in a group inJapanese. To solve the problem, everyone spoke English as a language which everyone
understands, and I thought it was a good way to communicate there, however one
comment a student made started to trouble me.

That comment is “I would like to communicate more in Japanese”. That day, I wastalking with a student and I asked her “Could you improve your Japanese here?” Shesaid, “I could do that, but I wanted to speak Japanese more although I understood
English was very important to communicate in a group even in Japan”. Probably, thiswas a feeling she usually thought of while studying abroad because she often spoke
English there although she was good at Japanese. The comment made me reflect andrealize my selfishness and gave me an opportunity to think about the way tocommunicate with them because I could not notice her feelings that she wanted tospeak Japanese more.

1Haruna Shirai
Speech Contest ScriptTalking with them in English is a very good opportunity for me because I would like toimprove that, but how about them? Of course, Japanese is more important thanEnglish because they came to Aichi University not to learn English but Japanese. I
think it is a problem that they do not have many opportunities to talk in Japaneseoutside regular classes.

What causes the situation? I found two reasons.

The first reason is, as previously stated, the difference in Japanese abilities between
international students, in other words, English is necessary to communicate well. Ifthey spoke only Japanese, students who are not good at Japanese might struggle tocommunicate.

The other reason is a mismatch between supply and demand. Many international
students are in the Global Lounge after classes. On the other hand, there are many
Japanese students who would like to learn English there.

For the above reasons, I will suggest one of the solutions. I think the first reason isinevitable, but the other reason can be solved in some way. For example, making
Japanese free talk for international students somewhere organized by Japanese
students.

In the free talk, of course, you can talk about a specific topic in Japanese, but I think
not only talking but also quiz is good for that. Japanese can help students who cannot
catch up with Japanese by using English, so everyone can enjoy it.

In the end, I would like to finish by giving you a quiz as an example of a part ofJapanese Free Talk.

Do you know “ 鳥肌が立つ”? it means getting goosebumps in English. This2

Haruna Shirai
Speech Contest Script
expression is used in a wrong way by many Japanese, so can you guess which state iswrong? No.1 is “鳥肌が立つような名演奏だった”. It means that the performance was sotouching that I got goosebumps. No2 is ”あまりの不気味さに鳥肌が立った”. It meansthat I got goosebumps by looking creepy things. Please raise your hands if you think
No,1 is a wrong one. Please raise your hands if you think No.2 is a wrong one. Thankyou.

The answer is No,1 is a wrong one. In fact, “鳥肌の立つような” is expression for only
negative things. Did you know about this? Probably, not all Japanese can know theproper way to use Japanese like this, so Japanese free talk is worth for not onlyinternational students, but also Japanese, so why don’t you join me?

Thank you for listening.
(730 words)

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