Prof. King's sample question - yes, answer this one too!

I went to 2 different high schools, one in NY and one in CA. In the NY high school, we spoke a lot of Spanish in the class. We were expected to be able to understand. It was easy for me (languages have always been easy for me) but I remember for a lot of people it was really stressful. In Spanish 1, we used English in the class a lot, but there was one day a week that was a Spanish-only day; if we spoke any English, we had to pay 5 cents per word into a jar. By Spanish 2, we were not allowed to use English in the class at all. It really forced us to listen attentively and understand what was being said - we had no choice! But when I moved to California, and took Spanish 4 and 5, in both classes, it was more about doing homework assignments and using our Spanish on paper (so, I guess, more production, less comprehension, although it wasn't even ORAL production, so what's the point, right?), and it wasn't reinforced in class with any real practice. The teachers spoke either very little Spanish or very poor Spanish, and I actually felt like my Spanish was WORSE when I graduated in CA than it was after 10th grade in NY. I think if nothing else, students need excellent models of communicative behavior in the target language. Teachers should model the language, and encourage students to understand. Resorting to just worksheets and stuff is just lazy teaching.

I also took 1 year of Spanish in high school it was a difficult experience for me because I was finally getting the grasp of learning English and now here I was in Spanish class trying to learn a third language when I couldn't master yet the second language. I remember that the teacher in the beginning of the year would first say something in English but then would teach us how to say it in Spanish. However that only lasted the first month after that it became intense the teacher became very focused on production before I was even able to comprehend any of the languages yet. We would have to write a very proficient essay, we would have to do oral presentations by reading Spanish dialogues and we would get corrected after every other word we spoke. It was bad enough that I couldn't speak English proficiently now I was here trying to speak Spanish proficiently. I wish that my teacher would first focus on the comprehension part rather then heavily focusing on production because whatever I produced in my writings, speaking I had no knowledge or understanding of what I was writing or speaking it was a bunch of useless stuff that I just regurgitated and forgot but actually never learned it. Therefore I believe and support comprehension is more important in the beginning then production, through comprehension production will come.

I apologize for the above comment being registered as guest. Somehow I had typed it all and it had signed me out.

I took Spanish from seventh to twelfth grade in high school. During my junior and senior year, I took Spanish as a college level course at MVCC. I do not feel that my teacher was very effective at teaching a second language. I do not feel that I am able to converse with someone that speaks Spanish. My teacher focused on the production aspect rather than comprehension. We were taught grammar, tenses, vocabulary, reading, writing etc. I remember reading a story called Don Quixote and I had a difficult time understanding what I was reading. I remember constantly trying to translate words in the dictionary. We hardly ever have conversations in only Spanish. I feel that the purpose of learning a second language is to be able to communicate with others. Teachers need to use a more authentic approach, and focus more on the speaking aspect when learning a second language.