This class was okay. However, I really appreciated the grading scheme. 60% of your grade is based on "skills mastery," where you essentially get several opportunities in weekly quizzes (and other assignments) to earn points toward a certain skill. Then once you've earned enough points in a certain skill, you no longer have to take the quizzes for that specific skill. This class does have a textbook but I honestly stopped reading it after the first week because I just didn't find it helpful. So, you could probably do well without it and you'd save a couple of bucks. The two homework assignments are fairly easy, graded for completion, and they can also help you earn some points toward skill mastery. There are also two transcription tasks, and they aren't graded necessarily, but all the points you earn go toward skill mastery. I really recommend spending a lot of time on Homework #2, because it's an easy way to earn points toward your transcription skill (one of the hardest skills to earn points for). I FLOPPED on the first transcription task, but through the quizzes and Homework #2, I was able to get the points I needed and ultimately didn't even have to do Transcription Task #2. The final was super similar to the quizzes. Each skill had a section in the exam with a few questions, for full credit in a particular section you had to earn a certain number of points and the rest would go toward skills mastery. As you can see, you have a ton of opportunities to max out your skills and earn a really good grade in the class. Good luck and don't stress!

Professor Bell was great! Her lectures are very engaging and she's really kind and funny. She records lectures but if you want participation points you have to attend them which are also streamed on Zoom. She does use skills grading which is 60% of your grade. There were also three homework assignments which are a little difficult but grades leniently. Overall, I would take this professor again.

This is a great class and Elise is a great professor. She's very caring about the students learning and her grading system is the best. I'm a CS major taking a Ling Sci-Tech and this class was a breeze. The content as well is also very interesting.

I loved Bell. Such a captivating lecturer who always made the two hour class period feel fun rather than draining. Also, the course material is genuinely so cool, and you can really tell that Bell loves the subject material more than anyone. I would take more classes with Bell given any opportunity. I wish I went to more of her OH, but thats on me because I get anxious over going to office hours, regardless of who the instructor/TA is. Would certainly take 102 again if I could.

Big Dr. Bell fan and I appreciate her grading style. It's weekly problem sets that are challenging to figure out on your own so I suggest going to office hours if you're stuck. The midterm and final are also a bit difficult but the majority of the grade is skills mastery which you can work on throughout the quarter through the assignments tests and optional quizzes. When I took it in the spring she recorded lectures which was lovely but I do recommend going to class in person since it's easiest to understand everything. Dr. Bell works to engage with students and ensure learning and I love her use of slides and other materials to engage people in the class. It's clear she's passionate about the subject.

Professer Bell is a great lecturer and presents course material and assignments in an easy and understandable manner. I recommend taking a class with her!

60% of grade is guaranteed from skill mastery which is busywork she gives so many opportunities for, the other 15% grade is homeworks that are mostly graded on completion. participation 10% which she gives you so many different ways to earn and many opportunities that you dont have to stress about missing a few lectures or so. participation earned via iclicker, exit tickets which you have up to midnight day of to do, and in class assignments which she gives time and help for(points given just for doing assignment, not if you are right). the only thing you have to somewhat work for is the final exam.

I absolutely loved this class. My experience was nothing but positive and I am really glad that I get to take another class (ling 119A) with Professor Bell. I learned a lot, and as someone who enjoys learning new languages, this class has helped me greatly. It completely changed the way I hear things; I could never go back. I see phonetics everywhere now!

The lectures were very engaging and I liked the in-class activities and practice. At the end of the quarter, we got some guest lecturers, which were a great treat.

Rather than a traditional grading system, this class used a skills mastery system. There is a list of skills you need to learn, each with a certain number of points, and you get many opportunities to demonstrate them, mostly in the form of weekly online open-book quizzes. Your skills mastery grade can only go up, not down, and once you've earned all the points needed for a skill, you don't need to earn any more for that skill (but if you choose to for practice, you won't get deducted for wrong answers). It was really satisfying for me to see my skills mastery increase over the course of the quarter!

There were three homeworks. Although I found HW 2 and 3 pretty challenging, they were graded on completion.

It was also nice how we did not have a midterm exam. The final exam was pretty tough (the average was 73), but it was worth only 15% of the grade, so it wasn't a problem at all.

Overall, I really enjoyed the course and I'd highly recommend it!

This class was TOUGH. It probably would've helped going to office hours, but the grading in this class was very nitpicky. She doesn't use slides, but she uses google docs. She does this thing called EMRN where you have 6 homeworks and then it's graded on that scale so if you get an E OR M its passing, but N gives you time to revise. She also drops one of the homeworks. So that was good, but her midterm average was a 72 and her final was very hard, but i think she curved it because average was an 85.

Dr. Bell is so nice and accommodating! She really works hard to make sure her students learn the material, there was a lot of practice even during lecture (as should always be the case in a phonetics class). The material does get tricky, especially transcriptions and spectrograms, and skills-based grading might be a little confusing, but it really boosts your grade. Not to mention the fact that Dr. Bell always tried to engage with us on as personal a level as possible. Take her for any phonetics class, you won't regret it!