I’d like to start off by saying that I enjoyed this course; however, it came with a pretty intensive workload. There were assignments to be worked on and done nearly everyday, alongside studying and preparing. I have been battling some mental health struggles as the semester has carried on, and I’ve felt myself fall behind and lack some work ethic on a few assignments in this class. I was very unsure of how to overcome this lethargic energy and engage in class discussion more, but I continue to feel very discouraged. Marken Sensei helps me participate in the class a lot more, and I get a lot of practice using Aizuchi. I also tend to ask questions as an attempt to learn more about grammar or vocabulary usage. This class has helped me learn a very important lesson: You can’t procrastinate. I have also learned that I need to make use of my planner, for I apparently tend to forget a lot of due dates.

My biggest regret during the course was delaying scheduling my second TalkAbroad appointment so that it could not be completed. I really enjoyed my first conversation, so I feel like I really made myself miss out on a good experience, and I perhaps could’ve learned more about Japanese culture, something I am incredibly interested in. As a result from this mishap, I am making a personal effort to engage in conversation with native Japanese speakers at Japanese grocery stores and markets in my area, which I have missed doing as well.

A lot of the learning that happened was very general and can be applied to any of my other courses, which makes me happy that I am being exposed to different life skills, but I wish to elaborate on language specific milestones I have made. I am proud of my conversations with the foreign exchange students. I felt like my confidence in speaking built every time that I was instructed to talk about a chosen topic with Moeri, Fuka, or Mana. I have fond memories of conversing with them, and I picked up several vocabulary words during each of our conversations. I spent time preparing for each meet up as well, which ultimately contributed to my vocabulary expansion with words like: おみまい, きんえんくいき、きつえんじょ、and じどうはんばいき. The hardest part about the course was probably being responsible for studying outside of class. I was never too good at that, but I am proud of what I did accomplish. There is much room for improvement on my study habits, but I have definitely increased my general vocabulary and usage of varying sentence structures.

The Tadoku reading reports were also extremely helpful. I saw my proficiency increase as I was easily reading level 3 Tadoku books. I learned a lot of vocabulary which I listed on the reports, and have thus memorized. The reading was not as challenging as the other assignments previously mentioned.