The Seiwa 9th Graders went on a school trip to Australia from March 2 to March 8, 2016. They were able to gain many valuable experiences through visiting MT.ST.BENEDICT COLLEGE (Seiwa’s sister school), staying at their host families during the trip.
We have received some reports about the trip.
The Seiwa’s Australia School Trip in 2016
Nozomi Furui
There were so many things that I learned during one week stay in Australia.
First of all, I found difficulty in communicating in Australian English since some words and pronunciations were different from American and Canadian English.
However, after spending some time with my host family and the locals, I was gradually able to understand what they were saying.
On the weekend, I was invited to my host family’s relative’s wedding. I celebrated the bride and groom with their families and friends. It was held at the beach so I enjoyed the great view of beautiful ocean. I spent three days with relatives who were very pleasant and friendly and had a lot of fun with them.
Second, I found cultural differences. I knew, of course, that there were some between two different countries but they surprised me after all. For example, the students can take classes what they are interested in as much as they want. They are allotted to their own “house” instead of home classroom like ours when they enter the school and they keep the same house until they graduate. Through this experience, I found this system was nice because they were given opportunities to meet many different students in each class.In addition, I found that they need to press the button of the pedestrian light to cross the street, also they need to raise their hands to stop the bus.
I tried and experienced many things that I never done before and I would like to apply what I learned in this trip to my life from now on.
Takumi Yoshimura
During this 6-days trip in Australia, there are many things that I felt, learned and experienced for the first time. For example, I had to raise my hand to stop the bus, saw double decker trains, and many others that I never knew.
I will never forget the Australian people impressed me deeply with warmth of hospitality when I could not communicate well in English, they tried to find easier words for me. They also gave me, a stranger, warm smiles.
This experience made me realize that I have to thank my own family in Japan who always take good care of me by listening, feeding and cleaning.I was full of worries during the trip, but now I am very much happy and satisfied with good experiences I have had in Australia.
