Ah, I see. Your class does sound dreadful. Reminds me of Classical Greek and Hebrew. 
Certainly, at our HS Spanish 1 apparently moves v e r y slowly, which is why the head of the language dept recommended that S consider starting in Spanish 2 instead. (It is also considered easier to go from French to Spanish that the other way round.)
I had one week of 1-on-1 Spanish instruction in Guatemala about 10 years ago, and I was able to pick up an amazing amount, so that I could understand a lot of what people said and could hold a fairly simple conversation. But there were other students in our program who had already studied the language who just could not converse at all.
I guess it’s just one of those things, like being unable to carry a tune.