I was reading an article that I had started in my google reader last week called "What are we assessing". This reminds me a lot of my undergraduate days as a learner of the German Language (and any language that I had taken for that matter).

The name of the game was learn enough grammar and vocabulary necessary to pass the test and the test after that, until the semester ends. This of course got me into trouble later on in the 300 level courses when the name of the game was not grammar and vocabulary tests but rather communication and that's where I had somewhat of a hard time. I did well, but I had a hard time. In Romance languages I did not have this problem, but with Cyrillic and Asian Languages I had similar problems. Now that I am older and hopefully wiser, I know that there are different approaches to language learning and memorization/regurgitation - the main mode of study for most undergrad courses it seems - does not work for any meaningful learning.

This brings me to the question of what are we assessing in a language course? If communication were emphasized to begin with, I think that I would have been a more successful language learner back then, but because I gamed the system (or is it gaming the system if you do perform on the tests that they ask you to perform?), I wasted some time because I was focusing on the tests, but not really on communication - the main reason for learning a language.