VCE Stuff > VCE Japanese SL

Q/A and advice for 2012/Future VCE Japanese Students

<< < (6/67) > >>

Poplar:
I'm trying to decide on a detailed study topic. I know, it's late in the year to still be deciding.
My teacher chose a topic for the whole class, and so far she's shown us a clip from a TV show and some articles, and we haven't started writing the speech or anything yet. I'm finding it really uninspiring so far, and I can't think of anything interesting to talk about. Is it supposed to be a presentation of information or a discussion on an issue?

I had an idea that I was considering doing; I heard about it from a segment of a TV show I wanted when I was in Japan last summer. It's called 'Paris Syndrome', and it's a psychological disorder that tourists (in particular Japanese) sometimes encounter. It's similar to culture shock - they have this romantic, dream-like image of Paris in the media but when they finally get there it doesn't meet their expectations. It can cause delusions, hallucinations, feelings of persecution and apparently people call the Japanese Embassy about their problems pretty regularly.

I'm not sure how easy it would be to study though, especially with my teacher's reluctance to allow us to pursue a topic other than the one she set.

Also it could be much too topical, instead of something that you just talk about? I'd like to hear a second opinion.

jibba:
@Poplar (also love the Sawako DP ^^)

To sum up, I think that's a great idea!!
Definitely a very interesting topic and a quick google search leads to many results.

You seem to be a bit confused about how the detailed study component of the speaking exam is actually like. It's a bit of a hybrid between a presentation and a discussion isn't it...
Maybe a simple analogy could be that that it's a bit like a press conference, where you front up and present some information to an audience and based on that information you get asked questions. But in the detailed study, the information you present at the very start is in the one minute introduction, which is what the examiners will base their questions on. (I probably confused you more D:)

Back to your topic, I think it's quite unique and if you research thoroughly, you should score very highly!
I'd recommend trying to find as many Japanese news reports on パリ症候群 as you can, I found them very useful when preparing for my topic. Also you should be able to find statistics, which would also be helpful.
You could structure it like, Introduction, Definition/Explanation of topic, History/Factors leading to Syndrome, Negatives, (Benefits? not any are there), Your Opinion, Proposed Solutions to Problems, Future Issues
I tried moulding the generic structure of a detailed study to suit your topic, but as I don't know much about it, you would obviously categorise it differently based on your research.
Good Luck!

Poplar:
Oh, your explanation makes sense. My teacher hasn't talked much about the actual exam yet so I wasn't really sure.
Thanks for all the advice, I'm feeling a bit more confident about it now.

J0nnyb0i27:
Hey Jibba,
I am nearing the end of my exams, with Japanese being the last one on the 19th of November, which gives me just over a week to prepare for. However, because I have had 5 others preceding it, i've naturally neglected study of Japanese in general since the school break-up (October 22nd), and feel like my listening, vocab etc. is very rusty. As I feel really unprepared, what  would you suggest as the best way to prepare in this final week leading up the Japanese written exam? And I don't know whether writing in english or romaji is best for listening tasks- i've just written down in English for the whole year, but do you think I could get used to writing in romaji in a week of practice?

Thanks alot,
Jonny.

jibba:
I'd say spend time revising what you already know (like especially vocab and kanji) to make sure you can recall those things like how to write kanji, or the spelling of vocab instantaneously, without having to waste time searching it in the dictionary. As you have a week to study, you can still learn new vocab over that week but best to start learning those ASAP instead of leaving til like the night before. That way you can recall them better.
Vocab is quite important I think, and if you read last years examiners report it mentions students commonly making the mistake of ようやく instead of よやく. (I spent the last minute of my exam changing ようやく to  よやく for what it's worth lol) If you can get a wide range of vocab memorised (and learn it correctly), you will do much better in the exam. If you're using the Wakatta text book, try and learn as much of the vocab in it as you can. My aim was to learn all of them, but by the time of the exam I probably knew about 90-95%. Kanji I knew 100% of the VCE ones, and a few extra ones which I used in the Writing Section. 　

With Listening, I would recommend for the ANSWER in ENGLISH listening, to make notes in english but for the ANSWER in JAPANESE to make notes in Roomaji (as close to word for word as what you heard in the dialogue).
In the Answer in English section, the aim is to translate the word into English as accurately as possible. So if they say 料理（りょうり）を作ったことがない it would translate best to 'I haven't cooked before' NOT 'I can't cook' which would be 料理を作ることができない (Commonsense right? But some people still make the mistake)
In the Answer in Japanese section, they are testing how well you can hear the language of Japanese and understand the conversation. All you need to do is copy what they say and write it in the answer section in Japanese. (Although there might be exceptions where they do intend for you to change the way the phrase is worded) The aim of the Answer in Japanese section for listening is NOT to test your grammar, that is done in the Answer in Japanese section for the Reading Comprehension.
With noting in Roomaji, you can get used to doing that in a week of practice. I used to do the same thing, note in English then try translate it back to Japanese, but then I realised how inefficient that was when the purpose of that section is to copy the Japanese they say and write that as your answer

I hope I answered your question, feel free to ask about anything else ~
(I'll probably be active the night before the exam when all the questions may flood XD)

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page