Hello, everyone! I’m Sorama Yamashita, and I’m a senior in the Department of Global Tourism. Today, I'd like to introduce the course “Destination Studies I” (GTa3 class), which was a required English course for the spring semester.
*Note: Destination Studies courses are currently included in the curriculum for third- and fourth-year students. Current second-year students and below will not take the course introduced here, but I hope this gives you some sense of the course content and atmosphere.

About English Classes in the Global Tourism Department
Before getting into the main topic, I'll briefly introduce the English classes in the Global Tourism Department. English classes are divided into multiple sections based on level and purpose. Classes are divided into multiple sections, and the day of the week, time slot, content, language ratio (Japanese/English), and textbook may vary depending on the instructor.

Destination Studies I (GTa3 Class) Course Introduction
The GTa3 class “Destination Studies I” (Spring Semester) I took was taught by Professor Akari Kajihara, who joined our faculty this year. In this class, after registering attendance, we drew “Exciting Akari Sticks” each time to determine our partner for the day. The Akari Sticks featured various themes. The Akari Stick in Photo 1 was a Gari Gari-kun ice stick with the name of an American sister city related to the student's hometown written on it. As shown in Photo 2, there were also days with lottery sticks featuring a picture of sushi and its English name. Once you found your partner, you would sit together at a table with worksheets and work on textbook problems or activities using the worksheets.

In this class, we conducted three English presentations based on PBL (Project-Based Learning) in addition to the textbook. The theme for the first presentation was “Pets to Recommend to Classmates,” where we researched and introduced pets other than dogs, cats, or fish. The second presentation was on “Favorite Campus Spots for 4th Graders.” Students distributed flyers they created for their presentations to the 1st-year English classes. Afterwards, the 1st-year students provided English comments with photos and illustrations, which the entire class enjoyed reading together. Thank you to all the 1st-year students who visited the recommended spots and shared their comments. The final theme was “New Ice Cream Flavors for 2025.” The first and second presentations were in front of small groups, but the third was delivered to the entire class. Before the final presentation, we split the class in half for rehearsal practice. During rehearsal, classmates gave advice and comments on slide content and presentation style, which we applied for the final presentation.

Comments from Professor Kajihara
English (language) is a means to convey your thoughts and opinions. I incorporated this presentation into the lecture because I wanted students to practice not only the knowledge learned from textbooks, but also to “think creatively about how to communicate” the things around them to others. The interaction with the first-year students was a valuable learning experience for both sides.

Akari Sticks were created as teaching materials to make it easier for students to naturally start conversations within the class. There are Akari Sticks for various other themes too, so please try them out in your classes.
The students in the GTa3 class were particularly cooperative and actively engaged with each other compared to any other class I've taught before. I looked forward to attending every session. I learned a great deal myself, making this a special lecture for me at Kyoto University of Foreign Studies.

Finally, for the fall semester's Destination Studies II (Gta3 class), the instructor changed, and I'm struggling a bit with the more challenging content (for me). Still, thanks to this class, as a graduating senior, I was able to enjoy my student life without any regrets.