Cheltenham College

There are four famous girls school in Britain. We learned them in class. These were the lists of girls' schools.

・Roedean
・Cheltenham
・Wyoombe abbey
・Benenden

However, I found that Cheltenham College is not a girls school. It is co-educational school.

Cheltenham College, located in Bath Road is one of the famous school in Britain, and it is historical school too. It was established in 1841, and it was the first of all the major public schools of the Victorian period. There are about 600 students who are 13 to 18.

There are 20 departments in this college. Almost all departments are there. It can't be at NUFS.

Art & Art History
Classics
Design Technology
Economics & Business Studies
English For Foreign Students (EFS)
English & Drama
General Studies
Geography
History
ICT
Mathematics
Modern Languages
Music
Physical Education
Politics
Religious Studies
Science
Biology
Chemistry
Physics

You can check a typical day of the c0llege life here. The time of a period is 45 minutes, which is the best time to concentrate on the class. To be surprised the tuition of this college is 6,945 pound per term. It is so expensive because it is about 1,000,000 yen in Japan.

There are so many club activities in Cheltenham College too. And students join the activity on Monday and Wednesday. The clubs can be categorized in four groups, Sports, Academic, the Arts, and Service. You can also find here what clubs are there. Girls Hockey team seems that a strong team in this school.

References;

http://www.cheltcoll.gloucs.sch.uk/cc/home/

Universities in the UK

Students in Britain go to university like we go. According to Life and Story (2008, P18), about 40% of students go to university, which is smaller number than Japan. Students choose their major first, and then apply to universities. University students study only their major subject and there are no general classes. Students have to take A Levels, which is a test for entering university. It is like center exam in Japan. It is very important to get good score on it. There are two famous university called Oxford and Cambridge, and we say them Oxbridge for short. I will mention the basic information of these two universities.


The University of Oxford is built in 11 century. Since it is so long ago we don't know who set up this university. This university is a public school, and it is the oldest university in the English-speaking country. That's why it has so many histories, and there are many famous people who graduated that school. There are about 20,000 students there, and 25 students became a prime minister of Britain and 6 students become a king before. This university is ranked as second highest university. Students are so intelligent.


The University of Cambridge is built in 1209 by the chancellor, masters and scholars of the University of Cambridge. About 18,000 students are studying there. This university is also public school, and the second oldest university in the English-speaking country. 81 students (At the time of OCT in 2005) awarded Nobel Prize. There were also Japanese famous students before.

Class System

We can say Class System is very common in Britain culture and history. It used to be more important element of British life before. Everything what they did was related in class, so people always had to concern about their own culture. It still exists today. We can mainly divide three kinds of classes, which are upper class, middle class and working class. There are many differences in the class, such as greeting, way of speaking English. Fortunately, women can change their class by marriage. These are the differences between the classes below. I'm going to focus on two classes, Upper Class and Working Class. It is interesting to see how those two classes are different. It is like heaven and hell.

Upper Class
People who have a lot of money and power usually can be the upper class. Their coherence is also related the upper class. These people are very wealthy, and they normally become a politician, lawyer, military, doctor, judiciary and boss of a company. These people drink wine, listen to Bach and watch BBC2. These are not allowed to do in the working class people. Because many of them have coherence, there are many people who support Conservative Party.


Working Class
This class can be divided upper working class and lower working class. People who are in the upper working class usually have skill. That's why they can work as an electrician, engineers and a carpenter. Unskilled people in the lower working class become a cleaner or help labors. They don't drink wine, but beer or gin. They watch CH5, and support Labor Party.

References;

Nicholas. A (2000) Contemporary British Society (3rd Ed.) Warde

Location of Britain

Here is the location of Britain. I think it is almost accurate. The UK is located in latitude 60°N, 50°S. Its longitude is in 1°E,-10°W. I found those figures from this website. You can get the latitude and longitude when you click the place you want to know. In this connection, Japan is located in latitude 45°N, 25°S. As for longitude, it is 147°E, 127°E.
Next, I will tell you how to transfer to the other EU country from the UK. There is a high speed railway, called Eurostar. It is opened on November 14 in 1994. It connects London, Lille, Paris, and Brussels. The top speed of it is about 300km. Eurostar through the Channel Tunnel when you get other Europe countries, and you can go Paris for about two hours with about 30,000 yen from London.

United Kingdom

I've never been to the UK, but I learned about UK when I was freshman, so I know some British cultures and history. They were very interesting, and they were sometimes a little bit complicated for me.
I know Great Britain is consisted of Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland. And there were many problems between those regions in the pass. It is a little bit complicated for me, because there are so many important people, such as Queen Elizabeth.
When I went to Australia as a school program of school, I had a host family who are Irish. They told me some histories about the UK, but I couldn't understand them all. However, I'm sure that the UK had a big effect toward many countries, including Australia and Japan. I would like to know about such histories more.
I want to go the UK before I graduate this university. I want to visit Big Ben. I think it is the one of the famous place in the UK.

Te Reo Maori Education

Te Reo Maori means Maori language, which is spoken in New Zealand as a second longuage. However, it is very serious problem that fewer people can speak Maori Language in recent year, even it is an official language. Losing their language is not good for native speaker. They trid to spread their language through the education like in the school. And then, the NZ government made some act to keep Maori language.

