点吧点吧，点个了嗯。Okay hello is. That mom and dad. Well, lovely if have nice to see you all. My name is Chris and I work with bb Eva. As you know, whoset up this little chat and it's not an interview or anything like that. It's just a little bit of a chat to get to know you and see where you are and see what you want to do. So first of all, yejust, tell me a little bit about yourself, where you're living at the moment, which I gather is in Shanghai. And Yeah, we'll take it from there. Momand, I'm ten years old now and we come Shanghai Baby, five months, right? Okay, quite recent. Recent. Okay, more实一回言言何。Okay, that was very nicely done. So yes, I just said it was quite recent, which means not too long ago. Okay, so you came five months ago. So where were you before you came to Shanghai? I was at Japanese cooker, right? Okay, and how long did you live there? Were you born in Japan? Yeah, I' M Born in Japan and I live Japan. I've in two years, right years, ten years. Ten years you are born. I left two years and we moved here and we leave Japan. Maybe nine years. Okay, we move, move, move to another place. And right? So he means he lived in the fguokfor two years and on other flights and for seven years. Lovely. Okay. Okay, so I'm getting to understand it. And now you're in shangshanghai, which I have been to once. And I remember being down by the river and the big lights that are on the buildings and that sort of thing down at the well, at the riverside, I suppose. What do you like about Shanghai? Like almost must like the schools or at the big building as middle of middle of Shanghai, is it right? Okay. So you are at an international school, isn't it the yshang international school? Is that right? Yeah and and that I think is divided. It's a big school, isn't it? Lots of people in it, but it's in different places. There's different is it for different year groups in different places? Is that how it's organized? Yeah. So when you go to school, then how many boys and girls? Is it all boys or other girls there as well? First of all, I think half and half, right. Okay, so there's boys and kles there and I mean up your life a 19. Okay, thank you. Right. So quite a small class then and tell me when you have your lessons, are they all in English or are they mostly in Chinese? Say when you have from or a Chinese study Chinese class we just use Chinese and then we do another lesson we just use English, right? So if you have a matths lesson or a science lesson then that is taught in English. Yes. Yeah, right. Okay. And is your first language is it? Is that Japanese? Is that the one you know and speak best, do you think? Yeah and when you're at home with mum and dad as you are now, is that what you speak? Would you speak Japanese to each other? So when I talk to my, I talking Japanese to my father. When I talk to mother, I talk Chinese, right? So mom is Chinese. So you know Japanese and Chinese and English. Yes, little bit Spanish. Very good. Well, that's lovely. Good for you on that. And you are learning them at the best time. If I tried to speak another language and I would take me forever. But when you as Young as you are, then it's a really good time to learn all these languages. So well done to you. Excellent. So when you're at school ago, let's go back to your school. You've got 18, 19, 20 children in your class, which is your favorite subject, would you say? I mean, it's maths, right? Okay. And what do you like about maths? Like the picture like the 3D questions, like the I like to know three like the circles or something. Okay, so it's looking at things of working things out. There's a visual learning going on there as well. Okay, so that's your probably your favorite subject and what other subjects do you like? Maybe P E okay. And what sort of things you do in pe. Sometimes we do badminton, gymnastics, basketball. Sometimes some wearing all right. Okay. So Yeah and which of those you prefer you sort of like team games like football or basketball? Or do you like the individual ones swimming, badminton, perhaps that sort of thing? Gymnastics? I want my suggest, just like the team team play, right. Okay. So basketball perhaps, is that your favorite? No, something like that. We are like the helping each other and then make a plan to like to hit someone with the. Okay, that's good. And I see it also that you play some tennis, is that right? Yeah okay. And do you play tennis at school or do you go to another club? How does that work? I got I play another club to play tennis. Okay. And how many times places people play with another places people right? Okay, that's that's really good. And how many times a week might you go there or is that once a week one we just one times magood so and I see also you're involved in drawing and art. What sort of things do you like? Like the reslowing and you can see like there's the ocean. Oh my. Are those paintings in the background there behind you, behind your dad? Are they your drawings? Yeah. Are they really? They are fantastic. That is really amazing. Yeah you can be very proud of that. That is really good. Gosh, I couldn't draw by that. I'm enjoying seeing them. Thomas, so that's fine. Your dad's doing a good thing there. So Yeah, that's fantastic. That's really good. And again, do you do your join in school just with your teacher or do you have some extra time to do it, say, at home or with another teacher away from school as well? Not really. We just like a always have like the lesson after school, so maybe not any extra times. And if we finish the drawing task from teacher and then teacher will give us another task to make like the picture more good. I see. Yeah. Okay. Well, that but I said you've got a real challenge ent for that. And just say whatever you do, keep your art going, okay? Because it is really good. It's a talent to be developed there. So lovely to see it. Yeah and just talking a little bit about school again. Tell me what time do you finish school? What time do you get home in the evening? 一付学校変私现to一付学校家你持了能何時二学校二行一to。