Participation is very crucial. Missing 3-4 classes will drop your grade by at least 6-7%, and it will be very hard to get it up after the fact. Participation is attendance. If you go to class and don't actually participate, you'll still get the grade, so just go to every class and you'll be fine. The quizzes/final are very ambiguous and you have to type out the EXACT word in order to get the points on a quiz, which is really tricky. Overall, if you want an A in this class, you need to know French already. So many of the words and concepts are very difficult to remember, it didn't really feel like I was in French 1 but rather a higher level class. The homework is online and it essentially acts like you already know French, and you definitely will lose points, which can add up since the homework grade is one bundled up grade. You will definitely have to use Google translate if you want to do well on those quizzes (there's three of them and they're worth 30%, with the final being worth 20% totaling to 50%). Wouldn't take again with professor Clarke, but perhaps another professor who understands how to teach a class to those who are complete beginners to French. Class vibes were chill/fun for the most part tho.