Name

Name: Hitomi Kimura

Year: 2004


I am majoring in English at Dokkyo University. I chose this university because I love English. I’ve studied English since I entered junior high school but I don’t know when I actually started learning English.
When I was a child, I always watched English TV programs for children, such as “Eigo de Asobo” and “Sesame Street”. I really liked them. In these programs, there were many English songs and I always pretended to sing them. I also pretended to write words in the cursive alphabet. Although I didn’t understand English at all, I thought that English sounds and letters were “cool”. I enjoyed them. When I was in the sixth grade, I started to go to English conversation school. But at the school, I only played English games. I didn’t go there to seriously study. I regarded English merely as a game.
After entering junior high school, I started studying English like all the other students. At that time, I had a little knowledge of English, so it was easy for me to keep up with the class and English was my favorite subject. I also started listening to NHK’s English radio programs that are broadcasted every day except on Sunday. I was keen on listening to them. But at that time, I regarded English as just another subject at school. I didn’t think about studying English in the future.
When I was in high school, I had to change my study habits. I couldn’t keep up with the English class. The new words in the textbooks became difficult and I suddenly had to study much harder, particularly English grammar. I was very shocked because I thought that I was good at English. I thought that if I didn’t do extra work, I wouldn’t be able to progress. So during the first spring vacation in high school, I read a 300-page English grammar book from cover to cover. Usually I couldn’t finish reading such a book, but I made a special effort.
I had another big change during this vacation; I visited Britain, France and Italy, for the first time. It was just a two-week trip and I spoke Japanese there almost the entire time because there were guides. But when I went shopping, I needed to talk to a clerk in English to buy some chocolate. I didn’t know what I should say, so I pointed to a big box of chocolates and said “This one, please.” Just three words but she could understand my English. I was so happy to know that I could communicate with foreigners. This experience changed me a lot. I started thinking about studying English more to communicate with people from all over the world.
Since then, I’ve thought about getting a job related to English like a tour conductor, so I chose to study English at this University. I was really looking forward to studying English because I liked it and honestly I thought I was good at English. However, as soon as I entered the university, I realized there were a lot of brilliant students and my English level was so poor. My TOEFL score was extremely low. I was so depressed and lost confidence in my English. I wondered if I could keep up with my classes under these circumstances.
At that time, one of my friends joined an English club; the Society for the Study of Simultaneous Interpretation. It sounded interesting so I went to check it out. In this club, the members study English with CNN. When I listened to CNN for the first time, it was too fast and difficult for me. I couldn’t get any words. As I mentioned earlier, I listened to the NHK English radio programs every day, so I was good at listening but not good at speaking, reading and writing. I was shocked to learn my listening level was also low and I decided to join this club immediately. Since then, I’ve studied English very hard at both the University and the club and now my English skills are improving little by little.
This is my English history. Last February, I wanted to test my English skill and went to Canada as part of the Language Learning program at Dokkyo University. Through many experiences in Canada, I realized that I can actually use English and my efforts weren’t a waste of time. This has really motivated me to work harder to improve my English.