Eighteen-year-old Ikumi Awaji, from Sakai City, Osaka, Japan, could not speak English when she left home for Macleans College 18 months ago. Now she speaks English with confidence.
Ikumi came to Macleans because she wanted to study English and the cultures of a different country. With the variety of different nationalities and life styles, New Zealand seemed a good choice.
In the classroom at Macleans College.
At home with Mary.
In Japan, she attended Tezukayama Girls High School and she was thrilled to see some of her friends when a group of students from Tezukayama visited Macleans last year.
She lives with her home-stay host, Mary and John Wiles-Pickard in Howick. Initially, communication for Ikumi was by way of gestures and guessing while understanding one or two words. However, this weekend when the photos were
taken, she chatted in English with ease.
“At the beginning, I could not understand my host family and I did not know how to make conversation in English. I had to listen and try and figure out what they were saying. I could understand one word and then another.”
Mary and John help if she uses an incorrect word. Ikumi has her own room which is light, sunny – and a favourite resting place for the house cat, Zeppelin.
At her Howick home, she enjoys cooking with Mary and generally fitting into the New Zealand family life style. She has developed a liking for Western food such as home-made roast dinners and home-made pies. In the weekends, she sees “lots of friends” with whom she joins for social events.
School was hard in her first year because of the language issue but she gained skills from the ESOL Department which Ikumi feels is very good for the international students. Here she developed skills in grammar, vocabulary, writing, speaking and listening. The college also offers ESOL science and ESOL mathematics for beginners. This year, Ikumi’s subjects include Art Photography, Statistics, ICT Introduction, Media Studies and Fashion Design.
She will leave Macleans College at the end of the year to study at university back in Japan.
Ikumi is one of a number of Japanese students at the college. Macleans has the largest group of international students at any school in New Zealand. The Cambridge International Examinations as well as the New Zealand National Certificate of Educational Achievement are the two academic pathways offered and a number of students are invited to study at top universities in the USA, England, Australia and New Zealand.
