My past

My experience that I can speak out to people that sounds really cool is that I am a returnee from North America.

This is quite a fact that many people hear these days, and my concerns are a common returnee's issue perhaps. (Although I hate being called a typical person)

However, I think my experience has changed, and intervened my way of thinking, so I will share this here.

I lived in Canada from when I was 7 to 10 years old. Many people say, that languages could stick into you at the level you get when you are 12 years old, so I was somewhat early to go back to Japan, to be able to fully speak English fluently. Although my pronunciation is good (since I learned how to speak by so many bunch of native kids in Canada), I wasn't able to acknowledge difficult vocabularies, at the time when I got back.

I went to a normal public school there in Canada, and also returned to a typical and normal public school in Japan. Everyone spoke Japanese, and everyone was obviously Japanese.

I know there was a choice of going to an international school, and there's many precedence seen by my friends I met in junior high school to high school, where many returnees where there.

One thing I notice the most is, that returnees that was in an environment of speaking English until 12 years old, or people that graduated elementary school in an English speaking environment are really fluent and has a positivity in speaking English very well.

When I was living in Canada, I still had an identity of being a Japanese, so many of my identity was filled with being a Japanese. You may not understand this, but when I met my friends that are returnees like me, I was so surprised that they used an English setting on their phones, and treating those as a "normal" thing.

I went to a Japanese public elementary school for 2 years, but since I was trying so hard to fit into the environment, I didn't have any attachment to the fact that I lived abroad, or the fact that I can speak another language. Due to that, I remember being said to say thanks to the English teacher in elementary school in front of the whole class, but feeling embarrassed at it. Because I used to live in that region when I was little, I had many friends I knew from such a young age, so I didn't get bullied at all when I returned to Japan. Even from those facts, I sometimes think to myself of going to an international school instead of a normal public school in Japan, could have changed my life completely.

Although I only lived abroad for 3 years, which is really short to say I'm a returnee, I feel relieved to the fact that I was able to go to a middle school that many returnees where there.
My English test scores in junior high school, which was a returnee class, was such a low level in the first several years I got in to. However, due to the education I was able to get in this 5 years, I feel like I have grown my English level a lot.

Although I'm still not good in the English speaking, like a native speaker, I definitely think I have obtained my speaking skills as well as growing them, from a level of a 5th grade girl to maybe a 10th grade level.

I can't wait to continue my journey from now on, and embrace every hard moments I had, and share more happiness to myself as well.

p.s. My English writing level is still at a low level inside my class, so I'm trying to keep this up too!!