When I was in eighth grade our French teacher (who had and seemed at the very least not to discourage a reputation for being a bit of an ogre) had weekly tests for verb paradigms. If we made one mistake, we would get zero on the test.
Many years later I've taken about three times as much instruction in German as French, and thanks to Internet probably exposed to the former about four times as often, and I'm only marginally more comfortable with German verb forms than French ones.
Looking back I have no idea if she ever used those tests to give us our final grade.
Meanwhile, once I got to law school and absorbed everyone else's "if it doesn't contribute to the final mark I don't care" attitude... well let's just say I'm still wondering why they didn't flunk me out by third year.
Without trying to generalize to all humanity, I think the best regimen for someone like me would be to have weekly tests that are usually pretty taxing with a few OMGWTF moments, which unless you're constantly doing poorly or constantly doing supremely well don't count for your final mark and are just somewhat embarrassing to do poorly in.
And for the tests to be explicitly narrow in scope with a clear disclaimer at the beginning of the course that no one should think they're supposed to be representative of your whole ability, just an arbitrary slice of the things that come to mind as being important and quantifiable.
no subject
Many years later I've taken about three times as much instruction in German as French, and thanks to Internet probably exposed to the former about four times as often, and I'm only marginally more comfortable with German verb forms than French ones.
Looking back I have no idea if she ever used those tests to give us our final grade.
Meanwhile, once I got to law school and absorbed everyone else's "if it doesn't contribute to the final mark I don't care" attitude... well let's just say I'm still wondering why they didn't flunk me out by third year.
Without trying to generalize to all humanity, I think the best regimen for someone like me would be to have weekly tests that are usually pretty taxing with a few OMGWTF moments, which unless you're constantly doing poorly or constantly doing supremely well don't count for your final mark and are just somewhat embarrassing to do poorly in.
And for the tests to be explicitly narrow in scope with a clear disclaimer at the beginning of the course that no one should think they're supposed to be representative of your whole ability, just an arbitrary slice of the things that come to mind as being important and quantifiable.