Experiential Learning Beyond Borders - Mt. SAC's Osaka Study Abroad Program Episode 219

Gio [: 00:00:00

She asked me in English, she was like, oh, like where are you from? And I answered in Japanese that I was from Los Angeles. And we had a conversation back and forth and she was like, why are you here? And like, just getting over my fear and my anxiety that was really gripping me. It's one of the hardest things I've ever done going on this trip, and I think it's probably one of the best things I've ever done for myself.

Chisa Uyeki [: 00:00:21

Welcome to the Mount San Antonio College Podcast. I'm Chisa Uweki, a Mount SAC professor and librarian, and I'm pleased to be your host for this season. Our goal is to keep you connected to our campus by bringing you the activities and events you may not have time to attend to share the interesting things our colleagues are creating and innovative ways they are supporting and connecting with Mount SAC students. Join me as we explore Mount sac. Professor Keiko Tsurumi was inspired by the growth and resilience of the students who participated in the Mount SAC Osaka program that she wanted to share their experiences with all of us. As you'll hear, the program is the result of years of planning and coordination, a testament to Tsurumi Sensei's dedication to supporting student learning. Listening to Professor Tsurumi and students Gio and Diego, I heard the impact of combining high expectations with resolute compassion for students. This study abroad program set a high bar, and yet the students continued with intention to put themselves in positions to learn and grow.

Chisa Uyeki [: 00:01:42

Like asking strangers for directions in a new language, even when Google Maps is a click away. They had difficult moments that tested them, but you'll hear the way they worked through them and found ways to engage in immersive learning with growing confidence. I'm excited to share this conversation on experiential learning beyond borders. For me, it served as an opportunity to reflect on the power of immersive education and consider ways we can apply similar approaches to learning locally. Perhaps it will serve as the same for you. Thank you all for being here today. I'm excited to talk to you you about your experiences abroad with the Osaka program to start. Professor Tsurumi, let's start by having you.

Chisa Uyeki [: 00:02:33

Maybe could you introduce yourself first and we'll have you each introduce yourselves.

Keiko Tsurumi [: 00:02:38

Yes, sure. My name is Keiko Tsurumi and I teach Japanese on campus.

Gio [: 00:02:46

Hi. So I am a student in his oh God. It's been three years at Mount SAC and I'm a Japanese major. I'm hoping to transfer next year and I went on the Osaka program.

Chisa Uyeki [: 00:03:02

Thank you.

Keiko Tsurumi [: 00:03:03

Hachimagashimasu first of all, thanks for having me. This is good. Yeah, it's a pleasure.

Gio [: 00:03:09

Thank you for having me, too.

Diego [: 00:03:10

I've been at Mount SAC for a while because I came back. I transferred from here to Santa Barbara in 2019. So a lot of my transfer experience was online. And then after doing some working, I thought, you know what, I'm gonna come back and do some learning of Japanese, you know, so there's more to say on that, but that's the short version.

Chisa Uyeki [: 00:03:28

Thank you so much. Keiko, can you tell us about what your vision was and sort of the impetus for starting the. And creating the Osaka program?

Keiko Tsurumi [: 00:03:40

Yes. So it took me probably more than four years to realize this program. It all started before the pandemic, when I found out that about 20 years ago, Mansaka had an official sister school in Japan in Nagasaki Community College. Yes. Junior college called Nagasaki Junior College. So when I found out would not be great to reestablish this association. This program was under a past president, Federson, and when he retired, program discontinued. So what I did initially was I actually tracked him down on LinkedIn and cold emailed him, messaged him, saying that if we could connect.

Keiko Tsurumi [: 00:04:30

And he was so generous with his time. We actually talked on the phone for, like, about an hour. And he gave me the history and all that. So my next step was to contact Nagasaki Junior College. And I also had an unofficial working group on campus with faculty members who would be interested in a project like this. And then the pandemic happened, so everything was put on hold. And then after we came back, everything was kind of like we were just trying to, you know, collect the pieces together as an institution. So study abroad.

Keiko Tsurumi [: 00:05:10

It wasn't even a consideration. But I did get a hold of Nagasaki Junior College faculty member who was once part of the sister association. And so I tried to have first work with the ToB College consortium that the RAMA SAC is part of for study abroad, but it just didn't work out. The vendor didn't have a strong connection in Asia, so it wasn't going anywhere. But then I thought that studying abroad for a semester, which actually Diego once tried to do, was so cost prohibitive because it cost over $10,000 and which is out of reach for many, many of our students. So then the idea came like, well, then maybe we should do one just on our own during intercessions and make it more accessible to. To students. And we can create the program, you know, for MANSAC by Mount sac.

