Spanish Australes

Money - one of the most valued materials in the world. They can be used to determine elite social classes, to obtain needed nutrients, and even to buy desired materialistic goods. Unfortunately, they can also “buy” you a grade.  While it may seem that legitimate currency can provide you with power and success; in reality, counterfeit golden, crinkly, and miniature money comparable to monopoly money are much more valuable. 

Despite this somewhat humorous and foolish concept, a new system of giving fake money to those who participate verbally is now incorporated in numerous foreign language classes. The idea itself is reasonably idealistic. However, as most experiences demonstrate, we do not live in an idealistic world. Thus, this “idealistic” system proves to be more menacing and pressurizing than traditional grading. 

With this implementation, there are two major problems: people who indefinitely hog over all oral responses and those who merely steal the fake money. For every response, you are rewarded with a crinkled dollar. Subsequently, the amount of money you earn in relation to the student with the highest amount determines a good chunk of your grade. 

Although speaking is one of the fundamentals in learning a new language, does a teacher have to pressurize it into a contest among students? Furthermore, this doesn’t actually allow students to learn verbally in class, but instead fosters a contest of who can raise their hand the fastest. In addition, the teachers take a naïve stance on obtaining this illegitimate currency. A large container full of money is placed in the front of the class. You may come to the conclusion that the teacher would have some awareness of students taking the correct amount of currency. However, there is none what so ever. None. Instead, it seems that the teacher turns a cheek as students take ten times more the amount they have earned throughout the class, in hopes of avoiding any type of conflict. 

As a result, since everything is counted in relativity, the students who have cheated in their accumulation of fake bills have an inflated grade in participation, while those who did not cheat have a substandard, low grade. This type of money system is more of a test of character and moral against cheating, than it is of participation. However, the teacher will never know of this because they don’t take into account how much effort, work, or ethical behavior you put forth in class, only a overtly valued piece of crap. Foreign language teachers, take heed in this. Your stupid illegitimate bills are doing more harm than good.