I did an internship at the company Japan Centre in Fukuoka, Japan. I have been working at both places for 11 weeks, from May 11 to July 24.
Japan Centre Fukuoka is an organization for Japanese high school or university students who want
to study abroad. The company helps them with choosing a country and a school, prepares important
documents and supports them during their stay in the foreign country. The organization has 3
employees and is located in Tenjin.
At Japan Centre Fukuoka, I primarily chatted with the Japanese students in the language of the
country they want to go to, which are usually America, Great Britain, Canada and France. I helped
them to get more comfortable to express themselves in English and in French and to prepare them
to have conversations with native speakers. Moreover, I supported my colleagues with doing
paperwork, such as writing e-mails in English or translating English texts in Japanese.
I also enjoyed the time at Japan Centre very much. Chatting with the japanese students
permits comparing and sharing different cultures and traditions. Week by week, I could see how the
students improved their conversation skills and got more and more used to expressing themselves
freely. The translating and writing tasks helped me a lot to improve my own japanese skills.
My colleagues are very friendly and cooperative. They treated me as an earnest
member of the company from the beginning on and supported me to have a good and interesting
time in Japan. While chatting with the students, they cordially offered us japanese sweets and tea.
Future interns should give time to the japanese students to get comfortable with
having conversations in a foreign language. Most of them don’t have any experiences at all, which
is why every improvement is so important. Just enjoy chatting with them and teach your own
culture to each other- this will give them the possibility to be more outgoing and confident with
expressing themselves to foreigners.
In total, I have spent 3 months in Fukuoka and I cannot believe the time is already over. The
internship program gave me the unique chance to learn how to deal and communicate with different
people correctly. In the future, I definitely want to work together with other people and use
communication for achievement.
http://www.japanese-school-asahi.com/
