In the past couple of weeks, Pennridge High School has decided to discontinue the Spanish V course from the Program of Studies. Instead, students who want to continue studying Spanish must take AP Spanish. While Pennridge School District prides itself on its AP classes offered at the high school level, most students tend to shy away from them.
AP curriculums are designed to prepare students for the exam they take at the end of the school year, which determines if they can receive credits from a college or university by scoring well. The classes are usually rigidly structured around themes provided by the College Board. For AP Spanish, these themes include families in Different Societies, The Influence of Language and Culture on Identity, Influences of Beauty and Art, How Science and Technology Affect Our Lives, Factors that Impact the Quality of Life, as well as Environmental, Political, and Societal Challenges. When providing a course description for AP Spanish Language and Culture, the Pennridge High School Program of Studies states, “Advanced Placement Spanish Language is designed for highly motivated and performance-oriented Spanish students whose main objective is to develop proficiency in the four language skills: listening, speaking, reading, and writing.”
A former Pennridge student, Isabel Mistretta, who is studying to become a Spanish teacher, shared her thoughts on Pennridge High School’s recent decision. “I don’t think it is a very good idea. I think the idea of having AP and Spanish 5 is useful because a lot of students don’t like the idea of taking an AP class during their senior year. The AP kind of scares them away.” Mistretta enjoyed taking the AP Spanish course as she was highly interested in and dedicated to learning. “For people who weren’t necessarily interested in Spanish, it was harder. The entire AP exam is in Spanish.”
There are many cases where students are very interested in continuing their studies in Spanish at Pennridge High School but turn away from AP classes. Maura Kulp, another Pennridge alumna, gave her take on the matter. “I decided to take Spanish 5 instead of AP Spanish because I wanted to continue my Spanish skills, but I didn’t want to take a super challenging course since I was already taking other challenging courses that year.” Many students have expressed that the rigor of AP classes makes it difficult to enjoy the subject itself. The Spanish V curriculum consists of more appealing topics, such as Spanish History and colonization of the Americas. Language classes have a reputation for being appealing, enjoyable, and significantly beneficial for students, but as soon as a rigid AP curriculum is introduced, students no longer enjoy it the same way. Kulp explained “I probably wouldn’t have had as much success in AP Spanish as I did in Spanish 5. I most likely could have completed the AP content, but it would have been much more stressful and not as enjoyable.”
The Pennridge Language Department’s main goal is to make studying a language more fun and engaging since students learn more that way. When students move on to the next level each year, they get closer and closer to achieving fluency and a beneficial understanding of the world around them. Will students have those same opportunities if they are scared away by an AP language course? Kulp said, “Yes, only having the option to take AP Spanish would have prevented me from continuing foreign language beyond the required years.”
Sources:
https://pennridgehs.pennridge.org/departments/world-language/spanish
https://apstudents.collegeboard.org/courses/ap-spanish-language-and-culture
https://www.cbsd.org/cms/lib/PA01916442/Centricity/Domain/602/Course%20Sequences%20Jan%202018.pdf
https://www.pivottutors.com/blogs/news/s-ap-spanish-hard?srsltid=AfmBOoqN2c7eid5O8IYZCtaZkByJs_sSjIswRNWahTRKmmlVL17kaZGc
