“So how’s the Japanese going?”

I hate being asked this as I am forced to admit how slowly I am progressing. But, it’s a new academic term and time for a fresh start. We began classes again this week after having a break for the summer. I am attempting to apply (for once) some of the tricks that I encourage my own students to try. For instance, I have reevaluated my needs. The original plan was to study for the Japanese proficiency exams, but that meant classes focused on studying things like kanji and particles. This is all well and good, but when I think about what my needs are, these are things that are well down on the list, so not a good use of class time. Basically I want to improve my speaking and listening comprehension. Studying grammar and vocabulary will help with this. We talked to Yoshihara-sensei, our teacher, about these goals and she prepared a brilliant class recycling what we know and building fluency. I came out of the class feeling really good about my Japanese abilities! I know I have a LONG way to go, but I feel I am getting somewhere.

I have also done some study outside of class! Last semester, we were usually assigned practice exercises for homework. We almost always did them half an hour before class started or on the subway. How lame is that? This week’s homework was simply to “practice” the little dialogues we had studied - and we have! I have also started up my Japanese blog again (I just need to get someone to check my writing before I post) and I found some podcasts in Japanese. Yesterday I listened to an interview with someone talking about craft-making (here). There was a transcript to go with it so I was able to read along and listen at the same time. I learned lots of new words and kanji this way – it was brilliant. It’s hard to find things like this. I wish I had access to the type of materials my students have. Japanese textbooks and websites are usually really dry and have very little listening practice. If you know of any good resources for learning Japanese - especially authentic listening - please, PLEASE let me know. Thanks!