Jap Oral interviews!!

[IntoTheNewWorld]

lol why what?

Well if they have a grudge against our school they could mark us harsher or whatever, I think that's why it's in a neutral venue and you never talk about your school or your name (just your VCAA number)

Nah I meant why do you have to come in uniform?

[dejan91]

What?? That's ridiculous! Teachers don't even go with you to the exams. It's entirely separate to your school and as such your teachers shouldn't tell you that you have to wear uniform. Lol do yourself a favour and don't wear the uniform.

there's plenty of stuff other than your school name like location, subjects, club activities, sports, etc

That's true, but I really can't find anything that interesting to talk about which will allow me to engage in an interesting conversation I just go to your everyday public school.

[IntoTheNewWorld]

^Perhaps focus on a single thing about your school that you find interesting and go to that in detail? I find it's sometimes better just to focus on a single thing, rather than saying a lot of general things, I dunno.

[GerrySly]

What?? That's ridiculous! Teachers don't even go with you to the exams. It's entirely separate to your school and as such your teachers shouldn't tell you that you have to wear uniform. Lol do yourself a favour and don't wear the uniform.

Our teacher is coming with us, mini bus down there (our class of 7 people are all together) so we have to go to school till 1:30 then our teacher busses us down there so we need uniform at school. I want to take the day off school but I got a Methods SAC on the day that I can't miss or I have to get a doctor's certificate...

[dav132]

For the discussion, did they let you talk for long or interrupt you constantly and ask you questions which went deeper into what you've studied? Also, were you asked to define any key words you used? Sorry for the questions haha

no, thank god, i hate defining key words, it makes me feel like explaining it in english.
omg i just remembered something i stuffed up.
my detailed study was kyuushoku(provided lunch)
and they asked me who makes the food,
and i said the people who make kyuushoku make kyuushoku.
lol coz i just realised i never prepared an answer to that,
i think they're just hired cooks/nutritionists or something....damn.
the examiners looked at me and were like he has no idea...haha

umm they didnt interrupt me from what i can remember,
because i just kind of had points to answer for similar questions, not really many detailed answers,
because u only get 7 minutes to talk about it anyway.
so if they looked like they were waiting for more info for a question,
then id just talk about another point related to that question,
but otherwise there was always places where they could ask me another question.
i dont think im making sense, maybe tis late for me?
sorry if im not much help guys who got their orals coming up.

[dav132]

What?? That's ridiculous! Teachers don't even go with you to the exams. It's entirely separate to your school and as such your teachers shouldn't tell you that you have to wear uniform. Lol do yourself a favour and don't wear the uniform.

Our teacher is coming with us, mini bus down there (our class of 7 people are all together) so we have to go to school till 1:30 then our teacher busses us down there so we need uniform at school. I want to take the day off school but I got a Methods SAC on the day that I can't miss or I have to get a doctor's certificate...

get changed an the venue!!
uniforms suck.
u wanna feel comfortable when ur being interviewed.

[moshi]

you've been plenty of help! i have 'chunks' memorised for the DS mostly, so i wouldn't be surprised if i get interrupted, although i wouldn't mind if i won't be! btw was there one examiner predominantly asking most of the questions, or were you having to constantly shift eye contact from one to another because both were shooting questions at you?

[IntoTheNewWorld]

btw, are oral exams marked out of 20? That's a bit crap if that's multiplied up to 100, loss of 1 mark = loss of 5 marks?

[dav132]

lol yeh i had to keep looking from one examiner to the other one because they were both asking questions.
i thought i heard mostly non-native examiners ask more questions, but mine were pretty cooperative.
but anyway when they write down stuff, you just look at the one who isn't writing, or maybe if they're both looking at you,
mostly look at the one who asked you the question. i dunno, its up to u.

[sonnypls]

ah k, kewl.

nah im definetly not pro at it.
but yeh the worst part is waiting to go in, it kills you.
cause u arrive half an hour early,
then you wait downstairs with the other 4 ppl who are doing it at the same time,
then waiting outside the room is the worst part, as you see each person going in.
i was the last coz my examiners were running a little late.
so i was waiting like another few minutes, which felt like ages.
my hearts beating hard just remembering it lol.

hah good old Ukrainian church.

[dav132]

hah good old Ukrainian church.

nah, mine was at a place in coburg.

[moshi]

did mine today; SO GLAD IT'S OVER!
I had both female non-native and native assessors, who were both really nice, although the native assessor asked questions at a much quicker pace which were noticably harder. The non-native assessor spoke really, really slowly, at a speed which was slow enough for a beginner to understand, which was nice. Bad thing was that they ignored SO many links in both kaiwa and DS, so there was a lot of shuffling of script that I had to do. Only one of the girls in my class that I talked to said that they followed almost every link that she had in DS, so that was lucky!

[IntoTheNewWorld]

よかったですね。

By "ignored SO many links" does that mean they just asked you random questions out of the blue? D:

[moshi]

my structure for DS was causes, problems, solutions, but..
e.g. in DS, I said "aging society has lots of causes", to which the examiner responded, "what are the problems associated with aging society?", so I had to skip one of the reasons which I had prepared, go to problems, go to solutions, then go BACK to causes, so structure turned out a bit strange. I also wanted to talk about Japan's labour force and declining birth rate, but wasn't asked unfortunately. But our teacher did say to expect that they'd ignore links a fair bit, so although it was unpleasant, wasn't entirely unexpected.
in kaiwa, i'd said "my sister is in a choir", and then was asked "in the future, what job would you like to have?" - i'm sure with kaiwa that you'll be able to answer all the questions, it's just that it's hard to anticipate the order. there was other stuff too, but i've kind of forgotten..
ugh, i realised that i misinterpreted the last question that i was asked, so not happy about that since it's probably not the best note to end on, lol. though i can't change anything now.
most of the examiners, like mine, seem to have been nice, although one of my friends said everytime she made a mistake, one of her examiners whom she said was rather unfriendly immediately seemed to "pounce" and frantically jot the error down which really unnerved her.. although this might just be her being paranoid, LOL.

[Saraime2003]

wow mine is in 3 days, and to make it worse, i've gotten sick. GREAT! i've got my DS organised but no where near organised for general convo, i suck severely. like to the question, how many people are there in your family? i just answer in my family there are 6 people. Dad, Mum, Older sister, Younger brother, Younger sister and myself. Then like do you have any pets? yes i have pets, a cat and a dog. (i actually have 2 dogs but can never remember where i add in the number of them). haha.