Ian's presentation hearkened me back over a decade. I took two years of Spanish, in my junior and senior years of high school. I was often confused in class, particularly with all of the different forms. Today, I remember words and phrases, but cannot say hardly anything in the correct tense. Ian's suggestions seem like an good way for students to actually get something out of Spanish class. It is better to learn a few things well than learn a mass amount of information but be able to do nothing with it.

It does amaze me how little focus there was on the oral aspect of learning Spanish. That is how small children learn language. They listen and speak. The reading and writing comes later. Secondary language instruction in this country focuses on reading and writing, which explains why it does not come naturally and little of actual use is learned. There is a lot of “repeat after me” oral instruction, but little requirement for students to actually synthesize anything they have learned into sentences. Oral testing is nonexistent. With the rapidly growing Latino population in this country, giving students some basic ability to understand and speak Spanish is very important. Clearly, time, energy, and resources need to be devoted to overhauling the way second languages are taught in our schools.

Ian's research can be applied to other disciplines. The “reduction in curriculum” may be useful in other subjects. Math, in particular, tends to cram many concepts in a short amount of time, often without much time for revisiting. Math should at least use the cyclical approach (which it often does), since concepts are returned to in future units and classes. In history, often too much information is crammed into students brains in such little time. One year of American history is not enough to learn anything in detail. I would prefer to cover at least a few events in depth, so students actually have a deep understanding of some events and how they connect, rather than a giant, disconnected blob of events and people, most of which they will forget by the time they leave high school.