Sunday, April 17, 2011

AN "A" IS AN "A" BUT A "C" IS OK, RIGHT?

"Life is an error-making and an error-correcting process, and nature in marking man's papers will grade him for wisdom as measured both by survival and by the quality of life of those who survive." Jonas Salk

Week #2: Our first Spanish test was Friday, on the conjugation of verbs ending in "ar". Other endings (i.e. verbs ending in ir or er) will be taught in the future. I'm pretty good at conjugating English verbs, so it shouldn't be a big leap to doing so in Spanish, right? Wrong! Here is an example:

In English, the infinitive (the word before conjugation) is to draw.

Singular: I draw, you draw, he/she/it draws Plural: we draw, you draw, they draw

In Spanish, the infinitive for draw is dibujar.

Singular: yo (I) dibujo, tu (accent on the tu) dibujas, el/ella/usted dibuja Plural: nosotros dibujamos, ustedes/ellos/ellas dibujan

On Thursday we were given twenty-four "ar ending" verbs in Spanish to memorize and conjugate in a quiz the next day. (groan). The groan became mental paralysis as I went over and over the verbs, finally commiting them to memory one minute, only to lose them the next. Was I falling victim to Alzheimer's, I fretted? I made flash cards, carrying them with me to the bathroom, in the car, to dinner and to bed, hoping the verbs would all sink in and stay there. Needless to say, my "A ethic" caused me to have a sleepless night.

The next morning I left early enough to find a nearby parking place, dashed in to a second-floor study room, and poured over the words yet again. Once in the classroom, after taking attendance, El Profesor put five words on the board, telling us to give both the meaning and conjugation of the words in the present tense. The verbs were draw, teach, watch, pay for and practice. Phew! I knew them all. He apparently said to use half a paper. I heard the half part, but didn't realize we were literally supposed to tear the paper in half. It was to be done within a timed period.

I finished proudly, ready to hand in my paper when, to my alarm, El Profesor wouldn't accept it because it wasn't on a half sheet of paper. Since my work went below the halfway line I couldn't just tear off half, I had to re-do the work, cramming it in as well as I could, with no chance to proofread what I had written before he said to stop writing.

He went on to teach about telling time (Que (accent mark) hora es), and while we dutifully worked with partners on a couple of exercises he was grading the quizzes. He passed out the corrected quizzes at the end of the period and I was horrified to discover a score of 7 out of 10 right answers. Definitely not an A grade! In my haste , on the word practicar, I had changed the c to g for some reason. Wrong! On ensenar, I left off something called a tilde which is a funny looking symbol above an n and which affects pronunciation. Wrong! On first person plural I put dibujamas instead of dibujamos. Wrong! Haste definitely made waste as the old saying goes, but such is the life of a student under pressure.

Lesson to be learned: Listen VERY carefully and follow every teacher direction. One poor soul had neglected to put his or her name on the paper. El Profesor crumpled the offending paper and threw it in the garbage can, while we students cringed at the thought it might have been us. That was definitely not going to be an "A" in the record book.

We filed out of the room at 9:20, some with broad smiles, and others looking shell shocked. After my original reaction I found humor in the whole situation, and have decided to frame my half sheet quiz as a reminder that A's aren't everything. By all accounts I must be the oldest student in the room. On the plus side I am not one of those senior citizens glued to the soaps on TV, or engaged in other relaxing activities. I'm keeping my brain busy, learning Spanish, and, hey! Maybe I can redeem myself on the next test and get that A after all. To help out, though, just in case, my husband ordered Rosetta Stone's Spanish lesson program. . . just in case. Chao

1 comment:

  1. enero buen trabajo, no puedo imaginar que la conjugación de los verbos más especialmente en otro idioma. love ya, sue

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