Меняем нашу жизнь! Уехали из Японии на Филиппины учиться

Hello everyone, I'm Victoria Chan. It's quite sudden, but me and Izumi are not in Japan right now, but in the Philippines, on the island of Cebu. But we came here not to relax, but to study. Of course, we will also travel around Cebu, but the main goal of our trip is to study in an English school. Why did we decide to take English seriously at the age of 30, and why the Philippines? I'll tell you a little later, but first let me show you where we will study. The school we came to is called QQ English and is located in the center of Cebu, in Aiti Park, one of the most developing areas in Cebu, where there are many offices, hotels and universities. Today is our first day at school, so we came early to have breakfast in the school canteen before the start of classes. We take a plate like this, just like at school. And here is such a buffet where you can have breakfast. Rice, of course, this is a Japanese school, so Japanese people can't even have rice for breakfast. The canteen has three meals and the menu changes every day. The food is somewhat similar to a mixture of Japanese and Filipino cuisine. Perhaps because a lot of Japanese people study at this school, and the food is prepared to their tastes, but I personally really liked it. This is what the school looks like. There are individual classes with teachers and a room for group classes. There is also a VIP lounge where you can prepare for classes or just relax. After breakfast and a little preparation, the individual classes begin. Kind people praised me in the comments that I already have good English, I can express my thoughts, but I'm still far from native, so my goal for this trip is to improve my English business and also to learn to express my thoughts more naturally. For Izumi, the goal is to stop being afraid to make mistakes and learn to maintain a simple dialogue. Now I'm in the lounge of the QQ English school and I want to tell you a little about why we decided to learn English, why now and why the Philippines. First of all, Izumi and I don't need English for work now because we live and work in Japan where there is only Japanese, but it's not a fact that we will live in Japan all our lives, so we thought it would be cool to master English at a higher level so that we could use English at work, and it would also be great if Izumi could communicate with my parents and relatives in English. Besides, we now have a very free work schedule, we can work online from anywhere, no matter where we are. We also don't have children or any other responsibilities that cannot be transferred. Our cats are now with friends during our trip to the Philippines, so I thought it was a very good timing for us to go for a long time to learn English in a language school. Why the Philippines? There are many different countries where you can learn English in a language school, such as the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, New Zealand, Australia, England, and America, of course. But the Philippines is a very cool place because, first of all, it's close to Japan, so it's not far to fly, and the time difference is not very big, which is very convenient for us to combine studying and work. But besides that, the Philippines is a very colorful country where there are many different beautiful resorts, beaches, mountains, a lot of places for diving, so you can not only study, but also combine useful with pleasant, as they say, because you can go to different interesting places on weekends, travel around different islands. And it's also very cool that in the QQ English school you can study one-on-one with a teacher, but not in a group. That is, you can choose if you want to study only one-on-one, several lessons a day, 4, 6, 8, you can choose the number of lessons per day yourself, or you can combine one-on-one classes and group classes too. Let's say, 4 individual classes and 2 group classes per day. We chose only individual classes one-on-one with a teacher, because there is much more conversational practice, let's say, I know English at some level, but I have absolutely no opportunity to practice conversational English, so I mostly talk only with teachers on the most diverse topics that they choose. And also for ISM, this is good in terms of helping him to be less shy to speak English, not to be afraid to make mistakes, as well as to improve pronunciation. From my personal experience, I went to a language school in England when I was 16 years old, and there I mainly had group classes, and it was great that it was England, of course, but since these were group classes, they are not always suitable for people who have only the initial level of English, and I did not have any strong improvement of my English in the two months I was in England. But here it is great that we are not in Japan, but in another country where they speak not in Japanese, we can go to a cafe or a restaurant, and we have to speak English because we do not know the Filipino language. In this regard, we decided to go to another country, to a language school, and not just study online or in Japan in a language school. Although, of course, it is difficult to learn English in a language school, so after our return to Japan, maybe we will continue to study online for practice and not to forget the English that we learned during our stay in the Philippines. We came to a language school for the first three weeks, but maybe we will extend our period of study, since QQ English has a very convenient schedule system and then we work because we are freelancers and freelancers live without a weekend, as I think many people know. And Izumi, since he works in a Japanese company, he cannot take a very long weekend for three or four weeks, so we decided that it would be more convenient for us to study in