Practice Makes Perfect...And Isn't Always Easy

How do you get to Carnegie Hall?  Practice, practice, practice. How do you get to the Final Four at the NCAA? Practice, practice, practice. And how you do learn a language? You guessed it.

A ball player cannot learn to play by reading the playbook and then play in a game. A musician cannot simply read the music and then play a concert. An athlete must lift weights, run, and go to a practice led by a coach culminating in a scrimmage. A musician plays scales, practices a few measures over and over again, and then goes to a rehearsal run by a director that eventually ends with playing a complete number. Skills are honed, what was difficult at first becomes second nature, instincts are developed, and technique is acquired as one gets a feel for the game or the music. Finally the athletes play a game and the musicians give a concert. The best athletes and musicians have spent hours gettingready. No pain, no gain.

Language students practice vocabulary and conjugations, they do activities where they fill in blanks with the correct form of a word or the correct tense of a verb. They answer endless questions. In class, the teacher creates activities from structured to open-ended practice, allowing students to use what they have practiced to communicate ideas culminating in a conversation with a partner in class, a role play, a debate, etc. Skills are honed, what was difficult at first becomes second nature, instincts are developed, and language is acquired as one gets a feel for the language. Students eventually travel to a country where the language is spoken or use it on the job.

The Quia workbooks are nothing more and nothing less than the online version of the print workbooks. One of the benefits of Quia is that an instructor can compel students to do homework on time, to best be prepared for each class. This may sound draconian, but it helps to maximize the benefits of class time for all students since a language class by nature is participatory.

Boston College students have approximately 78 hours of instruction per year and compete well with students of other universities that meet for many more hours per year. Syllabi are common to allow students to move from one level to another and from one section to another with ease. The common syllabi also are useful for those transferring to BC or from BC for placement purposes. Instructors have freedom, within reason, to conduct the class as they see fit, using textbook activities or creating their own. Please note that instructors of these courses are consistently rated highly by the students.

If anyone would like to speak about language acquisition and best practices as recognized by the profession today, please do not hesitate to contact any of the coordinators of of language courses at Boston College as we are well versed on the topic.

Andrea Javel

Lecturer,

Romance Languages Department