==JAPAN: Tokyo==

The number of the students who are studying foreign languages is increasing all over the world. The purposes that people have for learning and mastering the target languages are various, but the most common purpose is probably for the worldwide communication. However, the goals of worldwide communication are not only to talk with each other but also to understand each other. While and after mastering the four skills of language learning, three useful approaches should be adopted to provide language learners with other skills that make the level of communication higher.
The first approach is to continue seeking correct information about what happens overseas now and how people live and have lived their lives there. In other words, language learners should know the background of other countries and people in detail as much as possible. By doing this, they are able to have large stocks of topics to talk with people in other countries. Therefore, they are able to find some problems which the target countries and people have, discuss those problems, and actually help them. Also, it is required that all language learners become positive in getting information for the purpose of wider communication.
The second approach is to have correct information about what happens now and how people live and have lived in their own countries. In other words, language learners should look over their own countries again and again. They have to introduce their lifestyle and nature to other countries. However, they have to be careful not to get and introduce incorrect information that causes cultural misunderstandings. In this point, arbitrary decisions and prejudice against themselves are the most serious problems. If language learners have wrong thoughts about themselves, they must throw them away and reconsider. Therefore, language learners should listen to people out of their own countries so as to know what they themselves are. Moreover, it is important that language learners get to have wider eyes to watch themselves, instead of sticking to trivial details.
The third and the most important approach is to realize the differences among countries. It is not enough to get much information about both their own countries and target ones; it is important to compare and consider them. By doing this, both language learners are able to be quite flexible in their opinions in discussion. Also, it is important to find some similarities among countries. If their own countries have the same trouble and problem as the target countries, both learners are able to cooperate with each other to find the key to the problem. Therefore, language learners should be aware of the differences, recognize them, and make every effort to understand each other, just as mixed marriage couples must work and strive with each other with many hardships.
In conclusion, people have developed their own cultures and languages, but now is the time they should exchange them in order to live with each other in this multicultural era. Even if people are out of their own countries, they are not outsiders but insiders on the earth. Cross-cultural exchange and communication are not achieved until people start watching the world as a large community. "Think globally, act locally," --- this is a slogan which an environmentalist gave in order to deal with environmental problems. Likewise, language learners all over the world should expand their views when they think about themselves as human beings.