If this is all you have "And literature classes are little more than book clubs", then there's really not much for us to discuss, because we are apparently living on different planets.
I considered disagreement without resolution on what I said to be a given at the time of comment. I offered it merely to suggest, in the face of your adamance, that there just might be more than one side to to this question, not to move you off your position.
The relative cost effectiveness of AP Spanish classes ceased to be at issue early in the discussion. The issue became your claiming that what you inferred from what I said was what I actually said. Since you have apparently dropped that and moved on to the substance, I will consider your assertion abandoned and the matter resolved. I have no problem with the idea of AP classes.
I'm sure you realize there are things we teach in elementary school, and things we teach in high school- same difference.
Whatever language is taught in whatever venue, they start with "hola, me llamo Karen," add grammar, vocabulary and word usage, and introduce simple, then more complex literature. Like I said, I've studied 7 languages in various venues. And I've assisted in teaching ESL classes. They have all been the same. Sure, they move more quickly in college than in high school and reach more sophisticated levels in the literature they present. But they start in the same place and approach it pretty much the same. French 1 in high school is just like French 1 in college. Everyone reads Le Petit Prince. With little kids it would be different, but for older kids and adults it is the same. How do they do it on your planet?
I don't know what literature classes you've had
And I don't know what book clubs you've experienced. I imagine that both literature classes and book clubs vary regarding how critically they attack a text.
Back to the original question, I understand your interest in those whose first language is Spanish and whom you described as fluent but illiterate. I continue to have trouble associating that with AP Spanish classes. Spanish speaking kids who are smart enough to take AP classes in any subject will be literate in Spanish. It is a phonetic language. If you can speak it and have half a brain and a dictionary, you can read and write it. (Russian, Japanese, and Arabic American kids have an excuse. They need to learn a different alphabet.) And if you can and do read Spanish, you will develop in the language. I can see how these kids would benefit from some formal grammar and usage training, some composition exercises, and being guided to some of the great works written in the Spanish language. But that would be Spanish 3 and 4. Offering Spanish 3 and 4 to these kids as electives makes sense to me. But those who would take Spanish 5 are not your target audience. I don't know who or how many would take the Spanish 5 or why their doing so would be a priority for the State of California in these times of crisis.
It seems to me that a better argument for Spanish AP, if you just must have it, would be that, if we have AP English, we should have AP classes in other languages. Enhancing the Spanish experience for fluent but illiterate kids doesn't seem to me to match up with the idea of AP. |
