Educational Differences

By Saki Mu

Even though the name of the college is the same, if the schools are in different countries, there will be many differences. MFWI is the school in Washington State which MWU built about twenty years ago. As I spent two weeks here, I’ve noticed many differences between MWU and MFWI. There are two main differences: classroom style and participation. In Japan, I took class from the American teacher, so the classes we are taking right now are not so different from what we did. However, for other class’ student, it’s not the same as they studied in Japan.

First of all, the big difference between MWU and MFWI is the number of the student in classroom. Usually, there will be fifty students per class in Japan, but not here. Only about fifteen people are in one classroom taking the classes. I think this classroom style is very American because we don’t see this kind of classroom organization in Japan. I think small number of students in class is a really good way to learn something, because teacher can pay more attention to the students. If there are many students in the classroom, then teacher won’t be able to pay attention to each student.

Secondly, I think big difference between Japanese education and American education is the participation. This is not only in MWU, but in most of the universities in Japan. Japanese class is described as one-way education while American education is called as two-way education. Even though we’ve had American teacher’s class in Japan, we are not participating enough in the class at MFWI. Many teachers tell us to be active in MFWI. I think participating in the class is really important to improve our English and skills better.

It is really hard to change the style of learning we did in Japan to American way immediately, but I think we can. Some of the students are really aiming high to improve their English skills. I’m wondering if MWU changes their way of teaching, I think English level will go up more. I hope that this difference will be a good point of our language study.