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.

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