Due to the pandemic of COVID-19, students have been switching over from a classroom environment to online classes to practice social distancing from others. However, the transition had a rough start, where teachers now need to work on a schedule that is accustomed to their student’s needs. 

“You have to rely heavily on yourself and motivate yourself to speak that other language because no one is truly enforcing it,” senior Kylee Engelke comments as she explains how her AP Spanish 4 class is now put into a whole new aspect. She explains that the speaking aspect is heavily inhibited through online classes and are mostly done through readings and audios. 

So far classes have consisted of “face to face/screen to screen interactions,” Engelke continues. As Spanish speaking classes have not been able to utilize ZOOM or Face Time, but rather, having the teacher post videos of themselves talking to a one way camera that is sent out to all students to view. 

“I’m lucky that I have a family who knows the language and can speak it but it’s different compared to those who don’t have that,” senior Bella Mendoza explains the difference from being in a classroom setting versus online. The atmosphere sets a whole new stage making it difficult to practice a language out loud.

“It’s more difficult to ask questions,” Mendoza continues as usually in her AP Spanish 4 class, after an audio is played, the class collectively discusses anything within the listening that may have been confusing. However, being at home, that lack of interaction makes the listening learning harder to adjust to. Which makes it harder to understand if students are truly understanding everything. 

“We are not able to have partner interaction and be able to hear a teacher talk to us in Spanish anymore,” senior Katelyn Ngo in Spanish 6 inputs. Human interaction is key to the class to be able to grasp the concepts better and gain a better understanding overall.

“There are now videos of summaries just in case we didn’t understand the piece,” Ngo continues, as classes are now consisting of readings and video summaries.  

Although during these times, every individual has been adjusted to these unprecedented times. While it may not be an ideal situation, everyone is putting in the effort to work through it. Despite the speaking aspect, the practices of reading and summaries have been sufficient so far to help students further for their upcoming tests.