First Day Of Lessons

On Tuesday we had our first day of Japanese language lessons. I have two consecutive periods of Japanese every weekday (one period is 70 minutes long), starting at 10.10, and each one is devoted to something different, focussing on the four aspects of language learning - speaking, listening, reading, and writing.

I also have a Linguistics class that I have for a "super period" (which means it cuts half an hour into lunch, making the lesson an hour and 45 minutes long) on Mondays and Thursdays.

I was worried that I wouldn't be able to cope, as Intermediate students from Leeds are meant to go into Level 4, but my placement test result put me in Level 5. My listening and speaking are my weakest points (speaking more so), so I wondered if I'd be able to follow the teachers' speech.

It turned out that I understood between 80-90% of what was said, which I was very pleased about!

We got homework to look through and some preparation for the following days' lessons, and I did those in the library after the lesson, because I wanted to get them out of the way. Rob and I waited for Katy, who had lessons till 7pm!! (That's not even the latest they can be; the last period finishes at 8.20, which I think is ridiculous.) Rob and I went to a Kendo (剣道) martial arts club to see if we wanted to join, but it didn't interest us enough.

It was a good first day, and I felt more like I was integrating into the ICU life, which has got to be good!