My latest crisis

[Ruby_Aspergic]

So, there is more info about this on my blog, but in short....


Today I discovered that our final oral exam in Spanish will consist of myself and a partner being told a topic of conversation at the time of our exam, with no chance to prep, and then we have to "engage in a conversational manner" and "make small talk" and "sustain normal conversation" and "ask appropriate questions and use appropriate tone of voice" for seven minutes. Any failure of the above will be an assumed failure of Spanish language attainment, since these are things most college students can do. This is graded jointly. Anyone see the problem?

 

[Chris]

Oh, dear, god. Good luck. Foreign languages were never my strong point, so my hat off to you and your partner if you pass!

 

[Sipe]

Writing a reply with cellphone sure is fustrating (My cellphone is "Nokia E90"). But maybe I get used to this.

But back to the main topic.

Is the problem that you are not good at speaking Spanish with another person on one-on-one especially when its supposed to be a test? Dont worry! You will do fine! Believe in yourself and everything will go well. If you think about failing, you most likely will fail. Think yourself as victorious! You have already won ans passed the test. Think like that and you will pass. I use this same way of thinking while prepearing my own exams here. I actually have my English language test tomorrow.

By the way, I have heard that Spanish is pretty easy language. Is it true?

PS: Sorry about possible grammar mistakes in the text. Remember that I wrote this with my cellphone.

 

[mikeg26843]

ruby have you tried asking the head of department or whoever to try and do something different, you need to explain how as makes stuff difficult, best of luck to you whatever happens

 

[Ruby_Aspergic]

If you have a disability that you think requires accommodations you have to petition the academic standards board to be allowed to take a substitute course, which I did, and they denied me basically because they could prove I wasn't dyslexic (I got a COMPLETE **** score on the assessment, just not **** enough). The disabilities office wants me to re-petition, and I will, but I suspect I would lose because I have like 12 absences (about half of which excused) because I have been sick so much this semester. I can't very well walk across town to the hospital to get a doctors note if I am too sick to walk to class on the same block, but nobody understands that or cares. So I am afraid my professor would tell them that if I am struggling that must be why and then they will think I just need to try harder. I can't help it if I am up half the night vomiting twice a week. :\

The problem is not my Spanish, my Spanish is fine, it is that I do not possess those conversational skills in English. If I talk like a robot during the exam she will assume I just didn't know enough Spanish to be more conversational. But I couldn't have done it in English, either. And the department won't allow her to accommodate me, the language department at my school doesn't accommodate disabilities. They think they've found a loophole in the law by allowing you to petition for a substitution, but they-- not your doctor, get to figure out your abilities based NOT on a meeting with you but on a letter you submit and determine what they think you need.

Spanish is easy if you don't have communication problems or processing disorders. I have everything under the sun and Spanish is probably going to be the death of me.

Also my partner is a girl I met a month ago that actually hung out with me the other day and is the only friend I have made in the last six years. And I am probably going to fail her Spanish final. >.<

 

[Sipe]

The problem is not my Spanish, my Spanish is fine, it is that I do not possess those conversational skills in English. If I talk like a robot during the exam she will assume I just didn't know enough Spanish to be more conversational. But I couldn't have done it in English, either. And the department won't allow her to accommodate me, the language department at my school doesn't accommodate disabilities. They think they've found a loophole in the law by allowing you to petition for a substitution, but they-- not your doctor, get to figure out your abilities based NOT on a meeting with you but on a letter you submit and determine what they think you need.

Spanish is easy if you don't have communication problems or processing disorders. I have everything under the sun and Spanish is probably going to be the death of me.

Also my partner is a girl I met a month ago that actually hung out with me the other day and is the only friend I have made in the last six years. And I am probably going to fail her Spanish final. >.<

Ah, ok. That`s ******.

So it is easy. I was just thinking here that if I want to start to study a new language then which it should be. I have been considering French or Estonian.

 

[Ruby_Aspergic]

I don't know anything about Estonian. Spanish is supposed to be easy, particularly easier than French, because all of the spelling is phonetic. There are only a handful of letters in Spanish that are pronounced differently than they are in English.

 

[Sipe]

I don't know anything about Estonian. Spanish is supposed to be easy, particularly easier than French, because all of the spelling is phonetic. There are only a handful of letters in Spanish that are pronounced differently than they are in English.

Is Spanish`s grammar much different from English? And Estonian is pretty much same kind of language than Finnish; ****ed up. Our languages have many similar words but some of them might have a totally different meaning.

 

[kurgen]

Ruby, how was your tone of voice?

 

[Ruby_Aspergic]

The exam is next week so I don't know how it was yet. But it will surely be monotone as it always is! Or rather, I am not completely monotone, but I have less variability than I am apparently "supposed" to have.

I have never formally studied English grammar so it's difficult to compare... besides the fact that there are 7 tenses I would say that Spanish grammar is very easy, it's probably simpler than English. I'd have no difficulty in Spanish were it not for the fact that my communication skills are stunted and that I have auditory and visual processing deficiencies.

 

[kurgen]

Wow this is like wow

talking to Aspies must really be hard for other people as we only hear half of the story and ask the same question that already can be found in your description