[SPAN V1102] Elementary Spanish II

I absolutely love Isaura. She makes class enjoyable, so much so that Spanish went from my least favorite class to my favorite. She really wants you to learn, and she never makes you feel silly for asking a question. She also has a knack for explaining things in ways which are clear and that I really understood. There was a lot of Spanish speaking in groups and also as a class, and it was fun and also helped the students get to know each other (which was really nice and doesn't always happen). Homework was standard, and there were 4 compositions. She's terrific, you won't be sorry if you take a class with her.

The first day of I thought this 30something non-native Spanish speaker was going to be disorganized and kind of scared like most young teachers are. Oh, how I was proven wrong. Craig is one of the few young teachers that has his shit down. His in class activities actually got me excited and speaking instead of awkwardly sitting around. Instead of practicing trite dinner conversations, we talk about cool short stories, politics and crazy situations. He is also super chill and jokes around in class but still maintains the respect a teacher needs to do his job well. However, don't expect to walk through this class and expect to get an A. There isn't a whole lot of work but his expectations are definitely higher than that of my previous teacher (Gonzalez-Soto). I wouldn't recommend his class to anyone just looking to get their language requirement out of the way with as little work as possible. If you actually want to learn Spanish, TAKE HIS CLASS!!!

Not only is she a wonderful instructor, but she is also a wonderful person. Classes were informative and she would happily go over grammar and vocab. Sometimes they'd get boring just because we would be doing work in groups and she gave us way to much tie to complete the assignments, so you just end up talking in english, which she doesn't really care about. This class manages to be easy and help your Spanish. She gives A/A+ on almost all writing assignments and really wants you to succeed. Class participation is big and easy to get an A on. Take this class. She is adorable.

Oh my gosh, Javier is the kindest professor around. He is super patient, friendly, and the class never had that uptight, intimidating feeling of many language classes. Ideally, you speak Spanish the whole time, but Javier's not above explaining something in English if it's necessary. My speaking skills improved much more in this single semester class than in my three years of high school Spanish. Javier uses great PowerPoints (which he also posts online), language and speaking exercises, and his approach seemed to provide the basis for a really natural acquisition of the language. The class is light on written repetition, so unless you take the outside initiative it might be difficult to build up vocabulary and grammatical rules. Take this class!!

This is probably the best and most rewarding Spanish class I have ever taken, hands down. Unlike most other graduate instructors I have ever encountered at Columbia, Diana actually puts effort, planning, creativity, and care into her class. She is incredibly organized and makes use of all kinds of technology--CU EdBlogs, Google Sites, MySpanishLab, in class audio/video, etc. Note: because she uses the online service MySpanishLab, DO NOT BUY THE BOOKS USED OR SEPERATELY, as only the new book SET includes access to this, and seperately the access is very expensive. Expect to learn a lot, but also expect to be a little confused in class and commit a good amount of time outside of class. The time commitment is NOT overwhelming, however, as it is spread throughout the semester evenly. Rarely will there be any sleepless nights caused by her assignments--they usually take no more than 20-40 minutes 3x a week, and she is reasonable and forgiving if you forget an activity or two. The only things that take longer are compositions, rare longer assignments, and one project (it was centered around hispanic/spanish art in NYC and was as fun and rewarding as any other project I've done here).

This man is the best professor I have had so far at Barnard. If you are lucky enough to have the opportunity to take a Spanish class with him, I would highly encourage you to do so. He is extremely kind, caring and patient. Even when people in my class asked him repetitive questions and yelled out in English, he never lost his temper and remained extremely calm. His comments on all of my papers were extremely extensive and helpful and he is very available outside of the classroom. Because he is from Barcelona he really loves Spanish language and culture as well as sharing it with his students. Although the workload was a lot (we had to do all of the exercises for all the chapters we did in the red and blue gente workbooks as well as selected grammar exercises and compositions), I feel like I learned more Spanish with Javier in one semester than I did in my four years of Spanish before college.

