皆様、こんにちは！グループ９（就職について）のエヴェリンです。

Hello everyone, I am Evelyne from group 9, 就職について, and I wanted to talk about my thoughts and feelings during the project “Virtual Exchange”.

This project was a very interesting and amusing experience for me. As students, we are used to learning vocabulary and grammar during normal classes, but it is not that easy to put into practice what we learnt. That is why this project was very helpful in practicing Japanese language. 

In fact, thanks to the various activities, I had the opportunity to use grammar tenses and to learn new vocabulary, while writing the article for my group and while talking about the weekly sub-theme during conversation lessons and group meetings. 

Not only could I express my opinion in Japanese, but I was also able to listen to other students’ point of view and to widen my perspective about numerous themes. For example, during conversation lessons, I had the chance to get to know about the difficult problem of hunger, which lots of people suffer throughout the world, and about the topic of waste of water and other precious resources, in the procedures of goods’ production. 

Furthermore, I could deepen my knowledge about work life and, in particular, the process of finding a job, which was my group’s theme. At the beginning, it was not so simple to find a sub-theme to talk about every week, because we are still not too familiar with the world of work, but as we proceeded to search for information and materials, it became more natural.

Moreover, I found this blog (NoLBrick Blog) extremely educational and thought-inspiring. On one hand, it was challenging to comment on different articles during the week, but on the other hand, while reading other group’s articles, I discovered many facts which I was not aware of and I could as well assimilate several new terms in Japanese.

At first, I was very nervous about conversation lessons because I get shy while talking to people that I am still not close with. Further, I was concerned about the idea that we had to use Japanese with senior students, because I knew that it was hard for me to express what I wanted to, while using a language that I still have not mastered. However, thanks to these weekly lessons, I could improve my comprehension and talking skills, and in doing so, I eventually became more confident about myself.

Besides, this Virtual Exchange was the perfect alternative occasion to meet new students. Due to the current situation of global pandemic, we were not able to experience a journey in Japan, as well as the students from Japan and other countries far away could not come here to Italy. Nevertheless, we are also very fortunate to be able to use a computer, or any other device, in order to get to know each other and to stay in contact with students who live in a different country. 

So, for all these reasons, this was an unforgettable experience to me. I recommend participating, if possible, in this project in the future, because it is an opportunity to improve your own language competence, to widen your knowledge about multiple topics and to form new friendships.