BY MASAHIRO SHIBATA

The SU English Camp was held at the NTT Hokkaido Seminar center for three days (July 3-5) this year. Twenty-five students of the English department and two exchange students who acted as assistant teachers participated in the event, and Prof. Hamada, Prof. Radcliffe, and three part-time teachers joined them. They lived together using English as a means of communication for three days and felt as if they had been in a foreign country to study English though they had, in fact, been in Japan.
This is an annual event in which the students present make plans based on what they want to study, and carry them out by themselves. This year, group leaders elected from among them mainly arranged programs for studies for three days. The substance of the studies and teaching materials are carefully discussed more than two weeks before the English Camp was held. Consequently, the intensive program was divided into three courses: "Expressions in Everyday Life" which was taught by Prof. Burrow, "Vocabulary and Writing" with Prof. Reemst, and "Making Speeches" with Prof. Thompson. The respective study courses were conducted merrily through games and a lot of cooperation with each other. Also, the exchange students Todd Karr and Christine St. Huller participated in these courses and helped the students as assistant teachers.
In addition to the study courses, a party was held on the last night, and every teacher and student who gathered there had a good time. A speech contest was held on the last day in which all of the students gave their own original speeches.
The English Camp no doubt gave students majoring in English a good opportunity, in that they were able to live with native speakers using English as a means of communication. Every participating student must have felt the English language closely, or could regard it as the same human language in everyday life as Japanese for them. Is that all that the participants got from the English Camp?
One of the aims of the English Camp is that it gives them motivation to study not passively but actively. We often hear some students saying they want to go to a language school though they are majoring in English. It is surely a good way. But nobody can spend a lot of money for school fees. Therefore, it is important to enhance our ability by making much of the opportunities effectively. The English Camp not only meets with this ideal, but also the expense is very reasonable; just ￥10,000. If you join this camp, you can improve your attitudes and ideas toward English and widen our university life. The enhanced skill which you cultivate there is useful for classes, clubs, activities, and talking with exchange students. We can find a lot of opportunities on our campus if we want to study English actively.
There are four exchange students on our campus; two from the University of Nebraska at Kearney and two from the Ball State University of Indiana. I recommend that you feel free to talk to them if you come across them because it is a good opportunity for you to get in touch with English speaking people of the same generation, and you can also make friends with them. Surely they also want to make friends with us, and we will have a rich harvest from making friends with each other.