Global Studies is a class to improve understanding about international issues, in which students study about and report on specific themes that they decide on ranging from Poverty, Human Rights, Environment, Diplomacy (leadership) and International Cooperation.
On this day students had a special class during which they guided a group of students from the Goethe-Gymnasium, Germany through the campus.
The assignment was to write articles about their favorite spots in the school as a team consisting of four or five students from Tamagawa and Goethe-Gymnasium.
Each team walked through some spots such as the school building and cafeteria, taking pictures of them, and they built a map together.
The members of each team tried finding three things in common each other and wrote them in the map. They could often be heard saying things like:
“Me too!!”
“Wow! Is it the same in Germany? I feel like we are both very similar!”
The students discovered they had a lot in common and felt closer to each other.
At first some teams had difficulty communicating because of their language barrier. But they kept trying and made full use of their limited questions such as “Why did you come here?” and “How do you feel about Japan?” In the end all of the teams were able to communicate with each other.
“At first I felt uncomfortable talking to them because I was worried about my English skills. But once I started talking, I found the conversation was very fun and it made me very happy!” “Though Japan is very far from Germany, I found that what we both like and are interested in are the same.” From this experience they found that face-to-face communication was more important than worrying about their speaking ability and to focus on enjoying the cultural exchanges. This is the foundation of international communication.
