Goals for PE

The main barrier to sounding like a native speaker is intonation patterns (I suppose speed as well, but I figure that comes naturally, much like with English). Focusing on an even tone, rather than the tendency of English to emphasize the first syllable. Another challenge may be to establish quick transcription skills, as I usually need to write romaji on paper before I write in hiragana or katakana.

As for ways to do this, I think that the weekly homework does a good job in providing practice, but it's always nice to do something extra. I'd like to make my goals realistic, however, as I tend to overestimate time commitments, and unrealistic goals do not lead to keeping good habits. I will attempt to commit to at least:

-1 episode of anime per week, and a few minutes of shadowing for each episode

-1 session of office hours every 1.5 weeks (though weekly is what I'd like to do)

-10 minutes of vocabulary study during the weekend.

come up with at least 1 new word for each "Today's phrase" during class.

There are obvious ways to add to this (more anime episodes, more shadowing per episode, more sessions of office hours), but I think this should be sufficient for now. One more passive way to help my proficiency is to passively remember/say the Japanese phrase for something when it comes up. An example would be to say the time in Japanese when you want to know what the time is. Another thing to incorporate into this daily exercise is to recall the hiragana/katakana for every phrase you call to mind.