皆さん、こんにちは！マーラです！１３のグループの責任者で、今日は自分の経験について書きたいと思います。良かったら、読んでみてください 🙂

Hello everyone! My name is Mara and I am in charge of the group number 13, which has as its theme a delicate problem such as the refugee’s one. When I first heard of this topic, i was completely caught off guards, as I did not at all expect issues as senitive as that to be the main argument of conversation for the whole project. Not only that but i also felt quite unprepared, as I had no knowledge, or at least not sufficient knowledge on this topic whatsoever. As the first meeting came closer and closer I did many researches and took notes on new words that could be helpful to the other members as well since I suspected that this was a new territory for everyone. This became my modus operandi for the whole project and I must say it helped me a lot in growing my skimming abilities, my use of online documents and even in developing a certain amount of responsibility. However what really made the first week off to a great start were my group’s member. We were all kind of nervous and insecure but we helped each other from day one and slowly grew together to understand how to make our meeting more enjoyable and interesting as the weeks went by. The relationship I have with them is based on collaboration and encouraging one other, which really helped me feel welcome and always supported.

Speaking of meetings, the free conversation lessons we were required to attend apart from our group meetings were also a pleasant surprise. I was lucky to change on multiple occasion the room, and by doing so the main theme of discussion, over the duration of the project. Changing prospective, being able to express my thought on other matters and not always feel somewhat responsible to hold the conversation was refreshing and stimulating. Not only on a personal level but even in the studying sense of the project as I was able to learn so many new words and that helped me to feel more confident with my speaking. One more aspect that was actually great on my opinion was the blog activity. The fact that we had the chance to read and comment articles regarding the other group’s activities and discussions made me feel part of the whole community. Not only that but it was extremely helpful on the one hand in developing vocabulary and phrasal expression and on the other hand it was so nice to read everybody supportive comments. I really would like to express my appreciation on having the chances to meet amazing people and being a part of this new project.

Now that this experience has come to an end I find myself more aware of social problems that are affecting our future greatly. I have come to know about what i am sure to be just the tip of iceberg when it comes down to refugees condition and struggle, however with the knowledge i have now i feel like I can actually make a difference in helping raise awareness regarding this and other urgent matters. Discussing serious issues that we face today was challenging, but in my group as well as in the free conversation class we all took some time to randomly talk about our interests and more easy-going subjects which made the conversation spontaneous and interesting!

On a more personal level this experience has helped showing myself that I am able to deal with responsibilities, that I am able to organize the content of a meeting and that I can help others express their owns ideas. The most challenging part was the difficulty of the theme. However that made me even more invested in trying to do my best as to make it easier on others to deal with the same difficulties I was facing and I sincerely hope to have done a good job in that sense. Overall, I think that the Virtual Exchange is a project that has potential for those who are aiming to growing their confidence with the Japanese language, those who want to make new connection or simply those who enjoys exchanging thoughts and ideas on various matters.

Thank you for reading this blog!

これで以上です。今までいつもブログを読んでくれて、誠にありがとうございます！

マーラ