Postby eido » Thu Apr 29, 2021 12:35 am
I live in the United States, and in my state, at the time I graduated high school (HS), if you passed a certain number of years of language courses during HS, you were exempted from the general education university language requirement should you have attended an in-state school.
However, I wasn't made aware of that requirement until my junior (3rd) year, and I'd already achieved the number of years with the right grades. Despite that, I decided to take 1 more year of my chosen language.
So, as you can see, I was intrinsically motivated and far from lazy, as much of what I know of Spanish comes from my teen years. I was in a depressive state, however, when I entered college, so I picked a major I didn't fit into at the time and just took the language credit.
Though, I would have gladly taken a placement test to determine an appropriate level and take a course right for me with enough rigor. I wasn't going to shy away from that, even knowing less than I do now. It's just as well that on my second try at college, when I was aiming to enter a Spanish program, I tested into the highest level offered before graduate-level courses.
And that's all from a mixture of self-study and hard work. My teachers weren't cruel or horrible at teaching. I remember really enjoying my HS classes. My teachers were engaged and ready to take on curriculum-based challenges. I really pushed myself as a student and it's the class in which I most excelled.
I know my experience is a lot different from what a lot of people in or out of the US have gone through when learning languages younger than 18. I just thought I should note that some teachers do work hard to deliver quality lessons and explanations, and there are indeed a variety of learners based on culture and need.
I do see though how it's annoying that people are given everything and still muff it up, when those given nothing can do a lot.
We can compare the students from my HS classes, who were constantly complaining about the difficulty of Spanish, and a Mexican woman I used to work with, who learned English primarily aurally as she had few means to do so otherwise. (I think I've mentioned her here before.)
I was in I believe, again, my junior year, when I met into an attractive freshman student. A soccer player. (No romantic attraction here, relax.) He said, "One more year and I'm done. One more year." It used to annoy me, because his attitude seemed to spread throughout the class and create chaos.
On the other hand, we have a middle-aged woman who works to support her children through college when she never went. She probably had some English classes in school but she never mentioned them to me. All she said was to improve her pronunciation and listening comprehension, she listened to English-language radio broadcasts while still in Mexico and when she immigrated. She now has good command of idioms and slang, and good diction and enunciation--all without losing contact with her native tongue.
Just think, what if the sportsman would have tried a bit harder? I bet he would've found so much to like in the world of fútbol!
But I understand, I really do... different people learn differently, and we all come from different places in life. We'll all get there someday.
5 x