Intermediate Intensive Language and Culture – Mme Melanie Bowman
When I first started going into languages in middle school, I was set on taking Spanish because I loved the Spanish teacher in my school. When I got my class schedule, I was crushed when they placed me into French because the Spanish classes were too full. I remember crying over it and fighting with my counselor for weeks to switch me into the Spanish classes.
She told me to wait for a month and see if there was any change in how I felt, and if I was still miserable, I would be able to change. She was very much right because I ended up loving French, even through high school, and was even able to go to Canada with my teacher in 8th grade as a school trip and be able to practice my French there at the different restaurants and museums.
I had gone from taking my last class in 10th grade to going back into it my freshman year of college, which was a struggle. I had an amazing professor who helped with the transition and went over vocabulary extensively to help us with any issues we had. She knew we all came from different skill levels and was willing to work with us on any troubles we would face coming back into the language.
This class was not the same for me.
I took a gap semester from French as well, which was a bad mistake on my part. I did a bit of review in order to be caught up when I entered the class, but I don’t think I would have ever been prepared to enter a class where I would have to teach myself a foreign language.
The class was hybrid, so on the days I was in person, I was still on Zoom to interact with the students who were on Zoom. In the classroom was just the same as me being in my room back in my dorm, so it lost a bit of motivation to be in the class. If we spoke and didn’t unmute ourselves, even if she did hear us, she would pretend she never did so we’d speak on Zoom.
We had to complete the online homework with the new vocab then go right into understanding everything immediately by the time we got into the class. If we didn’t know something, she would sit there and stare right at us through the camera. It was always a very awkward silence in the classroom when no one would talk.
My artifact is a bit of an autobiography I completed in French, talking about my current job, future job, and impact on school and community using different past and present verb tenses.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/19UBUKBofHbL6V_ybtxa5N0cv-BfE9OoPeRpUMYSKJso/edit?usp=sharing