I took an intro to Japanese course, too. My sensei had only been in America for 2 weeks before school started. We played tons of speaking games, watched anime, she even let a bunch of students cosplay. She's, by far, the best teacher I've ever had, and so sweet. It just got on everyone's nerves how she was always so happy in the morning and we were all like a bunch of zombies, haha.
Learning the alphabet was actually my favorite part as well. I hope we'll be able to use Japanese characters soon