By Elena Encarnacion

A day or two before class, we were told that we would have some “special guests” in our Facebook group. I was really curious as to the kind of guests we would have and the type of people they would be. When I found out that they were from the Japanese Embassy, I was excited, yet a little nervous. When Eshita-sensei said that we would have to individually introduce ourselves to our guests, I felt a lot more nervous. I was worried about messing up. However, after I introduced myself, the guests clapped and it calmed me down.

After all of the introductions, our guests sat in the back of the classroom and observed our class. They occasionally walked around and looked at our notebooks as we practiced writing Katakana. They praised and even helped us out if we asked for extra help with pronunciation or penmanship.

The guests from the Japanese Embassy finished off their visit by presenting us with Japanese sweets and cute little buttons that we could pin to our backpacks or shirts. Although I was originally anxious about what having them in our classroom would be like, in the end I was happy. Not only were they kind and helpful, but they also answered our questions and told us about some of the study abroad programs that were sponsored by the Japanese government. I hope our next visitors are as nice as they were.