Keiko Tsurumi [: 00:06:14

And that works for us because we have a Specific needs and things that we want to do. And then after that, it took like additional two years to convince the division to get on board, which itself was like a winding road, to say the least. And so that was sort of like the long, the sum up of how it started.

Chisa Uyeki [: 00:06:38

Can you speak a little bit about what your hopes were for students with the program?

Keiko Tsurumi [: 00:06:43

Yes. Study abroad, I mean, obviously will be in a great experiential learning opportunity and immersive experience that students like, learn so much from. But at the same time, I wanted the students to establish like soft skills, you know, transferable work skills that they can use in careers and relationships and anything that involves interpersonal relationships. So that piece was just as important for me as well as academic growth. So like a personal growth was something that I was very passionate about and wanted to promote.

Chisa Uyeki [: 00:07:26

So you mentioned immersive learning. And one of the things I was thinking about before today was when a lot of people think about learning language, you think about conjugation and tenses and vocabulary and those sort of technical components. But can you as a Japanese language teacher, talk some about the role that culture plays in learning a language?

Keiko Tsurumi [: 00:07:48

Well, grammatically speaking, linguistically speaking, so much of the cultural concepts actually reflected in the language, so that the students, as they learn grammar, it makes sense, so much more sense if they actually understood more of where that notion or how to use the language is coming from. And then also there's a practical piece because you have to know the culture and cultural norms to use the language in a way that's appropriate. And then also a lot of students come to Japanese classes wanting to be able to speak and also want to watch Japanese media with subtitles. So that involves the real world settings. And during the OSAKA, the Winter 25 program, one of the courses offered was conversational Japanese. And then these two students here, Gio and Diego, actually took that class, so they can actually elaborate more on that. But I sent these students out to the community. They have the specific tasks that they have to engage in with the locals.

Keiko Tsurumi [: 00:09:04

One of them was asking for directions, for example. It was really difficult.

Gio [: 00:09:11

A lot of the assignments, we had an assignment every week of actually real world application of our Japanese sumisensei. I think you took full advantage of the fact that we were in Japan because you wanted us to journal at least once a week on how the assignment went. And I forget one of the weeks it was we had to ask for directions, which in 2025, everyone uses Google Maps. So I asked someone directions for where to get to the hair salon. Because I had an appointment to get bangs and I didn't have bangs before I went to Japan. And they pulled it up on Google Maps and they showed me their phone in Google Maps and I was like. I was like, oh, no, sorry. Like, I'm a student and I need you to tell me in Japanese how to do it.

Gio [: 00:09:58

Like, I need to use these exact words like masuguite and stuff like that. And so it was a little hard. Yeah. But what were the other ones? I forget.

Diego [: 00:10:07

I do too, to be honest with you. One that comes to mind, I think we were talking about. We were learning words for like, flavors, like aji, shopai, supai, things like that. And that was for the takoyaki event?

Keiko Tsurumi [: 00:10:19

Oh, yes. That was a cooking. So that there are, like, students from our Japanese partner university taught our students how to make takoyaki. And so to prepare them to engage on that topic, they learned all the cooking terminologies and all that so that they can do as much as they can in Japanese and they understand when the Japanese students try to teach them in Japanese. They do.

Diego [: 00:10:45

Yeah. What I really appreciate about that, or just the program as a whole, is that there's lots of things that the textbook isn't going to cover. You know, Genki's not going to have. Like, for example, when I went to 711 on my first day, I felt like a fool because I wasn't ready to hear, like, you know, and then.

Keiko Tsurumi [: 00:11:03

Like, and which was, you know, do you need a bag?

Diego [: 00:11:05

Yeah.

Keiko Tsurumi [: 00:11:06

Because now they charge, you know, for a bag.

Diego [: 00:11:09

So that's one thing that took me a while to get the hang of. But that's definitely something I was looking forward to. Like, now is the time to learn words that I wouldn't otherwise hear. Especially, like, for cooking. Right. Like, if we're in the classroom and we do, like, the conversation activities from Genki, that's cool. But it's also like, I kind of can expect what the other person is going to say, and then it becomes a little limiting. Whereas when you're in Japan, like, you don't know how people are going to respond.

Diego [: 00:11:33

And then, like, it's a really good learning opportunity because of that.

