Prof Sportiche is very knowledgeable. Apparently he knows what he's talking about and he is very good at explaining concepts. At first I found his lectures a little bit boring, but when I start paying attention, I found what he said is very useful and fun. He covers all the materials you would need for exams. There are 2 films in class, which are boring and useless. He will post his lecture notes on ccle, but those are pretty concise, so go to his lectures and take notes.

I went into this class thinking it was going to be an easy GE. Boy, was I wrong. Class isn't mandatory but you should go bc he doesn't post the slides; though, half the time the lecture doesn't make any sense (I missed my fair share and I regret it because it made things so hard). The lecture notes he posts were not that clear to me. The lectures are not very interesting for the most part so it was hard to pay attention. The weekly homework (which is worth a lot of your grade) was insanely hard and I had to go to so many office hours to get good grades on them and to actually comprehend what it was asking for. Not once could I sit down by myself to do the homework and finish it without the help of a TA. The assigned readings were alright, not very engaging for me but important for the final. The paper was doable in a few hours and was not hard to complete BUT only because I am a native speaker of a second language. The final (which is the only exam you have in this class) was a lot harder than I thought it was going to be. I would not take this class again if given the chance; way too much work for a GE class. I managed to do well only because I crammed so hard for the exam.

I took Ling 1 as an "easy" GE, but I shouldn't have done that. This GE is a bit trickier than say Labor 10. If you pay attention, read the books, attend office hours, and put your absolute best into the class, you will probably get an "A." I studied like three days before the final exam and got a "B+." As far as the lectures go, Sportiche cares about the subject, but isn't the most interesting to listen to. Try to pay attention to lecture, because they are probably helpful if you pay attention. The homework assignments are doable. Try to start early. I did them the night before. Anyway, I neglected this class way too much, because it was just a GE, but if you try your best, you will definitely be fine.

This class had a doable course load. There were weekly HW packets that really help with learning the concepts and studying for the final (there was no midterm). Do the extra credit when you can, because they definitely help you get those extra points for the HW (the EC points don't count if you already have a perfect score though). The paper was pretty fair and just makes you compare another language with English. Definitely go to class even if he posts lecture notes, because the lecture notes are pretty lengthy to read by itself. Sometimes Sportiche has some funny bits in his lectures that make up for the boring/lengthy parts. Going to TA office hours or collaborating with classmates for the HW helped a lot too.
I wouldn't say it was the most interesting subject for me, but it was cool to apply the concepts when writing the essay. By the end, I would take the class again because it was a fair GE.

Biggest advice is to go to lectures and take notes! Sportiche releases lecture outlines with most of the basic information, but it can be very hard to understand without his explanations. Much of the grade is also dependent on your TA, but if you keep in touch with them and go to office hours, you will have no problems.

Sportiche was moderately interesting in lecture. The homeworks were HARD if you attempt them on your own, but if you go to office hours with a TA, you'll basically be fed all the hw answers. Homework is a significant part of your grade so you basically want to get 100% in that category. There is a paper category, your homework category, and a final category. The paper shouldn't be too bad, and should hopefully boost your grade. The final was pretty difficult though; there's plenty of random linguistics trivia that you either know or you don't, that wasn't really covered in lecture. Final is MC. Surprisingly, the hardest topic in the course, Phonetics and Phonology, was barely covered on the final.

Taking Ling 1 with Professor Sportiche was quite an interesting experience. He is really passionate about what he teaches, and attending his lectures was mostly fun. Sometimes, it tended to get monotonous, but that was rarely anyways.

He was pretty strict on grading, and graded on a standard scale (no curve whatsoever). The grade distribution was as follows-
Weekly homework assignments: 45%
Term paper: 10%
Final: 45%

The weekly homework assignments given in the discussion sections were of great help to practice the content taught in that week. They also gave you a good idea how well you are doing and understanding the material as the class progressed.

I would definitely recommend you to get started on your term paper a bit early, frame an outline for the same and discuss it with your TA to ensure you're going on the right track. For this paper, you basically need to compare English and one another language that you speak on the basis of certain linguistic characteristics. I didn't find the paper particularly hard.

As for the readings, Professor Sportiche had the book A Language Instinct as required reading for this course. Keeping up with the readings a week ahead of their time is greatly helpful and important as some of the questions on the homework assignments and the final were directly from the book, and the text in the book was a good introduction to the material he was gonna cover in the class.

He also posted all his lecture notes online on CCLE, which included all the relevant and important information. The final exam, in my opinion was unexpectedly harder than what we had been doing in the homework assignments and what was expected, but in the end, it all worked out. In all, this was an interesting GE which did require consistency and hardwork but was also really informative. I would definitely recommend someone genuinely interested in Linguistics to take this class with Professor Sportiche.

Grade is based off of weekly homework, final exam, and final paper (very structured style, graded easily)

Lecture is very tedious, he studies syntax so take it if you're interested in that but if you want to learn about how language is processed in the brain and about linguistic development in children and around the globe Sportiche is not the right professor for you. Nevertheless, it is a fair class and an A is manageable with low effort

This class was fine. Professor Sportiche told us that he you need to take notes in this class, and I think he's right. His lectures aren't incredibly interesting, but he's a fun personality. Homework is tedious but doable, and you can collaborate with other people. The "textbook" is just a normal book that's super easy to read. Personally, I don't think the final was that easy, as some people have said, but I got an A after looking through my notes once and doing the reading assignments as they were assigned. Overall, this is a great GE to take if you need to fulfill the life science requirement but hate science.

So Professor Sportiche is hilarious and really cool. The workload is light; there were only weekly discussion worksheets and a chapter or two of reading every week. However, if you are not genuinely interested in the study of language (linguistics), you will find this class boring, useless, and conceptually dry. The concepts get difficult around week 4, and from then on, you have to really pay attention to the lectures (which even when you do, it is still very confusing and the powerpoints are haphazard), really pay attention in discussion / section, and attend office hours.

There were no midterms, which is nice. The final was 90 multiple choice questions with a separate essay assignment that was straightforward and easy to write.

I guess it's a tradeoff of studying something that is super boring and having to suffer 10 weeks of being confused and bored for a class that does not require a lot of work.