Nice to meet you everyone.
I am Y.H .
I graduated OIP 8 years ago.
I attended OIP for 3 years from the age of 3 to 5. When I was 5 years old, I took the Eiken Level 3 and Level pre2 test at the same day and passed both. After graduating from OIP, I attended the American School in Shanghai for two years from the summer of my third year of elementary school.
The classes were all in English and the teachers were native English speakers. Although I had not learned much English since I entered elementary school, I was able to use English well enough to get by at the American School.
Although it was an American school, most people's native language was not English but English was the language that everyone shared.
I was impressed by the fact that we could talk with people whose mother tongue was different from ours in a language that was not our mother tongue.
I was able to pass the EIKEN Level pre1 test on my first try after returning to Japan. After that, I was absorbed in studying for the junior high school entrance exam, which seemed easier than learning English, except for Japanese. When I entered junior high school, English classes became more difficult than the elementary school’s one, but they were easier than the English I had learned in OIP and Shanghai, so I had an advantage over the other students.
I would never have been able to go to an American school in Shanghai without going to a Japanese school and have an experience that I will remember for the rest of my life without learning English at OIP.
I am grateful to OIP for being my starting point.