So the other day I was sitting in Spanish class, and Ron gave us a little quiz on the conditional sentences. Only they didn't really require any knowledge of the conditional or present perfect subjunctive at all. You just had to drop the "s" at the end of the verbs and add some random phrase on the end. Example:

¿Si tuvieras tiempo, qué hicieras?

And a correct answer:

Si tuviera tiempo, hiciera mi tarea.

And what did this quiz prove? That I know how to copy sentences and remove letters? Am I actually learning anything from this experience? I doubt it.

In my humble opinion, more traditional style methods of instruction are not very effective for teaching languages. I learned the most when the classes were just plain fun. If only I could return to that...