This past Thursday I sat in front of my French teacher after an oral speaking exam, and cried.
The exam didn’t go horribly, my fish hadn’t just died, there was no real reason for me to cry. But after the exam, my teacher asked me in English how I was progressing in class, and as I told him it was hard and I was stressed out, my eyes were suddenly watering and soon this sweet 61 year old French teacher had an 18 year old girl dressed head to toe in black crying in front of him. He was confused, I was confused, and the meeting ended with me shuffling past the next student to go in, presumably now terrified, with my head down and a tissue in my hand. I am not an easy crier, yet just being a part of a foreign language class and being forced to speak it causes me to break down with anxiety and fear.
I am currently in French I, but from sixth grade to junior year of high school I took Spanish. From when I was 12, I had been conditioned to enter a foreign language class in fear of being called on to answer a question I didn’t understand, be forced to use vocabulary I still couldn’t remember the meaning to, and try to string together sentences I could perfectly articulate in English but come out juvenile and choppy in a foreign tongue.
Though I completed my homework, studied for tests, asked question after question, and even stayed after class to talk to the teacher, I always fumbled through the language. I began to dread the class, growing nervous over being called on and embarrassing myself in front of my peers and fearing my teacher would think I just wasn’t paying attention.
I struggled through Spanish for five years. In that time, I had skipped school due to nerves of presenting a Spanish dialogue, left class as a panic attack came over me, cried in front of numerous teachers, called friends at all hours of the night to ask for help, and tried to drop out. Though it was a requirement to take a language two years of high school, I attempted to drop it junior year, but upon presenting the idea to my guidance counselor she spoke avidly of the importance of continuing it to get into college, club leaders shook their head at my choice and told me it was a mistake, friends suggested I suck it up one more year, and I finally caved and put myself through another school year of Spanish.
I have had some amazing Spanish classes and teachers. I have spoken to professors who truly wanted to help me and make the process easier, but the language was always something I struggled with. It was my only ‘C’ class, and when I managed to pull my grade up to a ‘B-’ it was a surprise and immediate relief. Senior year a weight was lifted off my shoulders as I no longer took the class.
Yet here I am, once again being forced to take a class I don’t want to, struggling for grades I typically consider low for any other subject, and making myself sick with anxiousness and stress over a foreign language class. In order to be truly great at speaking a second language, the subject must feel a drive to learn it or have a natural knack for languages; I have neither of these things.
Though some schools have adapted foreign language as an option rather than a requirement for students, I believe all schools should leave language as a choice for the student to make, because otherwise, it wastes a class slot on something students don’t have drive to attend, the language will not be utilized, grades will dip and GPAs will suffer, and scholarships could be put in jeopardy. In addition, other students like me may be finding themselves suffering from major spikes in anxiety for a class the school won’t let them drop.
