Looking back on the program

Hello. Fall is getting closer.

I'm still a undergraduate student so I will write about my experience as a perspective from student. 

 What I want to say most is that I had good experience in this program. I was so motivated and encouraged by teachers and participants. I think experience in Canada had huge positive impact for me. I met many peoples and talked each other. I felt difficulty to speak what I am thinking in English but I tried to talk. It was good for me.


In first week, I felt I'm not be able to understand the class because  all of the class was English although it's natural. But I understood it is important to get used to this. And, if I didn't understand, I could ask to teachers and other participants. From Maj-Britt's and Marilyn's class, I learned a lot of ideas and methods to teach. It was new to me. I thought we need to connect theory and idea to teach. And, by doing microteaching, I could try my teaching plan. It was difficult to make a teaching plan, but I experienced. It is possible to use when we become a teacher.
 And one more thing. I liked the style of lesson. We had discussions many times. By  talking each other, we knew ideas and experiences of others. There were many discussion than I thought. I think it was quite good for me because I'm not good at make my own opinion and show to others. I think few class have deep discussion in Japan. It was good point, too. 

In Maj-Britt's lesson

In Marilyn's lesson

 

 From afternoon workshops, I got knowledge about many things. There were many kind of workshops. Introduction to Library,Teaching system in Canada, brain-based learning, music(drumming, visiting high school), arts, Sign Language.  etc. Each of them were excellent and we could enjoy.

Picture books introduction at library

Sign Language

Art workshop

visiting high school

 And, of course there were many good things besides the class. I don't know pictures are good or not.But, I'll show you some pictures.

downtown

festival at downtown

inner harbor

Bench ( I found at walking course)

Walking course

making and having dinner with peers

With my cluster house members

At farewell dinner.

  
  I have too many good memory, so I could not introduce all. Victoria is beautiful place and I enjoyed so much. I want to say thank you to all. 
 Let's meet at online education.

Yuriko Uemura 

Back to Normal

Hello, this is Nao (Naoaki Nishimura).

It has passed about one week since I came back to Japan. Now it is September! I really feel time goes on earlier.

As the program in UVic, I learned a lot of things from marvelous teachers and good fellows in this program. Before going to UVic, I was anxious about whether I could learn so many things and catch up the classes or not even though I was not good at speaking and listening, but everyone was so kind to me. Also, the teachers explained the methods and strategies to us easily. After morning classes, I learned the different culture and educational system in BC compared to Japan in the workshops. That was very good experience for me and I got interest in the culture and the system.

Also I tried new thing in this program; it was “cooking.” I’ve never tried cooking by myself. When even I studied abroad about one year, there was a cafeteria for all meals. So I didn’t have to cook by myself. My mother or someone always made a meal for me, but in this case, I had to do it by my own though my roommates were good at cooking. I was not sure if the dish I made was good taste for them, but I could cook. I learned how to cook in my cluster house as much as I studied teaching English in the classes.

I never forget the moments when we spent studying together in UVic. I try to work for my thesis, career, and enhancement for English proficiency while making full use of what I learned there.

Finally, I’d like to say thank you so much for everyone. I may not have been able to achieve well without their helps. I’m grateful to them for supporting me a lot. I hope we can share and help together for online work. 

Final Thoughts - Mishka

Well, it was a quick three weeks.  We learned and experienced a lot in such a short time, I’m afraid I might forget it all!  Luckily I now have a binder full of notes and handouts on everything we covered, so I should be ok.  It really did go by in a flash though, so I think it’s important to sum up the experience and share with you how I felt about it.

Everything at UVic was so well planned and executed, and the atmosphere so positive that it made learning a real pleasure.  The morning courses were abounding with a balance of both theoretical and practical information.  Concepts like personalizing and localizing, concept checking, eliciting, and the three learning types (Visual, Auditory, and Kinesthetic), were invaluable.  Ideas like the vocabulary book, travel fair, book club and so on were of notable practical value; such activities were duly creative and well designed so that we could go back and put them to use right away.  I’ve got so many ideas now.

In addition to the studying we did, we also had chances to put our ideas to work in micro-teaching.  I enjoyed micro-teaching because it gave us a chance to try something new and get feedback from our classmates and teachers.  Micro-teachings were also short (10min.) so if something went awry it wasn’t such a big deal.  It was fun being someone else's student too.

Afternoons were also fun and educational.  Not as intensive as the morning and not necessarily language-based, they were still extremely relevant and useful to my future as a teacher.  With the afternoon programs we had a chance to either relate the BC system to that of Japan, or to see how a different discipline operates and think of its relevance to our own.  Afternoon workshops gave us a glimpse of something new, and a taste of the life in Victoria.

The last factor that made this trip a particularly beneficial one was the participants.  We had a nice mix of grad students, undergrads, and in-service teachers in our group.  Everyone was respectful of one another and open to the advice that others had to give.  It was a real pleasure getting to know everyone and learning together/from each other.  I hope to continue this relationship as we continue to the online portion of the program.

To conclude, it was a well organized program, rich in content, with excellent teachers, staff, and participants.   We enjoyed every day in the comfortable beauty of Victoria, BC where the environment was ripe for learning.  I recommend anyone considering the program to not let the opportunity pass by. 

We'll be sure to keep the momentum going in the online portion.