I am taking Japanese and wondering is there any certain methods that help people in my situation.

I'm not in Japanese till spring semester, but my boyfriend was last year. He was one of the top students in his class, and I think the way he learned was by using Japanese and practicing it outside of class.
Watching anime or other Japanese language media can help.
Practicing whenever you can (like annoying other people by translating everything into Japanese).
He also wrote down a lot of his homework in Katakana.

if your class doesn't supply you with workbooks, then buy one (won't cost more than 30 dollars) and do the exercises. that really helped me, and now i'm fluent.

of course, it is always best to practice the language outside of the classroom, so if you know any japanese people then practice with them. i lived in japan when i studied it, so it was a little easier for me to pick it up.