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Simone Hansen Shares Her KCP Experience (Part 2 of 3)

Simone Hansen, KCP Summer 2018 alum, from Western Washington University, tells us about KCP, in her own words:

“KCP International does an interesting thing for its American student in the summer program. They change the start and end dates to line up with when American schools tend to start and end rather than when the KCP classes actually start and end. This means that if you are entering KCP you will start class a week or so after everyone else has started and end a week before everyone else. You start classes as if your first day is the first day of those classes, so you do not have to make up any work. You will, however, be given a little bit more homework than your other classmates for the first week. Your final will be taken a week early, but it will only have questions based off of stuff you have been taught.

KCP International is located in Shinjuku, and is extremely close to the Shinjuku-Gyouen Mae station. The directions from the station to KCP International are extremely simple, but I got lost my second day when I went to KCP by myself. I got confused because you have to turn 180 degrees after exiting the station. Luckily, I did not arrive late, since I left extremely early because I thought it was a possibility. In a way, one could say that I continued to be lost for the next week, I figured out a faster way once I realized that I entered the same station when I went home as when I exited. I advise trying to go with some other KCP students when you go the second day, even though they showed you the way on the first day, especially if you chose to go on the Shinjuku tour.

Being lost gives you a nice view.

KCP classes are immersion based, which means that while it can take some time for students to adapt to it, they will achieve better listening skills than if you take a non-immersion based class. KCP had a mandatory class for English students to go to before or after their official class starts. This ‘class’ was for helping and making sure the students understood what was going on in their classes, and was taught in English. They go over any questions the students have, then there are worksheets to complete, after that the teacher quickly grades it so you can tell what you are still confused about. They had similar classes for the students that spoke other languages.

KCP main classes are definitely manageable. They have about 132 kanji word compounds that you are tested on every week. Make sure to remember them via their compounds, because the kanji will only be marked correct if both Kanji used to compose the word are correct. They had more homework than I was used to having, which took about three or four hours to compete.

We went on one field trip to a science museum about earthquakes. It was extremely fun, we got to team up with a classmate who was in the same level as us, not necessarily in the exact same class as us, and we had an iPad that you used to answer questions as you wondered around a fake disaster site. You could put the iPad in either your native language or Japanese.”

Here’s Part 1 in case you missed it! Stay tuned for Part 3 coming soon.

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Read all about Japanese immersion learning and studying abroad. Check out our eZasshi archives for more articles!