The Daily Pennsylvanian :: Collin Beck | Surviving spanish class

Hola! Estoy contenta! Despite Penn deeming me "proficient" in Spanish, that's about as far as I get before I accidentally refer to myself as a girl.

After three years of taking Spanish in High School, Penn's online placement exam put me in Spanish 120 - one class above intro level. This was extremely disappointing because Spanish class is terrible. It's like learning how to talk all over again. I don't really remember what learning how to talk was like the first time, but I imagine it sucked.

Regardless, I took and passed 120, 130 and 140, at which point I achieved the remarkable milestone of "proficiency." What this proficiency really means is beyond me because as Wharton senior Paul Marx points out, "the requirement for Spanish doesn't even let you go abroad."

Out of curiosity, a few weeks after completing Spanish I decided to take the online placement test again. I used a fake name and e-mail for fear that failure meant they'd make me watch more Destinos. Maybe my subconscious pushed me to fail, but scouts honor, pinky swear, I tried my hardest, and I placed into Spanish 110 - intro level.

There were a number of contributing factors. First, it should be noted that I'm an idiot - especially when it comes to Spanish. Thanks to grade inflation, I received decent marks, but I never really felt like I was excelling.

There were students in every class who simply "got" Spanish and spoke with ease. Then there were those of us in the class who didn't get it. We'd look around the room, hoping to find others. We were easy to spot.

We all walked the fine line of trying to avoid being called on, yet not letting the teacher know we were daydreaming. By the way, the best strategy for this is to look at the professor's ear so it appears you're paying attention, but you're still not risking eye contact.

It's not that I didn't do the work in Spanish. I remember going to the book store and picking up my first outrageously priced Spanish packet. It contained a textbook, a workbook, and some CD's with people speaking Spanish about stuff I don't care about.

"Maria has to go the store for her mother, but she's forgotten what she's supposed to buy! Can you listen and circle the items Maria is supposed to purchase?" No, I can't. Maria should have made her own list and she didn't. Now she should just accept responsibility for her actions because I'm sick of bailing her out all the time. I have a Nintendo Wii that needs playing.

When I opened up my Spanish workbook, I noticed it was exactly the same thing I had in kindergarten, but in Spanish, which was fantastic. It had perforated edges so that I could tear out the pages.

I dreamed that I would get my first assignment back with a big star so that I could hang it on my dorm mini fridge. Instead I was stuck going through hundreds of pages of mundane assignments. It was hard, boring work, the benefits of which failed to show up on the placement test.

This leads me to another contributing factor of my score - the test itself. In order for the online test to assess the abilities of both novice and native speakers in less than twenty minutes, it's "computer adaptive."

According to co-director of the Spanish Language Program Toni Espósito, the test establishes a baseline for a student's level and then asks questions until the student plateaus. A few mistakes early on may mean you're doomed to take multiple semesters of Spanish.

In the end, there is hope for those who want to avoid spending ten minutes a day listening to how all their class "estas" (the vast majority of whom are always "muy bien.") Esposito points out that there are many ways to fulfill the language requirement at Penn, like the AP or SAT II tests.

And unlike the placement exam, which can be taken only once, there are plenty of test prep books available to help you for the SAT II Spanish exam.

When I asked Marx about this option, he replied, "I should have probably taken it; I just didn't do it."

Spanish is definitely a worthwhile pursuit for many and in the future it may even be a necessity. But for those of us out there who will never be able to roll their r's, studying for another SAT II test might just beat three semesters of memorizing vocab.

Collin Beck is a College senior from Minot, ND. His e-mail is beck@dailypennsylvanian.com. The Dakota Kid appears alternating Thursdays.

Comments (7)

I think the problem most people have with Spanish classes at Penn is that you are required to attend class every single day. Sometimes if you get a bad time slot you are stuck waking up in the middle of the afternoon on Friday while your roommates sleep in from their hangovers from the night before. The foreign language department has an absence policy where you're allowed only four absences (six if you're in cahoots with the professor). I took Spanish 140 three times; not because I failed but because I kept dropping the class in the beginning of the semester since I was too lazy to get myself out of bed at 9 am. By the time I took Spanish 140 it was the last semester of my senior year which was possibly the worst idea ever (worse than taking a CGS class on Thursday night). I agree with the posters above. There were so many more interesting classes that I could have taken in lieu of Espanol four times a week.

Wait, what? When I was at Penn we had to pass a very involved, multi-pronged fluency exam in our chosen language. I took 3 semesters of Spanish, and if I hadn't passed the exam it wouldn't have mattered what my grades were.

I agree. it was actually really funny and relatable

This is perhaps the first column in 4 years to be good, funny, and relevant. Do us all a favor: keep Collin Beck on and get rid of the rest of the columnists. and, btw, to the poster above: that's a funny joke, wow. Hey, by the way, what's the dominant language of business in the world? Right, that's what I thought. When you run shit, people want to speak your language. Nobody's dying to learn Polish so that they can contribute significantly to the global economy.

The arguments made above, especially those by Julian, are completely ridiculous. No one should have to learn a language besides English if they don't want to? "This is America." Nice argument over there. Newsflash: Knowing at least two languages is a desirable characteristic of an educated person in today's World. Therefore, it is completely logical for this to be a requirement at the best American universities. Furthermore, you're not even required to learn SPANISH. You can learn ANY LANGUAGE YOU WANT, so relating this to me illegal immigrant issue doesn't make a lot of sense. Now, I have never taken a Spanish class at Penn, so I have no idea if they actually suck. Assuming they do suck, then the issue here is figuring out why the classes suck and why people are not actually learning the language, not eliminating the language requirement altogether. I'll leave you with the following joke: How do you call someone who speaks three languages? Trilingual. How about two languages? Bilingual. How about one language? An American. Thank your University for trying to change this.

While I see no problem in the University offering language classes, the language requirement should be dropped. As the poster mentioned above, the requirement wastes the time and resources of students. Furthermore, this is America - we speak English, not Spanish, German, or Hindi. No one should have to learn a language besides English if they don't want to. Unfortunately, there are many people in this country who want to change that - Spanish is slowly creeping into everyday life here. Illegal immigrants are entering this country at record rates from our southern border. What will happen when Spanish becomes an everyday language in the United States? Our history and our tradition will fade away due to uncontrolled immigration. While the University cannot do anything about immigration, it can encourage the continued use of English by not imposing a language requirement on its students. This requirement is emblematic of the PC multiculturalism that has infected American academia. Like so many initiatives put forth by leftist academics, it hurts the interests of this country. Julian Philadelphia

This was a good column. I feel the same way. I had to take 4 semesters of Spanish, starting in my Junior year. It was literally the worst hour of my day, every day, for 2 years. My Penn experience has been all the more miserable because of it. Not to mention the fact that it was a waste of $17,000 worth of tuition. (4 credits of spanish = 1 whole semester of classes at Penn = $17,000 tuition a semester). There were plenty of other classes I would have taken other than the complete waste of Spanish I was required to take. For a while I actually wanted to learn Spanish, but it quickly became apparent that Penn Spanish classes were a complete joke, and I stood no chance of becoming even moderately close to fluent. After 4 semesters, I think I know a smattering of words. The language requirement Penn is just one of the many many things that are wrong with this school. One minor problem with your column is that you attribute your passing grades in Spanish to grade inflation. At least in all of my classes, and I'm pretty sure its a department standard, there is no curve in Spanish classes. You earn what you get. 90-100: A, 80-90: B, and so forth or something like that. Its actually part of the reason I did poorly. No grade inflation there.

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