She is a very good professor. She gives daily homework, but as long as you stay on top of it there shouldn't ever be a problem. She never picks the homework up. Instead, she goes over it in class so if you don't do it then she will know when she calls on you. She is very nice and really makes an effort to help everyone in the class succeed. She responds back to e-mail fairly quickly. She doesn't speak too fast and makes it easy to pick up on the language. I always looked forward to this class.

She is very into group work. I'm not sure if all Spanish classes are like this, but every class we had to work with a partner. It was usually good when you had someone who was a decent Spanish speaker, but sometimes it sucked.

She is pretty easy going. If you forget to do your homework one night, she doesn't hold it against you for the entire semester.

Basically he is awesome. Flexible with due dates and understanding. Wants you to do your best and have a good time. Class is very enjoyable and doing the homework isn't a big deal. You practice speaking a lot which ends up being really helpful and you learn without realizing it.

After taking Spanish 1102 with Juan in the Spring, I would feel wrong if I didn't write a review for him. Hands down, Juan is great. He had no trouble keeping our whole class engaged for the whole semester, which is especially difficult with a class that meets 4x a week. In short, Juan turned the class into a group of friends, who happen to be learning spanish together. We usually spent the majority of the class talking to one another and learning new things about everyone in the class, which eventually turned us into a big group that could speak together comfortably. Juan was most concerned with all of our individual development rather than being picky about grammar assignments and homework, which was a huge help and relief. I learned more spanish in one semester with Juan than in 4 years of high school spanish.

I would take professor jimenez's class again in a heartbeat. He has a way of making you learn without you realizing you're actually learning things. His classes are structured, as you'll see how he writes the class agenda on the board, but the class flows so smoothly you'll barely realize you're going from one task to the next. He's got a great sense of humor, is extremely friendly and very encouraging. you will never have to be nervous about speaking out loud in faulty spanish in his class because he is super nice when correcting you. just generally a great guy. if you want to have a good time learning spanish, professor jimenez's class is the place to be!

She is a really nice person,and you can tell that she puts a lot of effort into maintaining an entertaining class. However, she is not always great at explaining the material. In addition, if she ever notices you closing your eyes even for a second she will let you know it. She was also a really hard grader. The compositions were worth 25% of our grade. However, the grading scale used for them was unclear and they were graded ridiculously hard. It did not matter if I spent two hours, or five on a composition, I could never get an A on it.

So all in all, she's not a bad person so don't hesitate taking her unless you really want an A in the class.

I took Sooudi for both elementary spanish II and intermediate spanish I. I would recommend this class if you have a little background in spanish. Sooudi is well organized (following the syllabus very closely), very helpful, and also patient. I definitely recommend visiting her in her office hours if you are confused at all on her material. She is very helpful outside the classroom, and will even make time for students that can't visit during her office hours. I would recommend Sooudi if you have taken spanish in high school and have a very basic understanding of some of the material, but i would not recommend her of you do not have any foundations in spanish. Overall, she is a very well prepared teacher who is understanding and helpful (which is hard to find at Columbia). She grades work fairly and averages the rough draft and final draft of your essays to get your final grade on an essay.

After reading the previous reviews, I was kind of nervous taking Raquel's class but in the end I was glad I did. She is a bit eccentric and has some wierd rules, but her eccentric ways and rules only help you in the end. Her teaching style is a bit scattered but you get used to it. She does throw people out of the class for yawning and stretching but she only does it because she knows it's catching and pretty soon the whole class will be yawning if she doesn't outlaw it. You will have to work in pairs for the whole class, there is no individual work in here class but it does help with your conversational skills. I recommend the class only if you aren't a stickler for details bacuase she really doesn't have a structured class.

Overall a thorough and helpful professor. She isn't giving out any bonus points though, that's for sure. I would recommend her, as she can be there for you and she really goes through all the grammar. She is also lenient on a late assignment or a missed class.

Let me break this down for you, I couldn't tell if i hated the class or if I hated how she taught the class because I was too busy doing all the freakin homework.

She is no joke about the homework. I spent so much of my time just trying to complete all the assignments that I honestly didn't learn much spanish, which is very sad. She has the ability to teach the class, I saw it a few times when I looked up from doing MORE homework!
I am in intermediate spanish II now and I have about 1/3 the homework I had in D.Romero's elementary II course.