Subect Code/Name: ATS2143 - Japanese Intermediate 1 (previously known as Japanese 3)
Workload: 1 x 2hr seminar, 1 x 1hr lecture, 1 x 1hr tutorial (It is expected that you have a 75+ attendance for seminar and tutes, rolls are taken at all three)
Order: Lectures, Tutorials, Seminars
Lectures: I enjoyed them, lecturer was pretty good. Content: Cover some social/culture points, grammar and its appropriate usage, do practice sentences etc. You could survive without going to them because the textbook has everything you need, some of the sentences are from there but I think going to the lecture is easier than self learning it.
Tutorial: These are normally on the same day of the lecture, or the day after, so if you're not going to lectures, you need to cover the content before you go. The focus is on the grammar we learnt in the lectures, this is done through doing like 'speaking grammar exercises' (I made this phrase up, couldn't find the right way to describe it) from the textbook, so there's alot of pair work/role play/speaking. Oh the teacher picks on random people to answer in front of the class so yeah.
Seminars: Seminars are sort of like, a long tutorial with much more writing and reading practice. I find them harder than tutes. Also, it was a bad idea having my Japanese seminar and then a chemistry lecture straight afterwards because for some reason they tell us to start writing when there’s only 15 minutes of class left, yes you can stay behind and finish it but yeah, had another class to go to and it's embarrassing walking into lectures late xD. Also Kanji tests are held in the middle of the seminar which can be fairly annoying for some.
Assessment: Mid-semester test (15%), Writing Task (15%), Listening Test (10%), Oral Assessment (10%), Kanji quizzes(5%), Vocab quizzes (5%), Exam (40%)
Kanji Tests (5%)- 6 Tests, roughly once a fortnight
- Done in the second hour of the seminar (Can be timed, depends on your teacher, mine gave us 6 minutes)
- Tested on the writing, readings and the meanings of Kanji from the Kanji list from that chapter of the textbook. Warning: previous Kanji from previous chapters will be tested again. 16 Kanji in a Kanji list
- Layout: Short passage with a mixture of words underlined, these words are written in Kanji or Hiragana, write the opposite of them and then a section where you choose the correct meaning for words written in Kanji
Vocab Tests (5%)- 6 Tests, roughly once a fortnight
- Done online on blackboard. (Blackboard has been ditched now so I'm not sure how future tests for this subject will be done)
Edit: In ATS2144 (Japanese Intermediate 2), vocab tests are now done in tutorials this may be the case for this subject
- Tested on the vocab from that chapter of the textbook. Roughly 52 words
- 7 Minutes, Roughly 7 questions: 5 MCQ, 2 sections of pair the right words
Example MC Question: ビールやワインをのみすぎて、_____になりました。あたまがいたい・・・。
a. げんき
b. 日本人
c. ふつかよい
d. かぜ
(Hint: Answer is not b xD)
Exam (40%) - Particles
- Completing sentences with new grammar (Worth the most)
- Culture Questions (Worth the least)
- Reading Comprehension (Answer in English and/or Japanese)
- Writing (not an essay, but just a bunch of sentences with certain requirements)
- No listening tasks
- No dictionary/notes
Recorded Lectures: Yep with screen capture
Past exams available: Nope. Zero. They give you a revision sheet though. You don't really need it, just redo exercises from the workbook/make up your own sentences and you should be fine.
Textbook Recommendation: Genki II 2nd Edition Textbook and Workbook are prescribed. I brought mine. It's up to you really. I guess you could borrow the textbook from the library, you use it every lesson though and homework will also be assigned from the workbook which teachers do check (its not worth any marks though, I never did mine [I forgot okay!
], I just got a whole lot of red circles on it) They also recommend some dictionary, but you should have one already and that should suffice, you're rarely allowed use it for assessments anyway (infact only once, for the writing task)
Lecturer(s): Dr. Shani Tobias
Year & Semester of completion: 2012 Semester 1
Rating: 4/5
Your Mark/Grade: D
Comments: So this is the unit you do if you'd like to study Japanese at a Monash and you've already done Units 3/4 in VCE. To be quite honest, I found this more relaxed, maybe even easier than Units 3/4. Some of content you've definitely covered before, maybe not so much the Kanji, but grammar and vocab definitely. (Do these ring a bell: ~し, ~そうです, Relative Clauses, Potential form and much more!) However, there's also assumed knowledge, so yeah don't empty your brain after Units 3/4 . The frequency of the assessments (vocab/kanji tests or some sort of other assessment almost every week, or every other week if your lucky and vocab and kanji tests fall on the same week
) may be a bit difficult for some, I'm a fairly good crammer though (Flash cards are pretty amazing, however if you're lazy like me and can't be bothered making your own,
http://kanji.asianmideast.duke.edu/index.php is an awesome site) so it wasn't an issue but some people may find that there is ''so much to learn and so little time"
Oh and yes the teachers conduct class (tutorials & seminars) in mostly Japanese, not sure if that’s the way it's meant to be officially or what. I thought I wouldn't be able to survive when I heard this but it's fine, really. They don't speak super fast or use any crazy grammar patterns and they do use English/simpler words when they see that their students have the ' I have nfi what you said' look plastered all over their face xD. But lectures are held on both English and Japanese.
Overall I liked this subject, it was a fairly good mini refresher of Units 3/4, I sort of forgot everything so it wasn't too repetitive. However, if you did exceptionally well in units 3/4 (45+ I think, not sure if raw or scaled), this subject may be not challenging enough and I believe you are eligible to do a different subject.
So yeah, hopefully that was somewhat helpful and I didn't scare anyone off the subject