My latest Spanish submission

Querida María:

¿Qué tal? ¿Cómo estás? Te escribo desde Aranjuez. ¡Tengo muchas cosas que contarte!

Aranjuez está cerca de Madrid y es una ciudad muy preciosa. Hay unos palacios reales aquí y cuentan con los mejores jardines de España. El Jardín del Rey es mi favorito, y ayer por la mañana lo he visitado yo sola.

Nuestra casa está cerca del centro de la ciudad – ¡es más grande que nuestra casa en Inglaterra! Me encantan sus grandes ventanas porque puedo ver el Palacio Real de Aranjuez desde mi habitación. La familia y yo hemos hecho un recorrido turístico por el palacio el lunes. Es un museo ahora, pero en el siglo XVI fue la casa de los reyes católicos como Felipe II.

Hace sol casi todos los días, y podemos se poner unas camisetas y unos pantalones cortos, pero mi padre lleva siempre unos pantalones. Si no llueve en las cuatro próximas semanas, vamos todos a acampar cerca de la Laguna Grande de Gredos. ¡Si llueve, vamos a llevar unas chaquetas y unas botas!

Tengo que terminar esta carta aquí y ir a comer con la familia. Ése me recuerda que quiero te preguntar a preparar una barbacoa para todos para nuestro regreso. Vamos a volver el viernes 26 de octubre a las seis de la tarde.

Besos,

Anne

How my Spanish oral went

Below is the message I sent to my Open University Regional Centre after I'd had a good cry at three different people, including my tutor, following my Spanish oral exam.

I just had my L194 oral exam.  I would like to make the following points regarding it.

• I was not given sufficient opportunity to ask questions before the Spanish part of the test.  The only opportunity was right at the start when the other student was still able to hear and I didn't want to announce to the world that I was very nervous; the notes indicated that I would have another opportunity after the examiner had described the format, so I waited, but that didn't happen.

• The examiner asked questions that had little to do with any of the topics provided.  First he asked if I was familiar with Spain.  I had revised a lot of phrases and vocabulary to do with places I have lived and travelled but I couldn't see how any of it related to whether or not I knew Spain, which I don't.  The examiner probably expected me to say 'No, pero he vivido en los Estados Unidos...' and launch into a description of my travels but I didn't want to talk about something that wasn't relevant to the question he'd asked so we only got as far as 'No... I've never been to Spain... I know a bit about Madrid and Barcelona...' before he gave up and moved on to the next topic.  After that I went completely to pieces and when he asked what I was going to do immediately after the exam that was all I talked about; I didn't mention that I was planning to study for the next exam later this week, or that I'm moving to Holland next year, two of the things I would have said if I'd been asked more general questions about my future plans or if he'd probed a bit further.

• Elluminate cut out for 5 seconds or so in the middle of the recording.  I was sitting saying 'Hola...?' and 'Lo siento, no entiendo...' with no response, and then he was suddenly there talking over me as if he couldn't hear me, which he probably couldn't as I couldn't hear him.  This loss of communication only served to make me more nervous and less likely to talk.  Elluminate is a terrible medium for any oral exam - a good old-fashioned telephone call would be much better, and I'm under 30 and pretty technologically aware so it's not that the technology baffles me.

My level of Spanish is MUCH better than it will appear from this oral exam; the result of this test is not representative and it is therefore redundant as a measure of my progress.  This is a *beginners'* course - I knew only 'Hola' before I started last November - and we cannot be expected to have the level of fluency and confidence required to respond to such questions and events.  If I have done poorly I will request a resit and be better prepared for the unexpected.

The oral exam question for my other course, L211, has been 'clarified' (updated/changed) at the last minute as well.  I now have little faith in the Open University's examination process.

Great but also crap assignment score

Despite getting a horrendous 50% for my glaring inability to make genders agree, I still got 80% overall for the assignment I wrote in a few hours last Tuesday.

I am gutted.

To explain, the simple effort of more checking/dictionary use would have meant 85% and an A. I'm really angry with myself about this - I have even almost cried. I wish I didn't work - the actual deadline was midday on Wednesday so if I hadn't had to be at work at 8am I could have checked it in the morning. Of course it is also possible that I would have just not started the thing till the morning, in which case I wouldn't even have finished it properly. At times like this I really hate the way my assignment writing works.

'Advice' to start assignments earlier is irrelevant, so don't give it. It is impossible that I wouldn't have thought of this solution. I sit down with the books a week or more in advance but my brain won't engage because I'm not in imminent danger of failing so the most I achieve is a few lines of notes. This just seems to be how I work. I already despise this about myself and I haven't the energy spare to go through the process of entirely changing my approach so it's best you don't bother suggesting it.

I'm really really annoyed about this.

P.S. It is also not advisable to inform me that 80% is a good mark. I know this - cf the title of this post. The issue is that with maybe 15 minutes' checking I could have got an A.