I’m Rosemary studying A&J Academy in Baguio city, Philippines. I have been studying since 16^th February  I’m studying IELTS course in this academy.

During my stay here, my English skills got better than before. I talk to not only to my friends and teachers but also to the housekeepers and the security guard every day. Before I came to Philippines, I thought I need to study English for at least 4-5 months to communicate easily with everyone. But after the first week, my speaking and listening skills started to improve because I always talk about any topic with my friends, roommates and teachers. When I have some mistakes with my pronunciation,  my teacher help me fix them so that I could speak clearly. Reading and writing skills also got better. Now, I can get many correct answers in Reading Practice Test than before. Personally, I think my communication skills is improving, but I also need to continue to study English and practice it more regularly.

On my 7th week, I together with my foreign close friends and classmates went to Vigan City which is a 5 hours trip from Baguio City by bus. Although I am the only Vietnamese in the group, I found it a good opportunity to practice my English communication skills because we have to speak in English most of the time.  We went to Vigan city which is northwestern from Baguio city. Vigan City is one of the oldest city in the country with many Spanish architectures. This is because of the Spanish influence to the Philippines in the past. We were tired because of the long travel and the hot weather of the place.

We went straight to our hotel the walked around the place to view the architectures as well as took photographs of them. The, we ate dinner in a local restaurant and tried some of the local foods. Afterwards, we constinued to walk around the area and heard that a “Dancing fountain” was about to be shown. We waited for a while to watch it and it was really wonderful. It lasted for more than 20 minutes. There were many local tourist and foreign visitors who watched the show. After the show, we dropped by a store to by the things what we need. The next day, we had our free breakfast in the hostel, then we continued to visit some of the famous attractions recommended by our teachers. We finished the activity before lunch and left Vigan at 1:45 pm.

I got some good experiences and memories from this trip. We had fun as a team that made our relationship closer. We also got to know each other better even though we are from different countries cultures. I really hope that in the future I could meet all of my friends again even though it would be difficult to do that.