Today we could get the results from our placement exams and find out which class room we would be in. Surprisingly this school has a really dynamic placement system where you can actually move backwards if you do poorly on the four placement tests that are held through out the year. On that note I managed to score a sweet 27/200 on the placement exam... and no that is not a typo. Apparently the questions on the last seven pages that fall in the advanced level were more heavily weighted. Seriously, I'm not making it up. Classes are decided based on the score and assigned by year (1-4) and grade (A-G). I managed to land 1F which is the second highest first year class.
That being said, I'm pretty sure it's bogus. I'm pretty sure 80% of the people taking the test scored in the exact same range as me give or take a few points. Since there are only about 20 seats in these micro classrooms there are bound to be overflow students at the same point on the learning curve. So as far as I can figure the only significant placement factor is the year. I'm not thrilled to fall in the first year category, but honestly it sounds about right. It's been two years since I studied Japanese at a college level so I've forgotten most of the advanced Japanese that I knew. The next placement exam is in June so I'm going to see if I can't move up to second year on my own. I'm sure the class isn't going to cover the material in only eight weeks but it's mostly review for me so it's possible if I can start a few good habits.
Motivational speeches aside, the class is going to be interesting for at least two months. There were four students from Hong Kong, a handful from Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, China, and yep only one American. (Hint: it's me.) The teacher today was 奥村さん (Okumura-san). She talked machine-gun fast the entire hour and a half or so we were there. I'm not kidding. I was starting to suspect she had some kind of external air feed because it didn't seem like she was stopping to breath. Mrs. Okumura even decided to give her own test for some reason. It was entirely unfair because all the guys had to go get x-rays done and she took the tests up before we could finish. Not that time would have helped me out, I can't understand a lot of the directions yet since the entire test is in Japanese. A lot of the questions were in really strange formats so I wasn't sure how to answer or what exactly the questions were in the middle.
The weather has been crazy lately too. Last week I needed a heavy winter coat even if I was sitting inside. The last few days I've been wearing shorts and trying not to break a sweat just typing. I even had to unpack my fan to keep cool. I hope the AC repair guys get the cool and hot air fixed when they put in the new units. I won't make it through a Kansai summer without working AC.
That being said, I'm pretty sure it's bogus. I'm pretty sure 80% of the people taking the test scored in the exact same range as me give or take a few points. Since there are only about 20 seats in these micro classrooms there are bound to be overflow students at the same point on the learning curve. So as far as I can figure the only significant placement factor is the year. I'm not thrilled to fall in the first year category, but honestly it sounds about right. It's been two years since I studied Japanese at a college level so I've forgotten most of the advanced Japanese that I knew. The next placement exam is in June so I'm going to see if I can't move up to second year on my own. I'm sure the class isn't going to cover the material in only eight weeks but it's mostly review for me so it's possible if I can start a few good habits.
Motivational speeches aside, the class is going to be interesting for at least two months. There were four students from Hong Kong, a handful from Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, China, and yep only one American. (Hint: it's me.) The teacher today was 奥村さん (Okumura-san). She talked machine-gun fast the entire hour and a half or so we were there. I'm not kidding. I was starting to suspect she had some kind of external air feed because it didn't seem like she was stopping to breath. Mrs. Okumura even decided to give her own test for some reason. It was entirely unfair because all the guys had to go get x-rays done and she took the tests up before we could finish. Not that time would have helped me out, I can't understand a lot of the directions yet since the entire test is in Japanese. A lot of the questions were in really strange formats so I wasn't sure how to answer or what exactly the questions were in the middle.
The weather has been crazy lately too. Last week I needed a heavy winter coat even if I was sitting inside. The last few days I've been wearing shorts and trying not to break a sweat just typing. I even had to unpack my fan to keep cool. I hope the AC repair guys get the cool and hot air fixed when they put in the new units. I won't make it through a Kansai summer without working AC.
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