the morning and work after lunch. And if we want to stay here in a language school longer than three weeks, we can just extend our training, which is also very convenient, and we can not only choose our own schedule, let's say, as individual classes, group classes, but we can also choose our teachers, which is very cool. I already have several of my favorite teachers whom I record in the teachers every day, and you can also give feedback to the teachers, that, let's say, I don't understand, you speak too fast, too slow, and so on. In addition, one more very cool thing, as you probably have already seen from that video, there is a canteen here, so you can eat without leaving the school, which is very convenient, especially for us, who built such a tight schedule, study, then work right away. QQ English, by the way, is a Japanese company, but at the same time their English school is located in the Philippines, so they have a very Japanese high-quality approach to training, selection of staff, teachers, and that's why there are a lot of Japanese students here, a lot of students who came from universities to learn English to prepare for admission to universities in Japan and abroad too. But there are also a lot of people who already work here and who need English for work, and besides the Japanese staff who speak Japanese, there are also staff who speak other languages, such as Chinese, Russian, and so on. Therefore, they can help you even if you do not speak English at all. And there are also different tours and trips with the school, tourist places, for example, you can go swimming with whale sharks, it's a very interesting experience. I even saw Japanese here, and maybe even Koreans, if I'm not mistaken, who came here with their children, about 7-6 years old, and they study separately, both parents and children study English separately, which is very cool, especially if you want your child to speak English well in the future. Now we live in the hotel that our school provided, and there is even a separate kitchen where you can cook, but there are also more budget options, such as dormitory, capsule Japanese hotels, and this is a cheaper option for those who just want to sleep and do not necessarily have to cook, you can eat at the table with the school, and let me show you what the dormitory looks like, let's go. Here is the laundry, a washing machine for those who live in the dormitory, as well as such a kiosk where you can buy something tasty for those who live here. Well, let's go inside, this is the dormitory, there is a working area and a lounge for those living in the dormitory, quite spacious, light, you can work, study, and here is such a beautiful view of the IT park, and this is a lounge for a men's dormitory, a slightly different design, here are such tables, benches, and here, too, here is such a view from the window, this is how the dormitory itself looks like, this is a capsule accommodation, almost like Japanese capsule hotels, this is how your place is, you can close here, and the night costs 5 dollars, which is quite a budget option, the light turns on like this, there are shelves here, a mirror, your sleeping place, and, of course, sockets, so you can use a computer, a phone, a lock, it seems to me that the Japanese are so used to it, oh, I closed it, and what to do now? Here you need to enter the password, that's all, I understand, sorry, and there is also air conditioning and air conditioning, so it shouldn't be hot, even on the hottest Philippine day, and here is the shower and toilet, I think this is a great option for those who want to save on their accommodation, and it's great, I think, for students, because there is an opportunity to communicate and make friends with other students of the language school, but if, for example, you are a couple like us, then you can stay in a separate room, in a hotel, which the school can also find. And this is what our apartment looks like, we have already lived here a little, so it is not super clean, of course, a one-room apartment, a hotel room, but there is a small kitchen, a kitchen, there is even a dish, and there is even a microwave, a refrigerator, a kettle, so you can cook, a large bed, just for two, and also two small tables, we sometimes work with Izzy here, and here is the bathroom, a sink, a mirror, a toilet, and a shower, there is hot water, which is the most important thing. There are several lounges, we mostly used the VIP lounge for work. After the end of our classes, this is how we sometimes work in the lounge, Izzy, a working person, without rest, working a lot, no rest. Now we are going a little tired, home, to our hotel, and we will work again, because we don't have a day off. For some time we will be quite busy with studying, work and scheduling, but on weekends and in the evenings we are going to enjoy our trip to the fullest. At night, of course, the atmosphere is completely different, there are many different restaurants, bars in this park, but we are not going to a restaurant, now we are going to a night market, a night festival, where a lot of different food is sold, to have a little snack, and finally eat Filipino food, not Japanese. Although, of course, we love Japanese food, but sometimes we want to eat something new, so today we came here, Sukbomerkado, probably, so it is read, Sukbomerkado. Let's go inside. There are many different tents, with different food, drinks, mango smoothie, we were told that these are very tasty, alimango. Is it tasty? Very tasty. Good. I have such a mango smoothie with a cupcake, to eat it for dinner. A lot of things, a huge choice. Cheers! Filipino beer is very tasty. Wish us luck in studying, and if you are interested in studying in the Philippines, the details are in the link in the description of this video. Thank you for watching, bye everyone!