IU Online Exchange Program in Spring 2021 by Wulan Lestari

• Posted by: Admin
• Senin, 30 Agustus 2021
• Has been read 238 time(s)

    My name is Ni Putu Wulan Lestari and I am from Bali, Indonesia. Today, I will share with you my experience participating in an online exchange program. 

    In 2018, I enrolled in Udayana University with a major in Japanese. From April 9th until August 10th, 2021, I participated in the IU Online Program. IU Online Program is an online class for the exchange students offered by Ibaraki University, Japan. Ibaraki University is one of the few universities in Japan that offers an International Exchange Program and is also a partner university of my home institution, Udayana University. It has always been my dream to study in an international program such as this one. In Indonesia, I do not get the chance to speak Japanese and therefore have low confidence, so I would like to improve my Japanese speaking skills and to deepen my understanding of Japanese culture and society through this program.

    On this program, we were not only studying the Japanese Language Training Courses, but we also took other classes. For example, I took Japanese Popular Culture class and Communication and Mindset in Japanese Society class conducted in English. 

     Looking back on working with Japanese students in Japanese Popular Culture class, I have realized there are many things that I have learned about group work and Japanese as well. 

On the first quarter, we worked on a project with our classmates and UWS students. In the project, we conducted a survey and gave a presentation that described how the COVID-19 impacted Japanese popular culture based on our survey. 

     Working in a group with people from different cultural backgrounds was slightly difficult for me. While I am confident with my communication skills in English, it is still hard for me to express my ideas in English. So my group mates decided to discuss it in Japanese in the class. Sometimes, I did not understand what they meant. I was not able to express my opinions like I wanted to because my Japanese level is not upper intermediate yet. Luckily, my group members did try to understand what I said and tell me what it meant when I did not get them.  

     On the second quarter, we had an online field trip to Oarai city, Ibaraki, Japan.  It was my first online field trip and I really enjoyed it. Before this online field trip, I was working with 4 Japanese students and one International student. Some group members said they are not good at English, so we decided to use Japanese to discuss.  Sometimes my internet keeps failing during discussions and my lack of confidence in my Japanese skills made it hard for me to express my ideas. But luckily there was one of the group members who always tried to translate the discussion into English when I could not hear something because the connection was bad. 

     Throughout these four months, I got an opportunity to interact with people from all over the world which really helped me to learn to work as a team. This online International Exchange Program really helped me improve my Japanese language skills, understand different world views, and also gained the skills to express my thoughts.  

     From this program not only knowledge I gained but also I got new friends from Indonesia and over the globe as well. Even though it was an online program, I think the experience I gained was really invaluable.

Welcome Party for New International Students 2021 (April 30)

Source : http://cge.lae.ibaraki.ac.jp/images/2021/Welcome_online_party_202100430no3.jpg

COIL Project with Students from the University of Wisconsin-Superior, USA (2021/5/9)

Source : http://cge.lae.ibaraki.ac.jp/images/2021/Japanese_Pop_Culture_A_20210509no16.jpg

http://cge.lae.ibaraki.ac.jp/images/2021/Japanese_Pop_Culture_A_20210509no4.jpg

Japanese Language Training Course  Lv. 4 Online exchange event with students from Indonesia and Shonandai High School students (2021/5/28)

Source : http://cge.lae.ibaraki.ac.jp/images/2021/Indonesia_Shonandai_HighSchool_20210528no5.jpg

JLTC Lv4 Online exchange meeting with students from Indonesia and Shonandai High School students (July 27)

Source : http://cge.lae.ibaraki.ac.jp/images/2021/JLTC_Lv4_Shonandai_HS_20210727no1.jpg

Online field trip to Oarai Town for the "Japanese Pop Culture B" class (July 16)

Source : http://cge.lae.ibaraki.ac.jp/images/2021/Oarai_GirlPan_tour20210716no6.jpg