Hello everyone, I’m Xiong Sai from Tohoku University. I was fortunate to participate in the AELC courses held in Sendai in the summer of 2024 and in Nanjing at the beginning of 2025. Here, I would like to share three key takeaways from this journey. 

First, AELC helped me regain my confidence in English. I believe many international students in Japan have had a similar experience—after focusing on learning Japanese, their English skills started to decline rapidly. The more difficult English felt, the more I wanted to avoid using it. In AELC, not only were all the lessons conducted in English, but students were also required to respond and participate in discussions in English. At first, I was shy, struggled to speak fluently, and hesitated to share my opinions. But as the course went on, I started to take the initiative, break the ice, and even lead discussions in English. This improvement was the result of AELC’s intensive training. English is a language that connects us to the world. Now, I have overcome my fear of speaking English and feel much more confident using it.

Secondly, AELC has broadened my global perspective and improved my collaboration skills. It provided us with a valuable opportunity to study, discuss, and exchange ideas with students from different universities across East Asia. Through these discussions, we learned about different countries and regions, finding differences within similarities—such as common challenges but different solutions. At the same time, we also discovered similarities within differences—such as different policies leading to similar results. By engaging with diverse cultures and perspectives, I gained a deeper understanding of East Asian societies and cultures. Additionally, working in groups allowed me to experience both the challenges and opportunities of cross-cultural collaboration. While working with teammates from different countries, we not only had to overcome language barriers but also had to understand each other’s academic backgrounds, ways of thinking, and working styles. Through the AELC program, I became more aware of different communication styles and decision-making processes in various cultural contexts. I believe this experience will be valuable for my future journey. 

Lastly, I want to talk about the benefits of interdisciplinary learning. If graduate studies are about deepening knowledge in one field, then AELC was an opportunity to broaden my academic horizons. The program included AP, KP, and SP courses, covering knowledge, attitudes, and skills. We explored topics from artificial intelligence (AI) and psychology to statistical methods like SPSS. These interdisciplinary courses brought many challenges, but they were also exciting and rewarding. For example, when learning about AI, we discussed its applications in education from an educational perspective. In psychology, we focused on how cognitive development affects learning. Learning SPSS gave me basic skills in quantitative research, which will be useful for my academic studies.