Only one for my students at Ageotachibana HS, 2006-2010. It was really great!!

Joyful Chatting in Japanese (Japanese)

Date/Time : December 14,   7:30 - 8:25, 2006 Japan Time (December 13,   12:45 - 13:25, 2006 Hawaii Time)
Network / Software and device : Saitama-ken School network / Skype (Compatible for PC and Mac) , webcam, microphone, projector & screen

Student Participants : 22 students, Volunteers at Ageotachibana HS <----> 24 students, Japanese class at Punahou School, Honolulu, Hawai, USA
Teacher Participants : Mr.Toyota, Principal. Mr. Sugimoto  <-------------------------------------------------------------------------> Ms. Asato

It is a wonderful gift for our students to have shared an enjoyable time with students at Punahou school, Honolulu, Hawaii, USA as it was the first time on our school history.  It will be a great memory of their high school life.

Detail of story is at the bottom of this page, it is worth reading it!
Sy It was a tense moment. As soon as Hawaiian students appeared on the screen and said "Konnichiwa, Hello", conference room was filled with our students' joy shout. Our students, 10th - 12th grader, were volunteers to join this wonderful opportunity and Hawaiian students were at Ms. Asato's Japanese class who were in the 3rd Honors, 10th - 12th grader.  She has been having her class get some topics about Japanese culture by themselves and research for long time.  Since October, we have exchanged with her class in Japanese and they posted many questions on the BBS.  Our two computer classes, 3-4 and 3-5 who are 12th grader in Computer course,  have answered to their questions, also have posted their self-introduction on it.  We really thought that a lot of answers made Hawaiian students understand our culture deeply, my students have replied as much as they can.  That made both of students want to meet each other naturally. Therefore, we had a plan to do a Video Conference (VC) for them. There is 19 hours of time difference between Japan and Hawaii and it is always difficult to harmonize the time for VC.  In this time,  we matched the time for their Japanese class.  The time, 7:30 - 8:35am Japan time was very early for our students.  There is no students to come up on that time at our school, so we asked all students to join this VC.  It was a good result and many students joined us.  VC got started by one to one talking and they were very nervous at first and as talking was going on, they became to be relaxed and smile on the screen. On question about "Cell phone strap ", both sides students showed their favorite one each other on the screen.  On another thing, one boy at Hawaii side danced and both students gave him a big hands and cheers together.  The questions were about daily life, music, favorite singers and so on and they recognized to see common face each other.  I was very happy that my students talked with students directly, who have different culture and at the same time, I wanted them to speak self-intro by themselves in English next VC (Written by Sugimoto, teacher)

PS. When my boy student "T" was talking with one girl at Punahou, she said that "you are so cool!" with shy face. All at both sides gave two big hands and joshing.  Our "T" was a little bit worried, but he seemed very happy!!