I was supposed to write my PE reflection statement by midnight last Friday, but I forgot to do it! I planned to write it between my oral exam in the morning and leaving for fall break at noon, but I underestimated the time I'd need to pack, and I couldn't write it before leaving. I went on a backpacking trip to Mexico so I didn't bring my computer, and I didn't have access to Internet... Well, I did once in a hostel, but I had completely forgotten about it. ほんとにすみません！
Anyway, more on my trip to Mexico later, let me write this reflection statement now.
Bilan du Premier Cycle
During this cycle, I did go to the Japanese Language table at least once a week, and I watched anime most weeks (not two episodes every week, but something equivalent to that in average, since I sometimes went to anime club and watched three or four episodes in a row). All in all, I did a lot of listening, and I think my listening improved.
Speaking-wise, I got a little practice, but not as much (sometimes I could only go to the Monday table in Forbes, and my level was not high enough to actively participate in the conversation). I didn't do as much shadowing as I planned to, but when watching anime with my roommate, I would sometimes repeat random (short) sentences, and ask her to tell me if they sounded wrong. I think I tried to avoid shadowing properly because it is very time-consuming – I'd have to listen to something several times, and record myself to make sure I'm saying it right... – and I hate listening to my own voice! (>_<) However, I think my speed increased for simple sentences, and I am less likely to use wrong intonation for words and phrases that I am familiar with.
Oral Exam
Unfortunately, I don't remember my exam that clearly, but I'll comment on what I remember. I think リウ-さん and I practiced enough to be comfortable with each other. We didn't write a script for the oral, which meant that during the second section, we would sometimes have small pauses in the conversation while we were looking for something to ask about, but it also meant that we practiced not only pronunciation, but also grammar and vocabulary every time we practiced together, so that was good. Thanks to that, the spontaneous conversation with Suzuki-san went quite well (except that sometimes we couldn't figure out who should answer Suzuki-san's questions...)
The main problem I had was hesitating during the third section, especially while trying to conjugate adjectives, and sometimes when trying to find the vocabulary. I think that might have affected my intonation. (To be honest, I did not pay too much attention to intonation during the exam, because I was so focused on forming proper sentences and saying the right words.)
Signing off now, because I have a lot of other work to catch up on... Sorry for the wall of text, and I hope you all had a great fall break (or a great week, either way)! Look forward to more posts with pictures of Mexico!
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