Do you think there are any Maori language classes in New Zealand? Because it became official Language in 1989, there are Maori language classes. However, it is not essential to take language class in public school. So, how can children learn Maori language as their second language? There are schools for people who want to study Maori language. They are called Kohanga Reo and Kura Kaupapa Maori.
By the end of 1970’s native speakers noticed that Maori language was going to disappear in the early future, so they had a meeting about “How can we keep and spread our language and culture?” And then, they decided to make a school for studying Maori language and culture. The first Kohanga Reo was established in 1982, and about 100 Kohanga Reo were built in the same year as the the first one. Kohanga Reo is for infants from birth to 4 years old. This means Kohanga Reo is like a preschool for them. The native speakers tried to share their knowledge with them. After finishing Kohanga Reo, they can go Kura Kaupapa Maori as a primary school. It was established in 1985 to help children being more knowledgeable about Maori language and culture. From 5 to 16 years old children can study there. Both in Kohanga Reo and Kura Kaupapa Maori, students are not allowed to speak English. However, it is a problem that students tend to speak English in the school, like we speak Japanese in English conversation class. All parents in New Zealand can send their children either to an English medium school or Maori program school, such as Kura Kaupapa Maori. Unfortunately, many parents do not let their children to go Maori program school, but a general English program school. There were also efforts of the NZ government to keep and spread Maori language. They were related to media, such as TV and radio program.

In 1989, there was an Education Amendment Act, which was including about Maori education. Therefore, the NZ government reserves the radio and TV program for Maori. Since this act was constituted, the TV and radio programs for learning Maori language and culture increased. There are two famous names related to media about Maori, Te Mangai Paho and Mai Time. Te Mangai Paho is a Maori Broadcasting Funding Agency, which was established in 1993. It did a good job to promote Maori language and culture for people who live in New Zealand. They broadcast the radio program for 8 hours every day and made Maori language program CDs and music. As for Mai Time, this is the name of a TV station, which has broadcast Maori TV programs every week since 1996. In 2004, a great Maori TV program, called Maori Television began broadcasting on March 28 2004. This TV program changed the people’s mind. (what do you mean, How did it change people’s mind?) It has been passed 5 years since Maori Television first broadcast. There is a fact that 84% of New Zealanders consider it is important TV program for people and it should be broadcast forever. Also, 73% of Maori and 46% of New Zealanders believe that Maori Television make a valuable contribution to New Zealander’s sense of nationhood.

Maori language is not so difficult to learn for Japanese people, because the pronunciation of the words are similar. These are some Maori words below. We can pronunce them same as Japanese ローマ字. Kia ora means "Hello" in English. Au means "I" or "me". The meaning of Koe is "you". "Book" in Maori language is Pukapuka, which is somehow interesting to hear for Japanse. And, "newspaper" is almost same pronunciation as English, Niupepa.
I'm going to take Maori language class if there were the classes of it at NUFS. I think I would find it easy to learn, since the pronunciation is easy for us. I hope more and more people living in New Zealand will speak Maori Language. They should not lose it, but keep and spread.

Settlers

There were a lot of people who came in New Zealand to get a better chance in life. Even now, there are many foreigner who want to get the chance in New Zealand. The settlers from England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland went to New Zealand hundreds ago. Because they came New Zealand by ship, it took for about four months to get New Zealand from their country.
We are sure that the voyage of them were so terrible. The ships were not better than now, of course. They needed to survive on the ship for four months. There were not enough food and water, so it was so hard to live there. The sanitary conditions were bad. Therefore once illness came out on the ships, it spreaded rapidly over the ships, and then many people died because of it.

Captain Hobson, an important British navel officer went to New Zealnd to make a treaty with Maori People. Because there were few people could understand Maori language, he had a translater, his name was Henry Williams. These two people are the important person, because they tried to change the New Zealand. If they didn't come to New Zealand, people in New Zealand would not have strong relationship with Britain.

We can go wherever we want with in several hours or some more hours by plane. However, they only used ships. I can't believe this. I am lucky to live in this era.

Introduction

New Zealand is in the south-western Pacific Ocean and southeast of Australia. You can make sure where it is from this map. As you can see, it's very far from Japan. I have never been there, so I want to. I would like to visit Huka Falls, which is in Taupo, and Whakarewarewa Thermal Valley in Rotorua to see Pohutu Geyser, because I like to feel the power of nature.

I'm sure that I will experience the gifantic sounds of falls and geyser when I go Hula Falls and Pohutu Geyser. Especially, I want to see Pohutu Geyser. Pohutu means "big splash" or "explosion." That must be powerfull sounds. It is said that it explode from the ground up to 30 meters high which bursts into life 10-20 times a day. I adore these natural powers.

I am interested in Maori Langage too. I noticed that many of Maori words were similar pronuciation as Japanese, so I want to know the defferences between Japanse and Maori Language. And also, I learned that people who speak Maori language are fewer than past year in spite of the official language in New Zealand. Therefore, I will reserch how the NZ government are solving this problem now, and I will talk about this in my presentation in the end of this semester.