Goal 10 – Intermediate I Spanish [SPAN 201]
Intermediate I Spanish is the second Spanish course I took at Longwood University, and taking it allowed me to meet my General Education Goal 10.
I took five years of Latin in high school. Longwood does not have Latin classes, so I had to start all over with a new language in college in order for me to meet my modern language goal. Because Latin and Spanish are ever so slightly similar, I chose Spanish. The department decided to place me into an accelerated Spanish class during my first semester since I did have an extensive Latin background and I also was an Honors (and therefore strong) student. I took Spanish 105, which still starts at the beginning, but it combines two Spanish courses (Spanish 101 and Spanish 102) into a single semester. I was told that if it was too difficult for me, I could drop back to the regular paced Spanish 101 class within the first five days of the semester with no problems. I did not realize I had signed up for an immersion class, and when the professor spoke nothing but Spanish and the students around me were understanding her while I was not, I decided by the third day of class that I wanted to drop back to 101. Due to conflicts with available seats, however, I was told that doing so would not be possible. Frustrated (and terrified that this five credit class would completely ruin my GPA), I began to vent to my roommate about the situation. Being the great supporter that she is, she assured me that if I worked hard, I would not only succeed but would also be so incredibly proud of myself by the time the end of the semester rolled around. She was right.
I spent the majority of my time working on Spanish during that first semester of college, but by the end of the class I had learned so much Spanish that I was able to perform better than most of my fellow classmates in the next level of Spanish the following semester (Spanish 201). Below I have included a mock-conversation prompt about global warming that my Spanish 201 professor gave me to practice for my final oral exam. I am absolutely astounded that in just eight months I went from knowing no Spanish at all to being able to read the entire document below. Even more impressive is that I can not only read the document below, I can also play a part and create the mock conversation with a partner in Spanish! This is yet another example of what self-determination can do!
