Two sentences on the board:
(I'm translating)
"_______________ does Pierre like?"
"_______________ interests Pierre?"
Students were supposed to insert the French equivalent of either "what" but in French there are two different "what's" for asking questions.
- One is for a "what" that is the subject of the sentence, e.g. "What is so funny?" For our purposes here we'll call this "What(sub)."
- The other is for a "what" that is the direct object (object of the verb), e.g. "What is he doing?" We'll call this "What(obj)."
- (Well actually there's a third "what" that is needed when preposition is involved but I won't tax your noggins with that.)
So anyway the sentences above would read:
"___What(obj)_____ does Pierre like?"
"___What(sub)_____ interests Pierre?"
My main NFA (no functional ability) this summer in 212 is one of those who gets to 212 by the skin of their teeth, barely getting the grades they needed to progress through the French courses, but since their grades were mostly D's and F's, when they get to 212 all of sudden the reason for their low grades (i.e. their minimal retention and actual knowledge) comes back to bite them in the ass and a lot of them can't pass 212 the first time. (Normally their second experience with 212 is only barely better but gets them above the 59% line so they're good to go finally and will never drive themselves or any poor instructors crazy with taking languages ever again.
Nancy, the NFA in question, puts her hand up after we played with these two examples a minute. (Cue "Jaws" music every time she starts to ask something - her knowledge base is such that it's kind of like having someone in your Physics 499 class who really has only taken Gen. Sci. 102 and yet you have to explain to them (AGAIN) something that is completely beyond their comprehension.
"I don't understand." (And of course she says it in that aggressive whiny voice we know of old - students like this have an uncanny ability to make all of their shortcomings sound like they're the fault of the instructor, the book, or of French itself.)
I start to show other examples to contrast how the sentences would look so she can hopefully extrapolate a bit and figure out the difference between What(sub) and What(obj).
Finally she stops me and says, "No I understand the difference between subject and direct object but I don't understand what the sentences are saying in the first place."
This is because the 15 words she actually knows are all from 111 (I know because I was her 111 instructor and because she uses them ad nauseum [and nary another word from anything we've done recently if she can help it] every time we have any activities whatsoever). Nevermind that both the words I had used in the examples were pointedly elementary vocab (just as basic in French as they seem above in English in fact).
This is the point at which we (instructors, teachers, profs, etc.) are supposed/trained/conditioned to let the student down gently, use some other verbage than "you don't understand because you should never have made it this far in the first place and it would take divine intervention at this point for you grasp a fraction of what is going on" to say that they should study their vocab more or come to office hours for us to practice it or whatever.
What I said, nicely and respectfully but still in obvious earnest and seriousness:
"Well, Nancy, at some point it just has to come from you. Sometimes it will come down to knowing what certain words mean and not knowing what others mean. If your knowledge can't bridge the gap between the meaning and the grammar skill then there's nothing I can do and you simply won't be successful."
Dammit - if anyone ever read this blog maybe they would fucking tell me when I had a major typo like the two truly lamentable things I just found and corrected - so mortifying! (17 Aug. 10)
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