Reflection for Pronunciation Exercises, Cycle 1

This cycle began on October 4, and it ends today (October 28). It's hard for me to believe that so much time has passed already.

シャドウィングは　むずかしいです. My original goal was to do 15 minutes of shadowing each day. I didn't accomplish this, nor did I come very close to doing so. My plan for the next cycle is to set out a weekly shadowing schedule so I have short-term goals that I can watch myself complete.

Although I didn't do shadowing every day, I did find a television show that I watched pretty frequently. The show was subtitled in English, and I paid as much attention as possible to the language while watching. I even picked up on a few phrases here and there (e.g. だいじょうぶ).

And I did do some shadowing. While I can't say that I accomplished all of the Goals I listed in my "Goals" post, I have noticed some improvement in my speech. I think that my ability to enunciate the Japanese syllables (properly and quickly) has improved. I also think that my feel for intonation has improved. I certainly don't get it right all of the time, but I'm more aware of when I'm doing it wrong.

There were a few things I noticed in the oral midterm (today) that I want to record.

On the plus side, I found that I had an easier time saying what I wanted to say in Japanese than I expected - I didn't pause before every word or stumble over pronunciation. This might be because I was mostly saying phrases and constructions that we've practiced frequently.

On the minus side, I did have a tough time having a conversation while speaking only in Japanese.
Before speaking, I had to make sure I could say what I wanted to say with the words I know. This led to some mmms and some uhhhs, although I tried to turn them into あのうs as best I could. I also noticed some of the same issues that I listed in my "Goals" post, but none of these seemed particularly troubling.

Overall, I'm a bit disappointed with my performance on the midterm. I struggled to be fluid with my conversation. There were times when I realized that I had run out of practiced lines, and I found it was pretty difficult to improvise without making a mistake. I suspect that doing more listening and taking extra time to review conversations will help me with this.
Luckily, all of this means I have plenty of room for improvement!