We are posting the wonderful experiences of Japanese Chat Club participants for the spring semester of 2023!
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Join the Pera Pera Club!
Sean Isozaki
Graduate School of Economics
Participating in the Japanese Chat Club was an absolute delight for me. As an international student eager to immerse myself in the local language, this club provided the perfect platform for me to enhance my Japanese skills while making friends.
The ICC organized games and conversation topics for each meeting, making it easy to jump into a conversation. I also appreciated the Japanese-speaking volunteers who helped facilitate the conversations and assisted the language learners with any questions we had. The volunteers not only helped us with grammatical questions, but also shared their stories with us, from the local cuisine of their hometowns to their experiences traveling around Japan.
For each month, the same group participates in the club, but each week we broke up into smaller groups, which provided a great balance between getting to know others and meeting new people in each session. Just like the student body at Waseda as a whole, the club had diverse participants, from first-year students to graduate students, from all parts of the world. The diversity of the club was another factor that ensured that we always had something to talk about, and we could learn not only about Japanese culture, but about other countries as well.
Overall, I can say that the Pera Pera Club was a great experience and that my Japanese has definitely improved from participating in it. I would recommend the club to Japanese learners of any level, especially those who have recently begun studying at Waseda.
Participants and Supporters (photo by ICC)
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Perfect for Practicing Japanese, And a Great Way to Make Friends!
Michael Gery
Center for Japanese Language
The ICC Japanese Chat Club was an amazing experience and I am very glad to have participated in it! I live in a share-house with other English speakers, so once class ends I never really have a chance to just chat in Japanese. When I saw the program in an ICC promotional email, I thought it looked like the perfect opportunity for me, but it ended up being even better than I expected! Not only did I learn a lot, I was able to make friends through the event I continued to talk to afterwards.
Each week, participants were placed in a random group with a few Japanese student volunteers (Supporters) to lead the discussion. The meetings began with icebreakers, such as “Two Truths & One Lie,” or looking at photos and trying to guess the city. These were a fun way to get to know everyone at the table a bit, and in the “guess the city” game we all shared about our own travel experiences too. From there, each meeting progressed into a main event, such as charades, discussion with topic-cards, Monopoly, and free talk. My favorite event was definitely Monopoly, as landing on a space would prompt a different discussion or lead to drawing a challenge card, which led to a lot of fun and unique discussion topics. Additionally, since it’s played in turns everyone had an equal chance to talk, so even those who might be at a lower language level are still guaranteed to participate. The student volunteers also did a great job in each meeting of making sure everyone was able to talk and participate, so you’ll never feel left out!
Overall, I would definitely recommend this program for anyone who wants to practice Japanese more outside of classes or make Japanese friends. You’ll always feel welcome and have a great time, so if you’re still on the fence just go for it!
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- Author (photo by author)
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- At a meeting (photo by ICC)
