ブックタイトルa-history-of-international-exchanges00

概要

a-history-of-international-exchanges00

- 127 -Japanese students. It’s true that they met some Japanese students in classes,but when the classes finished, they went out of the classrooms separately. TheJapanese language abilities of exchange students were not good enough, whilethe Japanese students were not used to communicating with foreign students.They felt inclined to communicate with each other, but they had difficulty infinding a chance to mix .*Exchange students from TESC andDCE in the early days of the exchangeprogram lived in a private house or anapartment, therefore they wereisolated. Even after the UniversityInternational House was built oncamps in 1992, the situation wasn’tmarkedly improved.*In the University International House, the foreign students mixed themselvesamong the Japanese students. But in fact, they were not mixed well, thoughthey lived together. As the exchange students came to MU to study Japaneselanguage and culture, it was good for them to become friends with the Japanesestudents around them. There were some cases where the situation went wellby joining club activities.*Some of the students who entered the Area Culture Studies Division of theFaculty of Education and Culture in 1999 had a deep interest in studyingabroad. It was considered necessary to set up a place for those students to meetforeign students. I decided to offer my office as a place for these students tomeet foreign students. They came together with their box lunches in Hirase’soffice once a week, while talking aboutvarious topics and exchanging someinformation. This form of meetingsfollowed the ‘Lunchtime Meeting’ whichwere held around 1990 with foreignstudents of three Faculties once amonth in the Japanese-style meetingroom on the second floor of theUniversity Co-op. building. (see p.151).