Comments on: Why Spanish Language Classes Suck http://learnspanishonyourown.com/blog/2009/05/26/why-spanish-language-classes-suck/ Spanish learning tips, lessons, product reviews, and more Tue, 29 Nov 2011 15:47:05 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.4 By: Amory Blaine http://learnspanishonyourown.com/blog/2009/05/26/why-spanish-language-classes-suck/comment-page-1/#comment-274 Amory Blaine Fri, 02 Jul 2010 11:23:15 +0000 http://learnspanishonyourown.com/blog/?p=281#comment-274 My own experiences want to contradict your account of language pedantry. I took four years of Spanish in high school, passed the AP test, took one quarter of Spanish III in college, which turned out to be much too easy for me to gain benefit from. My experience was different because I remember giving myself extra homework for the classes. In Spanish II I wrote out in my notebook dozens of pagefuls of verb paradigms every day (no joke) and reviewing old grammar for a few hours a day. On top of that I had Mexican friends who did not speak English, which forced me to sharpen my skills early on. The fluency that I have achieved so far was due to in part my own autodidactism but mostly the motivation and guidance set by my teachers. The motivation was if you didn't do your homework you get detention. I also disagree with your rounded makeup of what the focus should be in a classroom. Conversational skill is nice, but it's not all. Learning a language means knowing everything. That's why the AP Spanish tests the four areas of language proficiency: Reading, writing, speaking, and oral comprehension. While a classroom that focuses 90% on speaking will do much to brush up on your ability to recall words very quickly in the midst of conversation and connect them into meaningful, idiomatic constructions, your knowledge of grammar is the limiting factor. Having an understanding of grammar allows you to develop conversation on your own rather than relying on rote to parrot out fixed locutions that have been made callous in your mind. What I think is fairer is to have a balance between grammar and speaking instead of focusing almost entirely on one. That seems more indicative of a specific class intended to teach one area of the language instead of the language in general, though of them all, speaking skills seems the most effective done learned from a teacher. Last I won't say memorizing vocabulary is the hardest part of a language, but acquiring an effective database of words that you know by instinct is definitely a challenge. And vocabulary I consider the most primordial need in learning a language. Having a rifle is nice but without the ammunition to fire seriously stunts the utility. An old Greek workbook I read in the preface made the clear the importance of vocabulary. If you're at a restaurant and you wanted to order cheese but you don't know how to say it in your target language, knowing the grammar will do you little good. If you do know how to say it, but your grammar is in want, you will still be understood. But memorizing vocabulary is something more suitable for self-study rather than with the aid of a teacher so it is agreeable that it can be left to spare in the classroom curriculum. My own experiences want to contradict your account of language pedantry. I took four years of Spanish in high school, passed the AP test, took one quarter of Spanish III in college, which turned out to be much too easy for me to gain benefit from. My experience was different because I remember giving myself extra homework for the classes. In Spanish II I wrote out in my notebook dozens of pagefuls of verb paradigms every day (no joke) and reviewing old grammar for a few hours a day. On top of that I had Mexican friends who did not speak English, which forced me to sharpen my skills early on. The fluency that I have achieved so far was due to in part my own autodidactism but mostly the motivation and guidance set by my teachers. The motivation was if you didn’t do your homework you get detention.

I also disagree with your rounded makeup of what the focus should be in a classroom. Conversational skill is nice, but it’s not all. Learning a language means knowing everything. That’s why the AP Spanish tests the four areas of language proficiency: Reading, writing, speaking, and oral comprehension. While a classroom that focuses 90% on speaking will do much to brush up on your ability to recall words very quickly in the midst of conversation and connect them into meaningful, idiomatic constructions, your knowledge of grammar is the limiting factor. Having an understanding of grammar allows you to develop conversation on your own rather than relying on rote to parrot out fixed locutions that have been made callous in your mind. What I think is fairer is to have a balance between grammar and speaking instead of focusing almost entirely on one. That seems more indicative of a specific class intended to teach one area of the language instead of the language in general, though of them all, speaking skills seems the most effective done learned from a teacher.

Last I won’t say memorizing vocabulary is the hardest part of a language, but acquiring an effective database of words that you know by instinct is definitely a challenge. And vocabulary I consider the most primordial need in learning a language. Having a rifle is nice but without the ammunition to fire seriously stunts the utility. An old Greek workbook I read in the preface made the clear the importance of vocabulary. If you’re at a restaurant and you wanted to order cheese but you don’t know how to say it in your target language, knowing the grammar will do you little good. If you do know how to say it, but your grammar is in want, you will still be understood. But memorizing vocabulary is something more suitable for self-study rather than with the aid of a teacher so it is agreeable that it can be left to spare in the classroom curriculum.

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