At best, learning is hard work. However, many of today’s students fail to acknowledge this.  Moreover, they fail to acknowledge the connection between the impact of not doing their homework on their learning and progress.

At the present time, my Spanish 4s are learning formal commands. Previously, they learned tú commands, which are a bit easier.  In addition to a formal introduction via Power Point, I have tried to seek out and implement creative ways to promote learning.  For example, the students performed skits, wrote prompts using photos, and at the present time, are writing scripts to promote a fictional personal product.   Despite all of the aforementioned, students must perform the drill and skill grammar activities, e.g. fill-in-the-blank.  Back in the day, we called them, drill and kill.  All the same, it’s about practice, practice, practice.

Along with the formal commands, students are working with direct and indirect object pronouns, which readily accompany commands, both informal and formal.   While these can be hard to master, conceptually, I don’t consider these structures in and of themselves, “hard”.  I think that makes them hard for today’s students is the poor grammatical foundation they have acquired in their own native language, courtesy of K-12 education replacing traditional grammar instruction with whole language.  I’m not going to get into a convo about whole language, but, save it to say, it hasn’t done the minds of American students good, especially when it comes to the teaching and learning of a foreign language.

Anyway, with 23 days left to the school year, formal commands and object pronouns have thrown a fast, hardball learning curve to my Spanish 4s.  Given the challenges that I have had with this group all year, with students having enrolled in a course that was way beyong their cognitive and motivational level, it isn’t surprising to see some struggling even more.  This is not to say that I want for them to give up, or that I won’t help them.  To the contrary, I want to see them succeed, and will support them to the extent that I am able.  That said, I neither can nor will do the work for them.   Additionally, I’m teaching a Spanish 4 curriculum, and some of the students are simply in over their proverbial heads, and never should have enrolled in Spanish 4 from the get-go.

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