A Rant on the Way My Spanish Class is Being Taught.

Rant time!! Buckly down and listen to me step onto my soapbox! Shoot, the soapbox broke, so I guess I'll have to stand on an orange box instead. Today I'm going to rant about my Spanish class and why I don't think its methods are the best ones.

I am not new to the Romance language. I have taken French classes from 2000-2004 in middle school and high school. I got fairly good grades in it, and I think that is because of the book, "Bienvenue", as well as well as the addends that were put in the curriculum. The teachers kept the class fun by showing us videos, having French-language music, and having the class interact with each other in French and all sorts of things. The book was intelligently ordered, starting with your basic verbs ("avoir" "vouloir" etc.) so we could immediately start forming sentences. The book also went straight into Family, Food, Bodyparts, and Animals, all in the first few chapters of the book. Finally we were shown Latin word origins and were given the literal meanings of the words. Example: Je m'appelle Suu999. Literal Meaning: I me call Suu999. Contextual Meaning: My name is Suu999.

This is where my Spanish curriculum just sucks. The book is titled "Arriba! Communicacion y Cultura", look it up and make your own judgment; I think it is the worst language book ever made. I will explain now why this class and book is so accursed:

Starting with my class, I like my teacher. She is a native Spanish speaker who comes from Uruguay and has taught in Europe. However, I don't like the curriculum that's been put on her. This class is all boring boring lecture. We have no chances to talk to each other in Spanish, we just do it all_by_the_book. According to her, we don't have "enough time" because of the dumb curriculum, but there should be something or other to spruce up the class. We don't listen to Spanish radio or South American music stars, watch videos, or anything. All we do is sit there and listen to the instructor. We read passages out of the book, do junk on the Internets with the "Student Activities Manual" workbook thingy, and that is it. I have actually learned more Spanish by communicating and practicing with my Spanish-speaking customers at the buffet I work at, where I am a table busser. I think that is just sad, learning more from people in real life than in my own class.

Now for the *ranty rant-rant* on the book. "Bienvenue" from the 7th grade was better structured than "!Arriba!" from today in my college years, blarg. :( The book, unlike "Bienvenue", in the first chapter, teaches you some of the basic greetings without breaking them down so you have an idea of what you're saying. The first few times I said that to my Latino customers I really didn't know what I was saying.

The next *blarg* item in the book is the structure. It begins with college stuff in the first chapter. Like you'll actually use that info in a restaurant or if your car broke down in California and your only hope was Spanish speakers. The FIRST THREE chapters are COLLEGE. Sorry for the caps, but I don't know how to do italics in USM. It's not until Chapter Four that we get into Family. It hasn't been until Chapter Six that we've started reading about Food, but that chapter doesn't even talk about silverware or table manners! I don't think I've even seen the phrase 'por favor' used yet or defined by the book! I know what it means, but still, the book should have that for the super-beginners. My French book was soooo much better than that.

The final *blarg* is on word origins and the clunky definitions. Spanish is full of Latin words, and one can learn much faster if they study those. This book? No. None a those.

Those English meanings by comparison can take you out of the original sentence. I don't care what anyone else says about my methods of literal literal translation, but it's helping me learn faster than to try and translate a phrase into something it's not.

My rant is done. Please don't give me the argument about "oh, you're a college student" regarding the lecture-structure in the class. Kids and adults can learn a language the same way and lectures are boring either way. All I'll have to do is pull through this class and maybe I'll try and re-explain my method to the teacher to see if she'll understand. Read and comment/flame/whatever, your choice.

For all I know, maybe I have something on my hands for learning a language. If I can do something against school-book conformity, Cha-ching!