I was reasonably satisfied with my progress and adherence to my goals of shadowing and following along with the podcast 5 times per week. I was able to shadow (unofficially) about 3-4 times per week and I listened to the podcast at least 5 times per week. I don't necessarily know if it helped that much with my speaking and oral production, but I know that it DEFINITELY helped with my listening skills. I feel like I have progressed a lot in that respect. I think for next cycle I will try to focus more on shadowing and actually do it officially in order to get feedback. I think focusing on one thing might make it more tangible and do-able.
I was pleased with my oral exam performance. My partner and I spent many hours preparing and I think it paid off. I was unsure if I was supposed to address my professor as -sensee or -san because she was technically acting as someone else... but other than that it was great. I was very pleased that I was able to deviate effectively from the memorized script. I think my pronunciation and intonation were alright, but I definitely need to work on both of them. Coming from a background in French/Romance Languages I have spent a lot of time thinking about phonetic issues in French and Spanish and I am aware of the obstacles inherent in learning to speak a new language. While this is frustrating I also know that a lot of the issues can be resolved with hard work and guidance (which this course is providing). In terms of overall communication skills/fluency I think my partner and I did reasonably well in that we were comprehensible (I hope!!) but I of course feel that with practice I could do better. I think I made some mistake in terms of grammar at one point, but I don`t remember what it was. Overall I was pleased though, and I was very happy to have had the opportunity to prove to myself that I could speak Japanese (even if it was just a little bit).
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