My Introduction

My name is Akiko Shimizu. I am from Japan. Now I live in North London with my husband and daughter. I am an English teacher at a junior high school in Japan, although I am on maternity leave at the moment. My husband studies viruses in another university as a researcher. My daughter had her second birthday last month. She likes cars and Thomas very much. We like to go out on weekends. We visited Woburn Abbey, Leeds castle, Stratford-upon-Avon, Audley End, Beaulieu and Blenheim Palace in this two months. We enjoyed asking some questions to old women in each room for improvement our English and British history. We realize that Henry VIII is the key person in this country’s history.

When I was an university students, I majored in International relations. To get English teaching licenses to high school students and junior high school students, I studied extra modules. I am going to get a Master’s degree in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages. I have had experience with teaching English in the middle stages of compulsory schooling for four years. I would like to give attractive conversation-based lessons to my students. English is not the native language of Japan. Many students do not need to speak English outside the classroom in daily life and most do not have the opportunity to visit an English speaking country. My desire is to create an English-speaking atmosphere within the classroom by using appropriate teaching methods and materials. I would like to develop a deeper and broader understanding of the English language before I return to school as an English teacher in Japan.

Britain is my first foreign country. When I was an university student, I came to London for the first time. I liked London very much, so I joined a seminar about British culture at the university and I wrote my graduation thesis about British pottery and porcelain and the birth of British tea culture. After submitting I visited the UK to see old pottery and porcelain at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London and the Gladstone Pottery Museum in Stoke-on-Trent. Now I am very happy to live in London.

I would like to learn time management skills the most. I have a daughter as I mentioned. I have to take care of her as her mother and also cook and clean as a housewife. Especially, I have to pay attention my daughter’s health because I cannot leave her at the nursery when she is sick. I would like to attend the course every day and spend time on self-study as much as possible for my English improvement.

My main self-study targets for this week is reading. I am worrying about that I need a lot of time to understand an article. For writing essay and thesis, I have to read many books quickly to get information and create my own idea. Through reading I can learn words and expressions connected to my subject. So I will try to find a good introduction book and read at first.