Why on earth do you still need to attend language courses once you have been in the country for more than a year?
Well, I had to.
Even though I had just came back from Spain, having been there for the third time for a total of over nine months, I had to go back to the classroom. I moved to a new town, but with the goal in mind of taking the final exams in my old town.
There were 3 courses of language studies left. And there were three translation courses which prepared you specifically for the exams. I had to go to the fifth course for language learning (5 out of 7) and had no problem at all to follow, to manage well and to get the best grades without doing anything. That was nice.
Why on earth do you still need to do this?
The translation courses were quite different and seemed to be boring. I asked several fellow students how to handle these in my case, and they recommended to talk to a teacher and to do two courses at the same time. And I did: I only showed up to Translation 1 on the first day, for the first test, for the review of the first test, for the last test and for the review of that test. I attended Translation 2 like a normal class.
Looking back, there are two things that stick out:
- Language classes really can be barrier more than a help if the level is too low and you are not allowed to skip them. As a teacher you should be careful not to bore and annoy students. As a student, you should look for ways you can handle the official rules without losing motivation.
- My language skills were so good that I flew over everything. That was really nice. A less comfortable indication of that was this: at the end of the semester a fellow student asked me to write his translation exam for him, as he was afraid of failing. So, I needed a good excuse not to be forced to cheat. Fortunately, the teacher who gave the exam knew me by name and would have recognized me. That way I got out of it. Nevertheless, it was really nice proof that my environment acknowledged my skills.
So how could I keep this level? See the next article.
