光明-中村Zoom International Video Conferencing

Both Taiwanese and Japanese students in 6 Zoom breakout rooms enjoyed exchanging school life, hobbies and interests, and some cultural differences, too.

Student Reflection

Taka jian and I met from an exchange program to San Diego sponsored by State Department in 2019. He’s a funny, outgoing, and loveable person to work with. Right after our Zoom meeting, he sent me heartfelt messages of how his students enjoyed the session so much and would like to have another one in the near future.

 

Japanese Students’ Presentations

They made an effort to introduce interesting topics like Japanese anime, bubble milk tea, K-POP idols, school life, and so on. One of the groups talked about the differences between Japanese and Taiwanese shaved ice. Nervous as they were, you could also tell a lot of hard work behind it.

 

Interaction in the Breakout Rooms   

Taka helped put students in 6 small rooms where they had plenty of time to get to know each other and ask all kinds of interesting questions. As I was hopping between rooms to check on them, I noticed many of them were shy to speak, and then I prompted them to say something. Once somebody bean to talk or share their favorite K-POP idol, they’d let their guard down and try to carry on the conversation.

 

Showing off talents is usually a welcome choice. I saw two of the KMJH students playing the piano and some traditional Chinese musical instrument. That would help a lot deal with social awkwardness.

 

Wrap-up at the Main Room

I encouraged everybody to relax and have fun getting to know more about each other. We don’t just learn English for tests and homework. Instead, we want to use it and talk with someone outside of Taiwan or Japan. Accuracy and intonation don’t matter that much as long as we can understand each other.

 

Thank You, Japan

The bond between Taiwan and Japan became stronger during disasters. Despite all the pressure and obstructions from You Know Who, the Japanese government still decided to ship over one million doses of AstraZeneca vaccine to Taiwan on June 4, just one day after the official announcement. Plus many Japanese students kept on shouting “I love Taiwan” throughout the whole conference, I suddenly felt the need to express gratitude towards Japan and it’s people. I was glad Taka jian and I both agreed on this, and he also mentioned how Taiwanese people donated more than 20 billion yen for disaster relief.      

 

With the sudden surge in domestic COVID cases, the government announced school closure at all levels for an extended period of time. All classes went remote, so I recruited those who were interested to sign up for two exchange sessions through Google Forms and Classroom. All the hard work paid off when seeing their smiles and effort to express themselves in English.