Hiro, a university student from Okinawa, and his two months toward becoming a PE teacher | Listening skills built with seven classes a day and 1:1 lessons

After graduating from a high school in Hokkaido, Hiro went on to a university in Okinawa, where he is now studying as an undergraduate. As he continued his studies, he began to think about his future path and career, and in the process he came to feel strongly the need to build his English ability.

“In the future I want to become a PE teacher who can speak English. If I go on to graduate school, I think I’ll also have chances to use English, so I decided to study abroad because I wanted to improve my English as much as possible while I’m still a student.” Rather than scrambling to study once it becomes necessary, he wanted to put himself in an environment where he could actually use English now and build his ability. That was the biggest reason Hiro decided to study abroad.

The biggest reason Hiro chose 3D ACADEMY was the cost of studying abroad. Having researched and compared quite a few language schools in Cebu Island, he felt that 3D ACADEMY’s costs were relatively low.

“It wasn’t just that it was cheap. As I looked into the actual class content and the learning environment, I felt that the quality of the classes was solid too, and that was what decided it.” He was attracted by an environment where he could study English properly while keeping costs down, and in the end he decided to study at 3D ACADEMY.

Hiro took the ESL Course. He attended 4 Man to Man classes (1:1) and 3 Group Classes. Classes ran from 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., and there were 2 free periods in between, but the time he spent in contact with English over the course of the day was very long, and he says he had the feeling that he was “really using English every day.”

The teachers in charge of his classes were all very kind and made every lesson enjoyable. “Rather than one particular class standing out, the time itself of learning while talking with the teachers every day was fun, and I looked forward to going to class.”

In the Man to Man classes in particular, Hiro looks back, he liked that he could have the lesson content flexibly changed to match his wishes and have the materials he needed prepared, so he could gradually adjust his way of learning to suit his own goals. When he was tired, he could have free-talk sessions and have his mistakes in English corrected on the spot. During his free periods he also often joined the “Casual Lessons,” using them when he wanted to speak English a little more casually or talk more with the teachers.

Having stayed at 3D ACADEMY for 2 months, Hiro feels that the skill that improved the most was his listening. Because he had 7 classes a day, he was in an environment where he kept listening to English for about 6.5 hours a day. “When you listen to this much English every day, your ears gradually get used to it, and I felt that I could understand the teachers’ English more easily than at the beginning.”

His speaking changed quite a lot as well. Since he had most of his classes focused on speaking, the speed from putting words together in his head to actually speaking became faster than before, and the number of words and phrases he can use in everyday conversation increased considerably compared with when he first enrolled.

“Outside of class time, too, I made a point of starting conversations with students who weren’t Japanese.” Hiro has come to feel that increasing the number of times you actually use English is very important for improving your English.

Hiro says he didn’t have much savings to spare when he came to Cebu Island. He didn’t travel far on weekends very often; instead, he spent his time going out for drinks with friends at local places near the school and shopping at shopping centers.

“IT Park is about 1 km on foot from the school, and it was very convenient for buying daily necessities and eating out. I could take care of almost all the big shopping I needed for daily life there.” When you want to enjoy a more Filipino streetscape and atmosphere a little more, he recommends taking the jeepney, the local public transportation, to Colon Street. When he wanted to buy things like tank tops and shorts to wear locally, he often looked for cheap clothes there.

Within 5 km of the school there are also several large shopping malls, and he says that going to see a movie once you’ve gotten a little used to English is a good experience too. “Movies for children in particular use English that is relatively easy to understand, so they also became a way for me to check how much I could understand.”

Besides Japanese students, Hiro says the students from China and Saudi Arabia were especially numerous. There weren’t that many of them, but he also met students from Europe. “Being able to study in the same environment as people from countries I rarely have contact with was an experience unique to studying abroad.”

“I felt that 3D ACADEMY is a school with a lot of freedom, both in studying and in daily life. The class content can be adjusted quite flexibly, so the longer your stay, the more you can build your lessons to match your own goals and level.” After enrolling, you buy textbooks, but you don’t have to use only those textbooks; he says you can also change the materials and class content by talking with your teacher. “I thought it’s important to think about what you want to improve and communicate it proactively.”

What he felt most after living there for 2 months was that, precisely because there is so much freedom, a proactive attitude toward learning is very important. “The classes at 3D ACADEMY give you many chances to produce English, so if you set aside a little self-study time after school and create a flow of actually using in class what you learned outside class, I think it’s easier to improve your English.” The teachers give solid support for improving your English, so how you make use of that environment is up to you. Hiro adds: “Since you’ve come all the way to Cebu Island, I hope you’ll enjoy life here and not just study. Being able to adjust the balance between time for studying and time for enjoying life in Cebu on your own is, I feel, a big attraction of 3D ACADEMY.”

The course Hiro took at 3D ACADEMY is the Practical ESL Course, the most standard course at our school.

The ESL Course combines 1:1 classes (4 a day) and group classes (3 a day), and places importance not just on “learning English as knowledge” but on actually speaking and using it. In the 1:1 classes, the content can be adjusted flexibly to your level and goals, so a way of learning with a specific goal in mind is also possible, such as “English I can use as a PE teacher,” as in Hiro’s case.

As Hiro said in his testimonial, a feature of this course is that by staying in contact with English throughout the long class time of 7 classes a day, you can feel a clear change in both your listening and your speaking. The fact that there are also chances to use English outside of class, such as the “Casual Lessons” in free periods, is a great help in developing practical ability.

It supports a wide range of levels, from beginners in English to those who want to build practical English ability for their future work or further education.

Recommended for those who...

• want to improve their English for future work or further education
• want to study in an environment where they are in solid contact with English throughout the day
• want to adjust 1:1 classes to fit their own goals
• want to take high-quality classes while keeping costs down
• want to feel their growth through a proactive approach to learning

Why not take a first step toward your own future, like Hiro?