Crossing the language barrier illegally

Junior William Cavanaugh remembers Spanish class as a sophomore. He did the work, memorized vocabulary, learned the grammar and read about the culture. But after earning high grades in nearly four years worth of Spanish courses, Cavanaugh found himself unable to readily speak the language.

Many students have found that, through the use of online translators and friends fluent in the language they need to learn, being comfortable speaking foreign language is not necessary to earn a passing grade in a foreign language class. According to Cavanaugh and other struggling students – including junior Javier Vaca – as well as foreign language instructors Michael Honigsberg and Elba Castro, students' unwillingness to make their foreign language classes a priority dampens the success of these courses.

Going to Google

One of the stated missions of Blair's foreign language department is to teach students to communicate meaningfully in a foreign language. Cavanaugh believes that, in his case, the department failed to meet its goal. "If you can memorize vocabulary that's great, but it doesn't really matter," he says. "You can't learn the language just by memorizing vocab and learning about grammar."

Cavanaugh says he had no problem memorizing Spanish vocabulary or grammar rules. But he struggled when he was asked to write in Spanish, turning to his Spanish-speaking friends for help. When he needed to spontaneously speak in Spanish during oral examinations or during classroom discussions, Cavanaugh found that he was unable to do so adequately, if at all. "Those moments were always nerve-wracking," he says.

Fortunately for Cavanaugh, the moments when he was asked to write anything more than the most basic sentences in Spanish or speak in Spanish without preparation were rare. Cavanaugh says he sailed through the classes but he quit after his sophomore year, convinced that the class was useless.

Blocking the road to fluency?

Vaca, another native Spanish-speaker, believes that his Spanish-speaking skills have actually declined after five years of taking Spanish courses in middle and high school. "I haven't learned anything new, I actually think I've learned less."

Before taking Spanish classes, Vaca would speak in Spanish with his parents and attempt to teach himself the language. Vaca believes that the emphasis on grammar in the classroom has slowed his progress toward becoming fluent. "They seem to engineer it that way and teachers reinforce it," he says.

Cavanaugh and Vaca do not solely blame their teachers and the curriculum. Both believe that they could have taken their foreign language classes more seriously. "Teachers reinforce that," Vaca says, "They take their own classes very seriously and act like we don't have other classes."

A two-way street

French teacher Michael Honigsberg and Spanish teacher Elba Castro say that they understand many of the students' concerns. They say that it is far too easy for students to cheat using online translators and fluent friends, but they feel that they can do very little since they are unable to monitor what students do with their time.

On the other hand, both feel that students are often unaware of how much they are actually learning. They say that the vocabulary and grammatical exercises do help students learn the language and they encourage students to participate in class discussions that give students the opportunity to practice using the skills they learn through lectures. "If a student doesn' know how to structure sentences and use grammar correctly, they'll never fully grasp the language," Castro says.

Honigsberg believes that both the teachers and students have responsibilities to one another and that students must be willing to put effort into learning the language they have chosen to study. "People underestimate how much work is required to learn a language," he says. "As teachers our jobs are to give students the foundations they need to expand their knowledge of the language on their own."