Blogger: James Ryan Irion

            Where do I begin, oh where should I begin?  Ándele.  Ándele.  Arriba!  Arriba!  Yes Arriba, the name of the textbook used in my Fall 2008 Spanish 1 class where my Spanish adventures began.  …Adventures?  More like emotional roller coaster rides filled with unhelpful textbooks, dizzying translations, and struggling grades that have made my journey a potholed experience, to say the least.  I would like to make a couple things absolutely clear before I begin.  First of all, I am not writing this to gain favor from any professors nor is it my intent to vilify anyone either.  Simply put, these are my truthful experiences.  Secondly, in my humble opinion the two professors I’ve had for Spanish were great teachers and always offered assistance when needed as well as fair extra credit.  The same praise cannot be said for the textbooks and online material, which is where I begin this ride.  So buckle up and hang on to your language dictionaries as I point out the sideshows from taking Spanish as a foreign language at Penn State Altoona.

            You might have felt dizziness and confusion from roller coasters before; well that is how I initially felt about Spanish 1.  The anticipated giddiness and disorientation was made worse by the fact that we were given a new and untested textbook named Arriba, which turned out to be rather unhelpful in learning basic Spanish.  As I found out later the textbook used before and since, named Puntos de Partida, wasn’t much better either and lead me to feel that I couldn’t rely on the books to make learning Spanish any easier for myself.  Sometimes both books didn’t always list the English translations by the pictures of vocabulary sections, at the ends of chapters, or in the very poor textbook dictionaries.  No wonder why they put a thick dictionary in the “bundle” package with the textbooks.  Another issue arose about how we learned vocabulary words.  The funny thing was as time went on, the professors would ask if we had any questions on words not specifically listed under the vocabulary sections – which was carefully read through and repeated out loud in class.  Yes there are many words of Spanish that a student needs to learn, same as any other language.  But if they were not listed in the vocabulary sections of the book we were asked if we had any questions, then seemingly were expected to know them the same as the vocabulary sections.  After a while, the number of words became so great that I just nodded my head in feigned understanding because I recognized it was futile to take in so many words as I struggled to learn the grammar.

            Both books also had matching online homework websites from which (I assumed) we were supposed to gain a better understanding of Spanish, besides having to complete the exercises for homework credits.  Arriba’s MySpanishLab, though there was a slight issue initially to get it to work right, was actually quite helpful in the plethora of exercises it offered.  However, Puntos de Partida’s MHCentro website had less than half the exercises and a third of them were to be done out loud – on our own.  This did absolutely nothing to help me learn because to complete those exercises all you had to do was click the radio button for “I have not/have completed this activity” and that was it.  What was even more confusing with the MHCentro website was how you had to purchase the “book key” online via credit card (no I don’t have one yet, believe it or not).  When you purchased the bundle with the Arriba textbook, it had everything you needed and the professor provided the code to link up to the class online.  With MHCentro, they charged an extra $35 for purchasing the book key online.  What is the point of charging students countless dollars for this or any book, which I think is absolutely ridiculous in itself, when the Puntos de Partida bundle did not include the $35 (online) book key?  And if all this isn’t enough to make your head spin or drop your dictionaries, the speed of all 3 classes doesn’t bode well for those who have a difficulty learning foreign languages.

            Now I recognized sometime during Spanish 2 that perhaps it was difficult for me to understand and learn Spanish because of my age or the fact that it just simply isn’t as easy for me as it is for others to learn it.  It has been suggested from certified language studies that young children who are taught foreign languages early in life are markedly better later on.  I bring that up just to accept some of the responsibility for learning Spanish so I’m not just sitting here blaming everyone else.  That’s part of becoming a mature and responsible adult.  But when you begin to fall behind and your quiz or test scores plummet, really the only things you can do are to talk to your professor about it, study and talk with fellow classmates, sign up for tutoring if it is available, or simply pray you make it through.  The fact that certain majors, like Bachelor’s of Arts History for example, require that your final class grade is a C or higher for it to count just adds more pressure to an already chaotic situation.  Add into those circumstances an extended absence of your professor, and what was an otherwise familiar understanding because of being comfortable with your professor then turns into a weak and uncertain comprehension of the course material without them.  And in my humble opinion, movies might be a good way to convey cultural material in basic Spanish.  But in intermediate Spanish, a struggling student only becomes more confused and his or her test grades could drop as a result of not having consistent lecturing and in-class exercises.  Also, someone who is struggling may be unable to complete assigned homework or study effectively and end up falling further behind the pace of the class.  “I just tried to do homework and had no clue what I was doing,” is what a friend of mine told me who is also taking Spanish.  More power to those individuals who naturally understand a foreign language or just seem to get it the first time round.

            So please feel free to chime in and tell me how it has been for you to take a foreign language here because like I said above, one of the ways to deal with a tough language course is to talk about it with your peers.  In my case, it hasn’t been difficult because of the two professors I’ve had.  It’s just been ruthless for many of the other reasons I’ve mentioned and probably a few I haven’t remembered to list.  I owe a lot to the assistance and guidance of my Spanish professors as well as fellow Spanish 1, 2, and 3 classmates whom have been there to keep me going, cheer me on, and to encourage me not to give up.  I may not be done with Spanish 3 yet, but rest assured, I will not give up regardless of my struggling grades.  I will see this experience to its conclusion this December or next May, giving all the effort I have to give.  Adiós cada uno.