Three I am we finish school sometimes we finish at four A M. Probably you mean 4:00p.m.. Is that in the afternoon? In the afternoon? Yeah. Okay, that's good because that worried me for a bit that you were at school until the early hours of the morning. But okay, so you get home about 4:00 and then do you have homework? Yeah, I have Chinese homework like the English homework, right? Okay. And how long does that take? About half an hour or a bit more than that? Every time maybe I will take at Monday's homework, or maybe 13 minutes, we can finish. I dutuesday to Friday's homework. I need to take a 45 minutes to finish, right? Okay. So it varies a little bit from time to time. And the different ones that you said, that's good. So you're a busy guy. And then at the weekends, you go and do a bit of sport, you do a bit of tennis and that sort of thing. If you were at home now with your friends, you got a couple of friends around. What sort of things would you do there? What other interests and games do you have that you play? Games. What is your hobby, hobnot? Many, what do you do at your free time? So can you just repeat that for a minute? He says we are very busy, right? So you got Yeah don't have much free time at all Yeah Yeah by the time you've done your tennis and your art and your homework and senior your friends and that sort of thing, I can imagine there's not much time for anything else and that's very or spyou right? And the Chinese mathematics Yeah Yeah all your time is got Yeah okay, brilliant. Brilliant. And tell me a little bit now about your English because your your English is is is very good, doesn't it? You enjoy doing your English, you enjoy speaking in English, you're quite fluent and that sort of thing. So if you having lessons at school at the moment, what sort of things have you been studying recently in your English lessons? What sort of things have you been doing in your English lessons? We are reading a book and then make a summary of the character and character traits, something like that. And are you enjoying those books? Yeah, okay, yes. Yeah some of them are good and some possibly not so good. If you were to you know say you're going on holiday and something like that, and mum or dad say, right, let's go and buy a book to read when you're on holiday, you're going to be sitting down, perhaps by the beach or something like that, or round a swimming pool, you can do a bit of reading. Would you buy one that was written in Japanese or Chinese or Spanish or English? We don't have a Spanish book because I just can Elizabeth Spanish, so I cannot really read the whole sentence of the Spanish, but I have Chinese books, japanor English and Japanese book. Okay, so what's the most recent English book you have been reading at home? Have you got one there? 何年打线。如。Last time I read this one. Okay, right. Okay. Yes, I've heard of that one. Yeah. And what else have you got there? English teacher? Like let me to read this book, but okay, lovely. So that's going to be coming up. So you've been reading some English books then and do you watch English television or English films? At airplane I will look at at China don't it don't have like the Chinese English television wasn't no it's difficult to just see it Yeah或就英画英画的英画後化今割部英画和英语出生合分事年出么出来分出知il嗯事来出么予O中情部出持入来人人are何言英语能方。Okay, okay, he lito watch tv with japanis. Okay, that's good. Yep. But I say it can always be good to, if you can get hold of anything in English, whether it's is books or magazines or papers or just articles on the computer and that sort of thing, just to give yourself as many different kinds of English as you can. There's written English and spoken English and that sort of thing. And it all helps just to give another little layer to it all. So that's something that you might consider doing over the next couple of years as I know you're thinking about coming over to England or the uk to have some of your later years of education. Is that right? Yes, we're thinking about coming over perhaps when you're 13 or so. And have you been to England yourself yet? Have you ever been to the uk? No, okay. So all that excitement is still to come of seeing England. And itbe nice to welcome you when you do come, but it might be a good idea to come sometime over the next couple of years to have a look at the kind of schools that we have. I mean, you're in an international school at the moment and therebe lots of similarities, therebe lots of things that are the same in a school in England to the kind of school that you're in at the moment, I'm sure, and lots of sport and that sort of thing. Do you know of any schools? Have you heard of any schools that you might want to go to and that sort of thing? Or have you is that something that you're going to leave at the moment and think about a bit later on? Not at the moment, I think. I think that's a very sensible idea actually, is not to just choose one school and say that, Oh, I've got to go to that school. But do you know what type of school you would be looking to go to? Would you like to go to a school like you've got at the moment that has boys and girls? Or do you want to go to one which concentrates just on boys? Which would you prefer, do you think? Any any good, okay, well that's gives you a bigger choice than doesn't it? Okay, so我慢上给话多，後半样N等去定点。