Advice from Takayuki Okazaki (岡崎享恭）-Opportunities for students to travel abroad in Japan

Many students in my classes express an interest in travelling abroad and learning a foreign language, and some of them do not know where to start. After speaking with Takayuki Okazaki (岡崎享恭) a lecturer of English at Kyoto Sangyo University (京都産業大学） I got some ideas for resources that I can share with my students.

Mr. Okazaki seriously decided to start studying English after he visited his sister in Seattle, Washington. She herself was doing an exchange program. After being able to use some of the English he learned in high school in conversations with Seattle-ites, he decided that he wanted to study more so that he could communicate with more and more people around the world. After a year abroad at Leed's University, and a an exchange program in the Carolinas, he graduated from Kobe University and decided to get his Master's degree at the University of Hawaii in Second Language Aquisition. From there, he became the first ever Japanese person to be hired to teach at the English program there for students coming from other countries. After that, he worked for Peace Boat where 岡崎享恭 coordinated the Global English and Spanish programs onboard. He is currently a full time lecturer at Kyoto Sangyo University (京都産業大学） and has also taught a varitety of classes (see　岡崎享恭's English Social Issues syllabus here and other syllabi) at Shibaura Institute

Some of the advice he gave for the students was:

1. Try out Peace Boat. It is a 3 month trip around the world and you can even enroll in a language program on board for Spanish or English. Here is a short description with photo of him in action on the boat explaining the three phrases of the day!, and another photo of him talking about his NGO work in eradicating poverty.

2. If you are enrolled at a university, find out what kind of exchange programs they have! You can earn credit while studying in another country and learning a new language at the same time. Here is information about one of the programs at Kyoto Sangyo University for an exchange with Hawaii.