VOLUME 2
4NEWSLETTER

English Education CenterTopics

December 2013

★A New Electronic Library System Introduced★Reports From Students

A New Electronic Library System Introduced
A new EEC electronic library system started on October 29.
You need a library card to borrow English books in Student SelfLearning Room on the 2nd floor of the middle wing of Aidai Muse.
If you don’t have a library card, please come to the EEC office. Yourlibrary card will be issued a few days later.(First year students havebeen already given their own library cards during English classes.)
Currently “Graded Readers” in levels one to five in Student SelfLearning Room are ready for you to borrow. Each student can check out
up to three books for two weeks.

What are Graded Readers?
Graded readers are "easy reading" books for people
who study English as a second language. They areshortened and simplified to make them easier toread.

Easy Rules for readers
1)
2)
3)

No dictionaries while reading
Skip over difficult words
Stop reading when it is boring or too difficult

Which book should I read?
Any book you like. You should start from the book
you think it easy.

English Education Center has more than
2,500 English Graded Readers. Levels havebeen expanded to 10 levels from 7 levels.
Aidai students can enjoy reading many
English books in Student Self-Learning Room.

Reports From Students
Studying abroad is exciting!
Here are three reports: from China, Canada and U.S.A.

Experience in Wuhan

Tetsuo Shimomura (Faculty of Agriculture)

Have you ever been to China before? It was 2 years ago when I determined tostudy in China. It was just after participating in the summer camp in Shanghai. At thattime, the energetic atmosphere given off by the people gave me attractive impression.
For example, quite many Chinese people were aggressively asking tourists to purchasegoods in the loud voice I had never heard. I still have a deep impression, because theirmaking desperate efforts for surviving cannot be seen in Japan.
One year after my determination to study in China, I began to stay at university inWuhan, located at center of China. Spending 10 months studying there gave me great
inspiration. I actively made a lot of international friends beyond nationality, gender andage because I wished to work at United Nation in thefuture. In addition to the Asian and African students, theWith friends in my dormitory room:Dstudents from western countries such as France,
Germany, Italy and Canada came to study.
I have a best Chinese friend whom I knew when I participated in the English activity
called English Corner. She has such a great passion that she concentrates on studying
even on weekends for accomplish a vivid goal. She said to me that I am the first Japanese
friend for her. According to her, I am different from the Japanese in the anti-Japanesedrama describing the Japanese as cruel. She also told me that the real Japanese is a calmand attentive and that she was glad to make friends with me. After coming back to Japan, IEnglish corner friends celebrated my birthday!! have kept in touch with her. We promise to meet again in 7 years when Tokyo Olympic will
be held. I look forward to seeing her again!!!

STEP for the future

Kanami Ishikawa (Faculty of Law and Letters)

I joined Short-Term English Program (STEP) at the University of Washington,Seattle in August. In this newsletter, I would like to write about what I learned andhow I’m stimulated myself to step forward to future through invaluable experiences inthe program.
First, I was able to broaden my world-views. As soon as I arrived in Seattle, I
realized that a variety of cultures are mixed in the town. The atmosphere where
diverse ethnic groups live together in the same place was truly new to me. I wasimpressed to the American culture and the kindness of American people to minority
people like me. Fortunately, I talked with many American people and most of themwere very gentle and polite and open-minded to different ethic people. I thought that
positive attitude to “differences” is very important to make friendship with other ethnic
groups.
Second, this summer was a turning point
for me, in that it was a good opportunity to lookback at myself and think seriously about myfuture. Through STEP, my attitude towards
learning English has changed. Before visit toSeattle, I studied English because I though it
was good for career development. But now I
study English because I like English. I’m really enthusiastic about improving my English skills to be able to communicate with many people in English.
For the future, I’m going to work in service industries. In concrete, I want to be atour conductor. I won’t be qualified for the job unless I have very positive and friendly
attitudes to customers to let them enjoy group travel. Furthermore, tour conductors
are responsible for dealing with accidents in travel. When something happens, I
should control myself and choose the best solution for problem, even in I’m in foreigncountries. I learned the necessity to do my best to satisfy the qualifications throughthe experiences in Seattle. I don't want my dream to end up being just a dream soI’ve determined to challenge everything with positive attitude.

A Key to Successful Communication—From My Second Studying Abroad—

Tomoki Mita (Faculty of Engineering)

I joined a summer English language program at the University of Toronto inCanada. There I took an intensive speaking class and did a homestay for 4 weeks.
Through my stay in Toronto, I had many valuable experiences. In this newsletter, I wantto tell you what I got changed in my mind about how to make good communication
rather than simply to enumerate what I did over there.
In my intensive speaking class, there were many students who are from different
countries: Chinese, Taiwanese, Brazilian, and Colombian. Those who are from othercountries had different behaviors from those of Japanese. For example, Taiwanese
students expressed their opinions very actively in class. Sometimes their English wasgrammatically wrong and their pronunciation was terrible. However, they didn’t careabout those mistakes and they always played important roles in my class. I thought if I
was too careful and hesitated to say a word in my class, they might think I didn’t have
any idea. So I had to change my behavior when I talked or discussed something with my foreign classmates. Before studying abroad in Toronto, I thought English ability like grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation is important to communicate withforeign people, but after my actual experiences talking with them, I found that changing my behavior according to each person is also an important key to successful communication in the global arena.

ENGLISH EDUCATION CENTER @EHIME UNIVERSITY
2nd floor, Aidai Muse, 3 Bunkyo-cho, Matsuyama TEL: 089-927-8340 E-mail: eec@stu.ehime-u.ac.jp
HP: http://web.eec.ehime-u.ac.jp/