Gio [: 00:11:37

Yeah. I have some of my notes from when we were on the program too, because I took the notes in my notes app. But one of the weeks, I think it was the second to last week of the program, we had to ask one of our partners from the exchange program, like, about their hobbies because we had learned Shimi wan daandesuka. Like, what is your hobby? And then like how to say different hobbies. And it was very hard for me to be like, for me with Japanese, I'm not always the most confident in my ability to create sentences. And so I get a little anxious and like it has a hard time coming out sometimes. But it was such a fun thing to talk about because everyone has different hobbies and you learn different ways of saying things. You learn new vocabulary and it was so funny.

Gio [: 00:12:20

I think her name was Ayaka San from ogu. Her hobby was going to Kissaten, which are cafes, like retro style cafes. And no one else in the group knew what those were, except I did because it's part of that kawaii cuteness culture that I'm really into. So I was like, eh, like kisaten, like, like what do you rec. Like where. Where do you recommend? So it was definitely like, I think the stuff that we learned in class versus what we learn here in the US in the textbook, like Diego said, it becomes kind of formulaic. Like you expect what the other person is going to say, but like you don't expect when you're actually talking to a real person. Well, of course, your classmates are real people using the language genuinely.

Gio [: 00:13:09

You don't know what they're going to say.

Keiko Tsurumi [: 00:13:12

Yes. So it is the conversation Japanese that we offered during the program. It is a course that we also offer on campus, but we actually did. I did use different textbooks specifically for the program. So it's the more real world applications that was a main focus of the book. So what I did was in class, the students learned all the terminology and expressions that they were expressing to give them foundational knowledge. And then they go out to the community and try it out, you know. And so that's where students have something for back on.

Keiko Tsurumi [: 00:13:53

But they can explore and expand and you know, to see how the conversation, you know, where it would take them to. And so I think, like Jiro said that I think that we took full advantage of the immersive environment that has given to us.

Chisa Uyeki [: 00:14:11

I think too it sounds like it impacts confidence with speaking. You had content knowledge that other people didn't have. So you maybe didn't have the same language knowledge, but you were able to communicate enough to share that content, right?

Gio [: 00:14:27

Yeah, I think that's a big takeaway of my time in Japan was that when you're not fluent in the language the other person's speaking and they're not fluent in your language, you can kind of miscommunicate. But I think something that really matters is whether you're genuine and whether you're like, yeah, you're eager to hear them. I was very lucky that I had a lot of experiences like that where I was trying to talk to someone and they were trying to talk to me, and they didn't really know English well. And I didn't really. I was a Japanese 2 student at the time. I just finished Japanese 2, and we had people on our program who had finished Japanese for. So I had, like, a lower kind of footing than some of the other students, but I still was able to communicate with people, and I really appreciated that.

Keiko Tsurumi [: 00:15:11

Yeah, that's good. I mean, that's called, you know, cross linguistics, you know, like the competence that, you know, you do the best you can using all the tools available to you, including gesture and laughter, you know. Yeah. You know?

Diego [: 00:15:26

Yeah. Like, to some similar effect. There is definitely times where one goal that I had for myself was to, like, okay, let's see how long I could go without reverting back to English. Right. And for me, that's one thing that kind of surprised me. I didn't think I'd be able to go this long, which I don't know how long it was in some cases. Right. But then there was a point where I met somebody.

Diego [: 00:15:46

She was from Makita and she studied abroad in Canada, I want to say Vancouver, I think. And she kind of just said, like, oh, yeah, in those times, I would speak to people in English and I wouldn't fully understand what was going on. But you kind of get a sense that you understand the big picture, so you might miss some details, but, like, you get the whole thing kind of just like, based on the vibe. And she basically explained what I felt in Japanese a lot of times.

Chisa Uyeki [: 00:16:12

Can you tell me some more about your experience? Did you have any difficult moments during your trip that tested you? And how did working through anything like that impact your personal growth?

Gio [: 00:16:25

So I actually, while being a student on the study abroad program, I was also one of the social media managers for the program. Slimy Sensei approached me and one other student and asked us if we could manage the social media. And it was really difficult because I had never really worked a job like that before. And also to have the job and studying and being in a new place, it was all pretty overwhelming. And I had a really difficult time with my mental health the first two weeks we were there about. Because I had never been on a solo trip before. I had just turned 20, and I really missed my parents and my friends and my dog. Most importantly, I miss my dog the most when I was there, and it was really hard.

