::FLAILS::

[the_other_sandy]

I haven't been writing much about my adventures in Spanish class lately, but I've certainly been having them. Last Monday, we had a two hour test. Yes, two whole hours. The first hour was a standard fill-in-the-blank, true/false, multiple choice test, and the second hour was an essay on an assigned topic. I've spent the last week dreading getting the test back. There was a huge listening section where the instructor read a whole paragraph and we had to answer questions based on what she said. They were fill-in-the-blank questions, so there was no faking it. She lost me somewhere in the third sentence and I never caught up, so I was sure I'd blown the entire listening section, which took up the entire first page of the test and was worth a ton of points. I've been bracing myself all week for a truly horrendous score. Well, we got the tests back tonight. I lost two half points for rookie verb conjugation mistakes and that's it! I also got two out of three extra credit questions right, so I wound up scoring 41 out of 40 points. ::dies and is dead:: I think the only reason I made the two stupid verb conjugation mistakes is because I was still panicking over the listening section (it was the first part of the test).

We still haven't gotten the essays back. I think I was reasonably grammatically correct, but I don't know what she was looking for in terms of actual writing (organization of information, transitional elements, word flow, etc.), so I really have no idea how I did. I'll have to chalk this one up to a learning experience so that I know what she's looking for next time we have an essay test.

Comments

[libra-traveller.livejournal.com]

Yay! Good job. I'm wondering, since you're taking this class for your job, are you going to be expected sometime down the road to be fluent? b/c that's scary. I liked my french classes last couple semesters, but I'm already forgetting stuff and know that I was still no where close to being competent in listening and speaking.

[the-other-sandy.livejournal.com]

It would be nice to be fluent. I've always wanted to learn another language, but I so totally suck at it that I never thought I could. The library does have a lot of Spanish-speaking patrons, so the more staff who can speak the language, the better.

However, I'm a cataloger, so I don't work with the public. My goal (from my boss) is to be able to read Spanish well enough to determine the subject matter of a book so I can assign accurate subject headings and call numbers. Not having to be able to speak Spanish takes a lot of pressure off me. I've still never successfully rolled an 'R'.

[libra-traveller.livejournal.com]

That does seem a little better. I hope you continue to do well, and I actually like reading your posts about the class.

[the-other-sandy.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I was going to rant about my discovery in class last night that double negatives are grammatically correct in Spanish (it's hard to fight against all that English conditioning that says double negatives are wrong), but I was too tired. Maybe after the next class. 8-)

[libra-traveller.livejournal.com]

It's funny I learned more terms for grammar in my french class, but now I'm taking English grammar, and I'm really enjoying it. We've gotten through nouns, verbs, and pronouns, and next up are adjectives and adverbs. It's nice to finally know what a dangling participle is.