I had Yesenia for Spanish 3. When I first enrolled in the class and saw her rating, I tried to switch out lol. I just wanted a Spanish class that would be easy -- I haven't taken Spanish since high school -- and was scared because she sounded strict and demanding. I ended up staying in her class with pass/no pass as my grading basis. To my surprise, and to my delight, Yesenia's personality did not resemble the negative rating or her intense syllabus at all. She came into class every day laughing, smiling, and encouraging every one. She seemed to understand that people were nervous or stressed to speak Spanish, and she never pressured anyone to participate beyond their abilities. I ended up changing my grading basis to a letter grade because I was so confident I could get an A in the class after the first few weeks. Yesenia cares about you doing well in her class. If you are struggling, approach her during office hours or after class, and she will work with you to make sure you get a good grade and understand the concepts.

Quizzes - there was a quiz probably every other week on vocabulary and grammar we had learned through the homework. These quizzes were very easy, often multiple choice, and at the end of class after we reviewed (again) all of the material that would be on it.

Oral assessment - this is what I was most scared about because I suck at speaking Spanish and have stage fright, but it was a piece of cake. You have a group of 2 or 3 and receive a prompt 10 minutes before your assessment. The prompt is nearly identical to in-class activities or quiz questions we already had. You have to speak for 5 minutes, but you are in a group so it ends up being like 6 sentences per person. She is a very generous grader here -- I think all groups but one got 100% and i know those mfs cannot speak Spanish.

Performance assessment - again, these are so similar to the quizzes and in-class activities that they really aren't stressful. Just review vocabulary and grammar rules the night before and you will be fine. I recommend writing down a few example sentences from class so that you have a model for how to use grammar.

The class is so repetitive that it is hard to do poorly unless you really aren't paying attention. The in-class activities you do translate directly to the content on the exams.

I took a class with Yessenia for Spanish 3 but she isn't listed so here is my review. I felt pretty stupid every day in this class. I dreaded being cold called and I never felt like a safe environment to learn Spanish was fostered. I've taken both Spanish 1 and 2 at UCLA so I have a pretty good comparison to this course. I know that this is more advanced, but most of the time the entire class (except the Spanish speakers that should never have been in this class in the first place) was lost on verbal instructions. Yessenia talked pretty fast and wouldn't check in to make sure we were understanding. We never really do in class activities that are actually helpful to my learning. The most I have had to write is a sentence or two but then on the exam we were expected to write quite a few words. We barely practiced for the oral exam either yet were expected to have a fluent well flowing conversation. The class was conducted entirely in Spanish which I was expecting, yet I felt like I learned very little compared to my other classes which were a mix of English and Spanish. I also feel like the quizzes were harder than they needed to be - not to mention they are in person and not online like all of the other classes I have taken. I also feel like mandatory attendance harmed the class because people showed up even when they had no interest in being there. Those of us who wanted to learn were overshadowed by the people there only for attendance. I can tell that Yessenia cares, but it would be nice if she would teach to the level where the class is, not just the select few Spanish speakers who took the easy class rather than the appropriate one. We barely ever went over the vocabulary and half the time didn't even practice the grammar. To be completely honest, I am not sure what we do during class time but I am always more confused afterwards. I would recommend that people take this class with a different instructor if they actually want to learn Spanish and not have their confidence harmed. If you have the opportunity, take this class with anyone else, but if you can't be prepared to not learn, be cold called, and deal with mandatory attendance.

This was honestly one of my worst experiences with a professor that I have had at UCLA. I actually took her for Spanish 3 but she isn't on here as a professor for that class. The course itself is good and I really enjoy learning Spanish, but she made it miserable and way more stressful than it had to be. After our first oral presentation, we were given a 30-minute lecture where she yelled at us about how our presentations needed to be better. Even if they did need to be better yelling at us was completely uncalled for. She also yelled at a student for going to the bathroom during class. . She also yelled at a student for not having MyLab forcing him to have to say that he could not afford it in front of the entire class. She said that he would fail the class without it despite MyLab being worth 0% of our grade. I would highly not recommend this professor for the class.