Okay. So Yeah, I think that's where we are at the moment. It's good to have met you. And I don't know whether mum or dad want to add any more to the thoughts about school and that sort of thing, just so that we have got anything that you might be thinking about in mind as we go over the next couple of years and so on. Therebe things that will want to do little preparations and so on because getting into each different school is marginally different. There are you know there's lots of crossover obviously between what one school does and what another school does, but there's marginal differences as well. And it's good to know in advance a little bit about some of those things. Is there anything you want to add, dad or mormuthere? Hi, our call our call the school is pfirst. First of all is. Okay, right. And can I just ask why you like that one? What has led you to making that to your first choice community is a very famous high school. Really? I can't speak the English. I can speak English, Yeah, but I can understand you, and your English is going to be better than my Japanese. Okay. So Yeah and it is it would be good environment. Yes, it takes a little bit of time to get to Tonbridge from London. I suppose it depends which airports you land at, but whilst it's only a small distance in terms of miles, then it can take a little bit of time to get to. The great thing is to be honest, that there are lots and lots of very good schools. Tombridge is a great school, there's no doubt about it, and it is one possibly because they have built tombridge in Thailand and tombridge in China as well. I think then people have got to know its brand, as it were. But I would also say there are lots of other equally good schools and so on, and it's nice to have a big choice. Tommbridge isn't that big in some ways, so there's only a smaller number of students there, and therefore, it can be quite interesting trying to get into it. The market is quite good at the moment in terms of the number of applications per place has gone down a little bit in recent years, so that's quite good. But as I say, there been lots of equally good, equally famous and equally successful schools that we can also have a look at and so on. Okay. So if you do have you, whether it's just a week or something like that and you can come over either yourself or as a family to the we would love to show you some of these. Yeah. Okay, Yeah. But that would be a really great thing to do if we can get together at some stage and just have a look at some of these schools and make sure we get the right one for Thomas when he actually gets here. So that would be great. Cool. I want to give with him on motivation. Yeah, he sounds well motivated himself. You know it's great that he's learning these languages, but I would say that you know he's clearly got Japanese with you. Some of his lessons are in Chinese, but in the end, the key part of his education between the ages of say, 13 and 18 at the moment, you are planning for those to be in English. And therefore it would be really sensible to make English his priority in terms of you getting us a different range of sources to feed him that English, whether it's audio books, you can just plug them in and listen to somebody speaking English or say, I don't know what access the computer gives him to. Again, different styles. You know, it might be a cartoon one day, but it might be poetry another day. It might be you know, quite old fashioned English another day might be new English, modern English, Harry Potter, these sort of things that the children love so much, but a different type of English as much as you can. And to speak it, that's the key thing really, is to speak it as frequently as he can. So he is well on the way to doing all of these things now, which is great. But again, we will want to get them as strong as we can, you know as early as we can. So that's that's all great. So it's been really nice to meet both you and obviously Thomas as well. And Yeah and Thomas said, it sounds like you might well be able to get to the uk at some stage before you start your school and perhaps we can get together and go and have a look at one or two of the schools that you might be able to go and see and then you've got a good idea of them. I think it's always good to have an idea of what something is going to be like before you arrive there and so on. I'll tell you one other thing that I would love for you to do as much as you can is in lessons. I don't know how much you do of it, but is to ask the question, you know because asking questions is the biggest way of expanding your knowledge if you know that much about something and then you ask a question about that, then you can know that much and then ask another question and you'll know that much. Okay, so asking a good question, think about what question you're going to ask and ask a question that expands your knowledge because the older you get in a school in the uk, then the more questions you'll be wanting to ask. And as I say, I always think it's the very best way of knowing more and more about something. So think about a question and then start to develop that idea of asking questions in a lesson that's really good. I'm Yeah, that's fine. That's fine. Yeah. But that is why it's a really good idea to start practicing when you're you're that a little bit younger because if you don't get out of that shus to ask a question, you know it can get sort of all too late to develop it. So develop it now. You don't need to do it all day, every day, but just a couple of day. Really good questions. What are you going to ask? See if we can do that. Okay. I don't know if anyone, either you or dad, has got any questions of me now that I'm here. Before we say cheerio for now, is there anything I can top you with? Not at the moment, perhaps. Yeah, that's all fine. I don't know if data has got anything, but you know it doesn't need to be now. But if you know in the next couple of weeks or in the next few months or whatever it is, you think, Oh, I'd like to know about this and that or whatever it is, then do just get hold of me and we can have a little chat or I can answer emails or questions or whatever it is so that there's there's always an answer available to you. Yeah. So don't sit at home and not know something. I can't always guarantee my answers are going to be perfect, but we can have a go and see where we get. Have a chat. Good. Well, Thomas, it's been fantastic to meet you and dthank you very much for your time. It's the evening to you, isn't it? The morning to us, but have a lovely well evening for you. And then back to school tomorrow morning. Okay, evening. Yes. Exactly. Exactly. Okay. Thank you very much. It's been lovious to see you. Thank thank you. Bye bye.