Junior high school was not good environment for me during my 16 years student time. It was 15 years ago, I was going to public school near my house and some students often made trouble with teachers. When I was 13 years old, I had English class first time in my life and this new subject was my favorite. (Art was my best subject though) At that time, I just wanted to be able to write cursive handwriting. I practiced a lot, wrote down A-Z on 3 notebooks. However, I hated grammar, could not understand the differences “am” and “do” in first few months.I didn’t have any purpose learning English. Basically, I didn’t (don’t) like study and didn’t find any meaning that I have to study, listened to English class program on radio but often skipped, wasted money to buy textbook.

I entered private hight school and my class teacher took charge of English class. Her pronunciation was good because she was studying in England for a couple of years when she was young. She was demanding teacher and made many examinations about new words, pronunciation and grammar. It was kind of game for me, remembered every example sentence to get good mark about grammar exam. If I made a mistake, (almost every time, it was careless mistake), my teacher complained about it when she returned paper. I studied English to beat her. Still there was not special purpose learning English when I was 17 years old.

After entering University, I got to know English is a way to communicate and English became mandatory for me. I participated in international conference in Singapore held by students organization. We had some sessions to discuss about culture differences or some strategy about our organization. A group consisted of people from each countries. Japanese was only one person in a group. I was be overwhelmed by them. They were same age with me but speaking English well, looked usual for them to use English. After that, I felt I never want to take part in session. That experience become trauma.

I forgot what erased my fear to speak English after that. Maybe activities in the organization. I met some foreigner intern and they were friendly, patient to understand what I wanted to tell them. Finally,I could know to enjoy speaking English and find the purpose to study it. I was interested in seeing another world through foreigner friends. I was 19 years old.
I still hate mathematic and cannot find reason I had to learn function or derivation in school. English, it will give you great present in your future even if you have not found any reason or purpose yet.