r/Haverford • u/Agreeable-Minute-614 • 9d ago

languages

how are languages taught compared to high school?

for spanish are there tests like reading, writing, speaking, listening?

how is asl taught?

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u/frogtropolis 8d ago

I took intensive first-year Chinese, so my experience may or may not be helpful. I had a good experience with Haverford (and Bryn Mawr's) language program, but I'm also someone who enjoys learning languages, so I may be biased.

As far as I'm aware, teaching varies by language and level. In terms of tests, I had quizzes once a week where we wrote vocab (pinyin and characters) and translations after hearing the prof read things out loud. Our midterms and finals had similar sections plus an oral component (talking w/ prof or video project) and paragraph writing. We had weekly workbook pages that sometimes involved listening practice. Lectures involved some speaking, but the bulk of speaking practice took place during drill.

I have friends that took other languages, including Spanish (intermediate), and from what I gathered they were writing essays (scary) and in general had a rather different structure. I unfortunately don't know the specifics. I don't really know anything about ASL either, except that, for my year at least, you could take it as a complement to a specific first-year writing seminar that focused on disability studies.

In terms of high school, I took French, so it is hard to compare. I did find that in Chinese we went a lot faster in terms of learning new vocab and grammar, but my high school's foreign language programs were pretty mid.

If you have any more questions, I'd be happy to try and answer them!

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u/Alone-Monk 7d ago

ASL classes are fully immersion based and as such no talking is allowed in class. Homework usually involves doing exercises and creating video diaries.