Goal Statement for Cycle 2

My goal:

By looking at my Cycle 1 reflection and my oral midterm comments I know that I want to improve vastly on my pronunciation fluency. I also want to decrease the amount of long pauses in my speech. I want to work on not stopping to think so much about what I want to say that way conversations will seem much more natural. When we watched the video of the students doing their UStream project I was amazed at how their pitch and intonation matched that of native speakers. I want to gain something close to that when I preform my project.  

Activities:

Visiting office hours with Sato Sensei was extremely helpful, therefore I will make it a habit to sign up for office hours at a particular time each week and will treat this time as a mandatory practice time. I am also going to visit Japanese table every single week of this cycle because I know it helps me to deal with conversation. In my last cycle I found the CD hard to follow at times so instead I will say the dialogue out loud. Wolens san, my partner for the oral exam had certain phrases memorized very well due to the fact that he repeated them over and over again. Over the course of this cycle I want to submit at least 2 shadowing exercises and in addition to Sato Sensei’s office hours I want to meet with Shibata Sensei at least once and talk about pitch. Also to remind my self of my short-term goal I will keep a printout of the Princeton in Ishikawa in my Japanese folder along with one at my study desk to remind me that by working hard I can be given the chance to experience something I could only dream about. 

わたしの あきやすめ

わたしは　ここに　いました。わたしは　としょかんで　べんきょうしました。まい　ばん　ごごくじに　ねました。わたしは　えいがを　みました。うちに　かえりませんでした。わたしは　フレスノから　きました。フレスノ　 りつぱなまち　です。

Over fall break I stayed here in Princeton and was very surprised when it started snowing. It was the first time I had ever seen snow O_O. The break was very relaxing primarily because there was no class. Just being able to legitimately do nothing was such a stark contrast from the normal everyday life of a Princeton student. It seems like every single day people are always so busy with all the different classes and activities, it was nice to see a lot of people slow down and relax.

I didn't go back to my hometown of Fresno over fall break. Initially I was ok with the decision but as the week carried on I missed my family more and more. I am definitely going to see them over winter break since I will be traveling back for Christmas and New Year.

Coming back from fall break and seeing my midterm grade I really want to take my Japanese to the next level by figuring out different ways to study and visiting office hours frequently. Thus far I feel as though I have been giving the class everything I have but I keep falling just short of what I want to achieve. Therefore by pushing myself and studying even more I want to reach my goals.