2020.10.28 Wed

On October 7 and 14, the International Centre held the first two sessions of the "Online NIHONGO Chat Room" for international students from our partner universities and Gakushuin students who have registered with the Centre as volunteers. In response to the spread of COVID-19, Gakushuin University suspended accepting exchange students from overseas who were scheduled to start their programs here at Gakushuin this past September. In lieu of the face-to-face exchange programs, we organized the Chat Room to give both international and Gakushuin students an opportunity to interact with each other.

The Chat Room will be held twice a month from October to next February. A total of 27 students (10 international students and 17 Japanese volunteers) participated online from home in the two sessions. The theme for the first sessions were "About myself." The participants had some photos with them to introduce themselves and used the "Share" function to show their photos to other members, which seems to have helped them have smooth conversations even though they all met for the first time.

In the survey afterward, most participants expressed their overall satisfaction at the events. Many also commented that they were glad to have this opportunity.

The next sessions are scheduled on November 4 and 11.