In the Vista Higher Learning textbook , Vistas, Introducción A La Lengua
Espanola, (third edition, publisher José A. Blanco, ©2008, page
IAE-9), a bold description of a language student’s unrealistic
expectations of learning a second language is described as follows: “many students believe that making mistakes when speaking the target language must be avoided because doing so will lead to permanent errors. Others are convinced that learning another language is like learning any other academic subject. In other words, they believe that success is guaranteed, provided they attend class regularly, learn the assigned vocabulary words and grammar rules, and study for exams. In fact, in a study of college-level beginning language learners in the United States, over one-third of the participants thought that they could become fluent if they studied the language for only one hour a day for two years or less. Mistaken and unrealistic beliefs such as these can cause frustration and ultimately demotivation, thereby significantly undermining students’ ability to achieve a successful language-learning experience.”
As a student of Spanish, have you ever thought what it might take for you to become a fluent Spanish speaker? May I pose another question? How many years does it take to become fluent in English? A five year-old Kindergartner has spent five years in a home where English is spoken all the time, and when they arrive at school for the first time, are rather fluent in English. Let’s say that in those five years they listened to, spoke, and practiced English for approximately 12 hours a day. So for those five years, they had approximately 21,900 hours of language instruction. That is to say, they were truly immersed in English.
A beginning student of Spanish should have a realistic expectation of just what it will take to become fluent in Spanish. Many American students are good Spanish students on paper, but when it comes to being able to converse, they are lacking because of the inability to speak the language to gain true comprehension.
Por consiguiente, yo les puedo decir que no es fácil aprender otro idioma, pero la meta final no es simplemente conjugar los verbos sino hablar el idioma. ¿Verdad? (Therefore, I can tell you that it is not easy to learn another language, but the final goal is not to simply conjugate verbs but to speak the language. Right?)
