GRC

GRC

I went to GRC (Green River College), which is a sister school of Niigata Seiryo Junior College. GRC has 4 semesters and new students enroll each semester. I studied in fall and winter semesters there. Every homework and test was important because the final grade of each semester determined whether or not you could go to the upper level.

There are five levels of classes for internaional students to study before studying as academic students at GRC. The students in level 1 to 3 need to go to the Kent Campus instead of going to the main campus. The Kent Campus is on the second floor of a building just off Kent Station. Some stores are near the station and it's convenient. The students in level 4 and 5 and academic students go to the main campus in Auburn basically. It takes 20 minutes by bus from Kent Station to the Auburn campus. There is no store where you can go on foot around the Auburn campus. However, there are a lot of people on campus because it has the school gym and dormitories. It means that you can make a lot of friends there.

9/15（Fri）　Orientation

Breakfast at school

=>Placement test

=>Lunch (Hamburger)

=>Game with everyone

The day is very impotant because you have opportunities to get new friends and learn detailed explanation about the school. Also, I needed to pay attention to the instructors before taking a placement test because every description was in English. After the test, I enjoyed playing some team games.

9/18（Mon）-19（Tue）　CORE

Taking the placement test

=>Depart for CORE

=>Come back to school in the evening on 19th

I went camping for those who entered GRC at the same time as I did. We played some games and baked marshmallows. Unfortunately because of rain, we couldn't do some activities such as horse riding. However, I made a lot of friends.

9/27（Wed）

Seattle Trip

Meet up at school

→Go to Seattle City on school bus

→Go to China Town in Seattle

→Come back to school

It was my first time to go to Seattle. There was a bay around Seattle and it was very beautiful. I also ate clam chowder at a famous restaurant. There were Kinokuniya and Uwajimaya were in China Town. That was where we could buy things familiar in Japan.

Classes

Level 3 Instructor　Tim and Paul　　　 on Kent Campus
Grammar	The class started at 12 noon. We studied using a grammar textbook with Tim.
Reading/Writing	This class had the same members, instructor and classroom with the grammar class. It was the most difficult for me to take a test after reading a thin English book.
Listening/Speaking	The instructor of the class was Paul. The classroom and members were different from the first two classes. We watched a movie every Friday. Also, we had presentations in front of everyone once every two weeks. We needed to make Power Point slide show with '' Prezi.'' It means that preparation in advance was very important.

Tim

Class Photo 1

Class Photo 2

Level 4 Instructor　Daniel 　　　 on Auburn Campus
Listening/Speaking	It was different from level 3 in that we spent shorter time preparing for our presentations.
Grammar	We studied grammar that we learned in high school in Japan. We sometimes took some tests and had homework.
Reading/Writing	The topics for reading were about politics and American culture. I thought it was difficult to read them even in Japanese. Depending on instructors, we had a lot of homework.

GRC Dance Club

Originally I was getting along with the club members, but I took part in the club in January. The club meeting was at 3pm every Friday. Actually I didn't join the meeting because I had a class at the time. However, members welcomed me. Every dance member was academic students without me so, their speaking English skills were very high. It was a good opportunity to improve my English skills. I hang out with them after class and on weekends. It was a great time for me.

Lunar New Year Event	IESL Graduation Party	Dance Club Members

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