Reading:
a piece that i chose that shows the level of my reading skills in japanese is a letter from page 290 of the text book. I can understand the almost the entire letter (there are two or three kanji that i have not yet leanred). I feel that this peice will help me when i got to Japan, becuase I will know how to write a letter in a standard japanese format.
another peice that i chose to demonstrate my reading skill was an experpt from the text on page 293. it was supposed to be a page from a guide book, and it is eaiser to understand becuase it has furigana above the kaji and lists the meaning of kanji that the reader may be unfamilier with. This reading talks about the tempreature and the weather conditions of the city that it describes. The skills that this reading demostrate will be usful for reading weather forcasts in japan.
Writing:
A piece that I chose that represents my Japanese writing skills is a letter that I wrote about a trip i took to disney land. This letter demostrates my use of the te-form, and my use of が as a conjunctive. It also shows that i know the format of a japanese letter. If I were to write this letter again I would write more and try to give more in-depth discriptions of what i did by decribing going places in order to do somthing.
Another piece that represents my competency in writing Japanese is a peice describing my family in japanese. This peice shows that I know the main family vocabulary, that I know the potential and the ています forms of verbs, and that I know how to use こと as a nominalizer. The skills shown in this peice will help me in decribing actions in japanese as well as describing my family to others when i am in japan.
listening:
In general with languages listening is easier than speaking, this is becuase speaking requires one to workout what is going to be said rather than just interpret what is being said. My case is no exception to this and i do find listening easier than speaking, i find that if i listen hard enough i can catch sentences the first time through and certainly get the gist of them.
a listening that acuratly shows my listening skills is a listening activity from our japanese workbook on page 300, activity A where カワムラさん tells 町田さんabout a new resturant. here some skills that are worked on are my understanding of こと as a nominalizer in speech. i find that when listening to this peice once i can get the gist of it, but in order to really understand it i need to go over it multiple times, stopping periodically to digest what i have heard.
another listening peice that demonstrates my listening skills is a clip from the workbook on page 301 activity D, where 林さん and チンさん talk about a present for 町田さん. This listening uses the forms と思う (to think), ほしい (to want), and すぎる (too much/little), as before i am expected to understand the first time through when listening to it. i find that with this activity it is not really that hard to do.
speaking:
As I mentioned before speaking is always harder than listening. becuase i am not yet at the point where i can think in japanese i must translate in my head what i want to say. it helps if throughout my day i think certain things in japanese instead of english becuase they then become more accessible. for example if i think 「あの人はどこ行きますか。」 rather than "where is that person going?" however when doing presentations if helps if instead of just trying to memorize the japanese words and try to remeber the meaning through the japanese, if i think of it in english first then try to translate it to japanese.
これは私の家族のはっぽうです。私の話すのぎじゅつはまあまあです。This is my family presentation, that is the presentation of my family description. As before it will be useful to me becuase i will know how to tell someone about my family. or at least that is the theory, i don't think that this vidoe shows my competence in the japanese language particualarly becuase i felt slightly on the spot when presenting this. Also, becuase i tried to memorize lines, and things to say, even if i had done a better job on it i think it would have been an inaccurate representation of my speaking skils. I am going to work on getting better at translating what i want to say on the spot.
家族のはっぽう
これは私の６番のプロジェクトのビデオです。私の話すのぎじゅつはちょっよくなります。 this is my chapter six project presentation. it was a skit about going to eat at a resturant. i think i did a better job on this presentation, while it was also a memorization i memorized not only what i was saying but what i mean, and that helped. i had more preperation time and so it was an easier to memorize, but in general i think memorization is only the first step, i hope by the end of the year that i will be able to do videos with no script.
６番のプロジェクト