Anne’s student J, a former Hog, in a recent blog entry here (https://benslavic.com/blog/?p=7949), wrote to her former teacher about what college German is like. Here is a follow up. J writes to Anne:
“At this point I have learned how to teach myself the grammar needed to do the homework exercises when before I was trying to do them based solely on what sounded right. My professor told me to cherish my speaking skills and never leave them in the dust. Our last assignment was to write an email home as if we were visiting Berlin. With fifteen minuets I was able to pump out a solid story about my trip to Berlin, while some of the students that had all their verb conjugations memorized had to keep running to a dictionary because of their limited vocabulary. I would much rather have to learn how to organize the knowledge that I already possess, rather than learn vocabulary on my own. [Learning languages] is all about exposure.”
J