In this blog post, I’ll summarize my Japanese learning experiences during high school, as well as the lessons and insights I gained from school activities and volunteer work.

Academic Experiences and Reflections

In high school, I set a single goal for myself: to become proficient enough in one foreign language to use it confidently anywhere. Looking around me, I noticed that being proficient in just one foreign language—such as English or Chinese—often gave students an advantage when choosing a career path or preparing for college. So, I decided to choose Japanese and made a commitment to become known as “the friend who’s best at Japanese.”
My high school was a humanities-focused school, so foreign language courses were part of the curriculum, and I chose Japanese for my regular classes. However, since regular classes were held only once a week, I felt there wasn’t enough time to thoroughly master all aspects of the language. Therefore, to supplement my school classes, I consistently used EBS Second Foreign Language lectures.
The EBS lectures were divided into reading, grammar, and listening sections, so I listened to and practiced a set amount of each section every day. For listening practice, I repeatedly transcribed and repeated after the audio files during breaks or on my commute to and from school. For grammar lectures, I listened during self-study time and reviewed the notes I’d taken daily to establish a solid foundation.
While grammar and listening are important, I believed that reading comprehension and speaking skills play a greater role in actual communication. Therefore, I used Japanese literary works as material for reading practice. For example, I chose novels like ‘Between Coolness and Passion’, analyzed the sentences, and looked up and memorized unfamiliar words. By repeatedly translating the original text both literally and paraphrasing it, I improved my ability to infer meaning from context.
To practice speaking, I read the dialogue from the novel aloud. I practiced reading the dialogue sections with proper pronunciation and intonation, as if I were actually having a conversation, while simultaneously grasping the meaning immediately; this process directly helped improve my conversational skills. Through consistent practice in listening, grammar, reading comprehension, and reading aloud, my Japanese interpretation and conversational skills improved noticeably.

Major School Activities and Reflections

In my sophomore year of high school, the school launched an after-school preparation class for Japanese language certification exams. Since I had studied Japanese on my own during my freshman year, I had developed strong time management and self-directed learning skills; however, I faced limitations because it was difficult to objectively gauge my own proficiency, and I had no one to ask when I encountered difficult concepts. The preparation class helped me overcome those limitations.
All members of the class shared the clear goal of obtaining the beginner-level certification, and the group consisted of classmates who were fundamentally interested in Japanese. As we studied together, we shared information on which vocabulary books to choose and which study methods were most effective. Our teacher prepared vocabulary quizzes for every class, allowing us to check our own memorization levels.
When we took practice exams to prepare for the certification, we graded each other’s papers, compared our scores, and identified our weaknesses. Through this process, I was able to objectively assess my skill level within the prep group, and it became clear exactly what areas I needed to improve to reach the passing score on the actual exam.
In particular, when we began preparing for the JPT exam, we focused intensively on listening and reading comprehension. Since the after-school classes were one hour long each day, we devoted about 20 minutes to listening and the remaining 30 minutes to reading. For listening practice, we started with relatively easy problems—such as photo descriptions and question-and-answer dialogues—to build confidence. For conversation and explanatory passages, we each presented our problem-solving processes and explained the reasoning behind our choices.
Since I felt that the 30-minute reading session was insufficient, we established a rule to complete the problems in advance. I would work on my reading assignments during every break, so during class, I could ask questions about difficult problems and explain why I didn’t understand certain answer choices. We realized that we all struggled with similar areas, and through the teacher’s feedback, we were able to develop concrete solutions, which significantly improved our learning efficiency.
In this way, the preparatory class activities compensated for the shortcomings of studying alone and provided an opportunity to improve my skills more quickly through interaction with peers and the teacher’s systematic feedback. Furthermore, the experience of encouraging one another and sharing information had a major impact on my motivation to learn.

Writing About Examples of Consideration, Sharing, and Cooperation, and My Reflections

During my sophomore year of high school, I earned a Japanese language certification, and afterward, I began volunteering at a local study center to teach Japanese to younger students. Although the certification wasn’t at the advanced level, it was deeply meaningful because it was a result of the efforts I made together with my friends, and I wanted to share that achievement with the local community. This volunteer work was also a talent-sharing initiative I undertook alongside friends who had earned Chinese language certifications.
The students we taught were first-year middle schoolers who were receiving supplementary instruction at the local study center due to difficult family circumstances. When I met them in person, I realized they were at an age where they were highly motivated to learn, which made me want to help them even more. I created worksheets tailored to the children’s level based on the basic materials and textbooks I had used while preparing for my certification.
Since these were children encountering Japanese for the first time, I included many images in the worksheets and provided simple explanations of the Japanese words and pronunciations associated with each picture. The two students I was in charge of loved Japanese culture and manga, so they participated actively in class. Seeing how well they absorbed what I taught made me feel rewarded for creating the worksheets every week.
The lessons began with simple vocabulary and pronunciation practice, and after a few months, I raised the difficulty level to include more complex sentences and vocabulary tests. As the lessons continued, I noticed that the students were able to understand Japanese more frequently, and I heard that their motivation to study had increased so much that they were now working hard in other subjects as well. Witnessing these changes, I felt great joy knowing that the knowledge I shared was having a positive impact on their lives.
Through this volunteer work, I learned not only how to impart knowledge but also how to put the values of care and sharing into practice. The experience of explaining concepts at the students’ level, fostering a cooperative attitude by considering each other’s progress, and celebrating small achievements together through repetitive learning has become a precious lesson I will never forget.