The Return of the Oral

THE RETURN OF THE ORAL

The most exciting section of our O-level and A-level French and Spanish exams was the oral. We would line up outside of a classroom converted into an interview room to await our turn to spend a few minutes one-on-one with designated oral examiners. It was a marvelous experience for a budding teenage scholar living in a British colony in the 1950s.

The French language section of the Howard University Department of World Languages and Cultures has recently reintroduced the oral  exam. . . “Plus ça change, plus c’est pareil.”