Gio [: 00:17:17

I was very lonely. And I think that's one thing about Japan, like, the way that Japanese people are that you don't really hear about as much is that Japanese people are very. They're very lonely. Even in America, like, when you're checking out the grocery store, they're like, ask how you're doing. Ask how your day was. And Japan people don't really do that. So it was kind of hard. Like, I felt very isolated and I felt really alone.

Gio [: 00:17:39

You know, I knew some people on the trip before going. Like, I had two classmates of mine that went. But I didn't really know anyone else. And so I had actually missed a couple days of class because I couldn't get out of bed. It was really hard. And I think the most important thing. I'm so grateful, I am so blessed that I had Surumi Sensei and our program coordinator, Robert, to confide in, because I talked to them about how I was feeling. You know, Sumi Sensei, she was, you're not happy with me for being late to class.

Gio [: 00:18:17

You're not happy, but you were worried about me. You checked up on me. And I felt horrible that I had been given this big responsibility. And I wasn't really able to pull through it at first. And I was really struggling with Japanese. I was not really talking with people. I was too nervous and, like, too emotionally volatile to really talk to people. And I don't know.

Gio [: 00:18:42

I think what really pulled me out of it was knowing that I had support. The program didn't really start for me until two weeks in, if that makes sense. I wasn't really all there until I had kind of come out of it and had that adjustment period. And then after that adjustment period, like, I really threw myself into talking to people, talking to other Japanese people. I was still. Still really nervous about it, about, like, my sentence conjugation until I was fully on my own, because I had booked that solo leg of. Until after the program had ended. And at that point, like, I was just talking to everyone who I could, and people really wanted to talk to me.

Gio [: 00:19:18

I guess when you're alone and you look a little interesting, you're dressed a little unusually, people want to talk to you. And I had a really great conversation with an older woman in a bathhouse, a sento. And I was, like, struggling to turn on the tap. Like, I couldn't figure out how to do that. And she was, like, miming to me. She's like, In English, push, push on the tap. And that's not really an experience that a lot of foreigners have in Japan is they go to the public bath houses because it's a little weird getting naked around other people for some people. But she asked me in English, she was like, oh, where are you from? And I answered in Japanese that I was from Los Angeles.

Gio [: 00:19:59

And we had a conversation back and forth and she was like, why are you here? And like, oh, do you know Shohei Ohtani? And I think just getting over my fear and my anxiety that was really gripping me, it's one of the hardest things I've ever done going on this trip. And I think it's probably one of the best things I've ever done for myself. Because the willpower that I had to have and the faith in myself that I had to have, that I can do this, this is hard and I'm alone, but I can do it. I can have faith in myself. It was like my eyes have been opened.

Keiko Tsurumi [: 00:20:33

I am so glad that, you know, Jill had this experience because it's a lot of like, self discovery, you know, something that, you know, you'll never experience, you know, learning on campus. And that's something that, like you said, it will stay with you, you know, long after you graduate from, you know, Mount Sac. And so I think that's just so invaluable that, you know, students are learning this self growth. I mean, it's safe to say their lives are not the same.

Gio [: 00:21:05

Oh, absolutely.

Keiko Tsurumi [: 00:21:06

Yeah.

Chisa Uyeki [: 00:21:08

And how about you?

Keiko Tsurumi [: 00:21:09

Well, you know. Yes. Well, for me, so many levels, it's just, you know, this experience was just amazing. I mean, it's a lot of work. It was a lot of work to realize it. It was a lot of work to, you know, during the program. It's a lot of work after, but it is so invaluable. It's so worth, you know, whatever I had to do to, you know, provide this opportunity to more MANSAC students because it's truly meaningful, you know, it's beyond academics, you know.

Keiko Tsurumi [: 00:21:40

So, yes, I'm looking forward to, you know, Saka 2.0 in winter 27 is.

Gio [: 00:21:47

What I want to get out of being an educator is you want to enrich your students lives beyond just the material you cover in class. And I would say you achieved that and you and both Professor Lee achieved that in leaps and bounds.

Keiko Tsurumi [: 00:22:01

Thank you. Thank you so much.

Chisa Uyeki [: 00:22:03

Thank you so much. I appreciate your time and taking this opportunity to tell us about your experience and sharing all of this with our listeners. Thank you. For listening to the Mount San Antonio College Podcast, brought to you by Mount sac's POD Office and created in partnership with Avant House Media. Original music created and edited by Neera Azira. Be sure to check out our growing library of over 230 episodes and let us know your thoughts. You can reach me chisaueki at c U Y e k iountsack.edu. wishing you an amazing year and happy listening.