FRNCH 3
Elementary French
Description: Lecture, five hours. Enforced requisite: course 2 with grade of C- or better. P/NP or letter grading.
Units: 4.0
Units: 4.0
2 of 4
Most Helpful Review
Winter 2023 - I found that this class was quite disorganized. I came in with a decent amount of French experience (4 years in high school) and left with less confidence in my French speaking abilities than when I entered. I ended up taking this class P/NP because of the sheer lack of grades that had been entered into the grade book by week 6. When he ended up finally entering the grades around week 8, I realized that my grade was much higher than I thought it was, and changing to P/NP wasn't actually necessary. Elias cancelled the first 3 classes due to illness, and then the 4th was cancelled for MLK day, so we ended up having much less class time than what is normally allotted. The class is half in-person lectures and half online modules in the textbook. The homework modules and the lectures don't perfectly match up sometimes. There are 6 quizzes, 2 midterms, and a final exam. You can revise the writing portions of both midterms to get some missed points back. Your lowest quiz is dropped, and you can make up the second-lowest quiz for missed points as well. There's one presentation that's a part of the first midterm, which is the first or second week of classes. The content of the class covers le futur simple, le subjonctif, l'imparfait and le conditionnel, as well as some new vocabulary from each unit. Attendance is mandatory and participation is graded, and I'd recommend going to every class because he would announce when quizzes were going to be the class before they happened because the dates weren't accurate on the syllabus due to missing the first week of classes. Overall I had a fine experience as someone who isn't particularly passionate about French and took the class to fulfill the language requirement.
Winter 2023 - I found that this class was quite disorganized. I came in with a decent amount of French experience (4 years in high school) and left with less confidence in my French speaking abilities than when I entered. I ended up taking this class P/NP because of the sheer lack of grades that had been entered into the grade book by week 6. When he ended up finally entering the grades around week 8, I realized that my grade was much higher than I thought it was, and changing to P/NP wasn't actually necessary. Elias cancelled the first 3 classes due to illness, and then the 4th was cancelled for MLK day, so we ended up having much less class time than what is normally allotted. The class is half in-person lectures and half online modules in the textbook. The homework modules and the lectures don't perfectly match up sometimes. There are 6 quizzes, 2 midterms, and a final exam. You can revise the writing portions of both midterms to get some missed points back. Your lowest quiz is dropped, and you can make up the second-lowest quiz for missed points as well. There's one presentation that's a part of the first midterm, which is the first or second week of classes. The content of the class covers le futur simple, le subjonctif, l'imparfait and le conditionnel, as well as some new vocabulary from each unit. Attendance is mandatory and participation is graded, and I'd recommend going to every class because he would announce when quizzes were going to be the class before they happened because the dates weren't accurate on the syllabus due to missing the first week of classes. Overall I had a fine experience as someone who isn't particularly passionate about French and took the class to fulfill the language requirement.
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Most Helpful Review
Winter 2016 - Best French professor I've ever had and she teaches you a lot! She is very nice and helpful! She also only speaks in French so that you become better speakers and listeners and will change to English if you still don't understand, which was exactly what I wanted. Regarding the material and course difficulty, as long as you put in the work and do the practice problems and review the book, you should succeed. The one drawback for me was that I spent a lot on the textbook and never even opened it since I used the online book code instead but if anyone is interested in buying an unopened sealed textbook without the online code, which is very cheap and easy to purchase online, email me! J*************
Winter 2016 - Best French professor I've ever had and she teaches you a lot! She is very nice and helpful! She also only speaks in French so that you become better speakers and listeners and will change to English if you still don't understand, which was exactly what I wanted. Regarding the material and course difficulty, as long as you put in the work and do the practice problems and review the book, you should succeed. The one drawback for me was that I spent a lot on the textbook and never even opened it since I used the online book code instead but if anyone is interested in buying an unopened sealed textbook without the online code, which is very cheap and easy to purchase online, email me! J*************
Most Helpful Review
Makdisi was very effective and taught grammar extremely well. However, she was very impersonal and lacked friendliness and often laughed at students when they asked questions that she thought were stupid. She prepared us well for the second exam but failed to do so on the first and third. Especially on the third since she was absent for 3 straight days and had a student teacher come in who taught us nothing. When she came back she didn't even graze what we had missed with her. When the exam finally came, the grades were not stellar. You pretty much have to kiss a lot of ass to get on her good side. I would not recommend taking this class with her.
Makdisi was very effective and taught grammar extremely well. However, she was very impersonal and lacked friendliness and often laughed at students when they asked questions that she thought were stupid. She prepared us well for the second exam but failed to do so on the first and third. Especially on the third since she was absent for 3 straight days and had a student teacher come in who taught us nothing. When she came back she didn't even graze what we had missed with her. When the exam finally came, the grades were not stellar. You pretty much have to kiss a lot of ass to get on her good side. I would not recommend taking this class with her.
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