Kawanishi's class was my personal favorite class from this quarter. She is a great teacher, really nice and very willing to help you out if you are struggling with the material. Japan 4 as a whole to me felt like a class with particular emphasis on grammar and speaking. While you can expect to see some kanji and some listening exercises, you really want to focus on particles and grammar points introduced in class. The other focus was on new vocabulary, so make sure to memorize the words introduced throughout the quarter. When I took the class, 30% of the class grade came from the final (20% written, 10% oral), 34% from quizzes, and the rest from homework and participation.

Classroom environment is very casual. Since we're all just entering intermediate Japanese, she's okay with mistakes and was very forgiving in my experience, often helping you along during speaking practice in class. Also, despite what it says on the syllabus, I would arrive 10-15 minutes late to class all the time and I never got docked points for it even though in the syllabus she said she would. However, absences must be excused, and this is one of those classes you're expected to attend so don't skip lecture. When covering grammar and vocab in class, she would use lots of examples and videos.

Homework is by-the-book. Tobira II textbook and workbook, and nearly every assignment came from the workbook. Kanji and grammar is at the start of each chapter in the textbook, and Ch. 11-13 were covered in my experience. Homework is time-consuming and graded on correctness, but Kawanishi returns the homework to you with annotations showing where you messed up, and allows resubmission for full credit. All in all, great teacher who teaches you a lot. This isn't an easy A class, but as long as you pay attention during lecture and do the homework, you should be in the clear. Would take again.

She is a VERY good teacher. She is very kind and is understanding and knows that people have difficult with the language. When she goes over her grammar points she tends to use a lot of examples and she correlates stories into her explanations of the grammar points. Overall, she's a really great teacher and you will learn a lot from her. Even though I got an 'A' in her class I EARNED it, it was not given to me. If you expect to receive and A make sure you do her work, and if you don't understand make sure you go to her office hours.