Tattle-Taylor | Getting lost in translation

There is a nauseatingly consistent routine that every Spanish class I’ve ever taken at Penn follows. The students file in and find seats. The teacher takes his or her usual place at the front of the room and issues a command that is always prefaced by the same dismally invariable phrase, “Con tu compañero…” That directly translates to “with your partner.” It indirectly translates to “without your teacher.”

Much of the work done in class is conducted in this fashion, with the students working amongst themselves and the teacher floating about without much to do. Although Penn prides itself on a 6:1 student-teacher ratio, those numbers are pretty meaningless without more actual teaching in language classes.

In most of the language classes I’ve taken at Penn, the format is pretty standard. You review the homework with the person sitting nearest you. The teacher leads the class in a review of the answers. Then you do a workbook activity with the same person sitting near you. The class is led through another riveting review. And then you do another activity. You get the picture.

Eventually the 50 minutes end and you are released, only to return the next day with more homework to review. And the cycle of listless non-learning continues. Our language teachers are probably exceptionally competent and able instructors who’ve been selected because they are very gifted in the field of language instruction. But we’ll never know because, as per Penn’s idea of how to teach language, our teachers have been reduced to mere moderators — babysitters, even.

College sophomore Alison Miller agreed that her Spanish class places an emphasis on conversation over traditional teaching and that she sometimes wishes there were more teacher-student interaction. “It’s so dependent on interacting with other students, and I don’t know if I’m speaking correctly,” she said.

Penn’s language departments feel that this conversation-based teaching style is the best way for students to learn a new language. “It’s a communicative program,” said Toni Esposito, co-director of the Spanish Language Program. “[It’s] the state of the art in language learning these days.”

Some students, like College sophomore Jeffrey Liguo, said that this teaching method encourages better learning. “Everyone has different problems,” he said, “and when you’re talking out loud, the teacher can’t answer everyone.”

However, for students who may learn differently, like myself, this teaching style may foster a sense of isolation from the instruction and a feeling of having to teach yourself the material.

Working with other students is helpful at times. They can provide a sounding board for things like reviewing grammar and provide an outlet to explore certain issues further than the constraints of the limited time we have with our instructor allows.

But this classmate communication should be a complement to the structured teaching done by our instructors. Our first interaction with new language material, like introduction to complicated grammar tenses or new vocabulary, should be done under the direction of an experienced language teacher, not with a classmate who is only as familiar with the material as you are.

Furthermore, this method of teaching could prove to be less stressful for the teacher as well. When a group of students is introduced to new material, they’re all very likely to have many of the same questions. Wouldn’t it be easier for the teacher to be able to answer these questions to the group as a whole, rather than having to move from small group to small group explaining the same issue again and again?

The language curriculum at Penn should be reworked to allow teachers more license to actually teach. Conversation is essential in language — there’s no denying that. But you can’t converse in a language until you learn it, and you can’t learn it without being taught.

Taylor Hawes is a College sophomore from Philadelphia. Her email address is hawes@theDP.com. Tattle-Taylor appears every other Tuesday.

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