GERMAN 1
Elementary German
Description: Lecture, five hours. P/NP or letter grading.
Units: 4.0
Units: 4.0
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Most Helpful Review
Fall 2021 - Kyle is one of the best professors I have had! He is very engaging, chill, and accommodating. Naturally, German 1 has a lot of material to cover and he does a great job covering it in such a short amount of time. The class consists of an online textbook (Blink Learning) which is modern but also can be hard to navigate in the beginning. There are a few writing assignments and a midterm and a final. In terms of workload though, while it may seem like a lot, Kyle walks you through everything and is very accommodating with his deadlines. He opted to give less homework during midterm week and he always made sure to ask us if the homework was too much. He also extended certain deadlines like papers and made an effort to not overload us with German if the energy in class was too low. Also, the midterm and final were just ccle tests that we were given 10 days to take and could have as many attempts to do as possible. Literally, the only way to fail this class is to not participate/show up to class. I took this class in a hybrid fashion where 2 lectures were in person while 1 was online. I definitely recommend opting for the more IRL option if given the choice because the class is definitely difficult when it is online. Kyle likes to pick on people to speak and practice with (which sounds intimidating but is most definitely not) and over zoom this was very difficult. Honestly, the in-person class appears as more of a discussion rather than a straight-up lecture where he always checks in to answer questions and check for understanding. He always has slides too and posts them to ccle before class so that we can follow along with him if needed and prep ahead of time (not required though). Overall, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND KYLE ROSEN FOR ANY GERMAN CLASS. He also studies philosophy if you are interested in that and he is always open to talking about it with people outside of class.
Fall 2021 - Kyle is one of the best professors I have had! He is very engaging, chill, and accommodating. Naturally, German 1 has a lot of material to cover and he does a great job covering it in such a short amount of time. The class consists of an online textbook (Blink Learning) which is modern but also can be hard to navigate in the beginning. There are a few writing assignments and a midterm and a final. In terms of workload though, while it may seem like a lot, Kyle walks you through everything and is very accommodating with his deadlines. He opted to give less homework during midterm week and he always made sure to ask us if the homework was too much. He also extended certain deadlines like papers and made an effort to not overload us with German if the energy in class was too low. Also, the midterm and final were just ccle tests that we were given 10 days to take and could have as many attempts to do as possible. Literally, the only way to fail this class is to not participate/show up to class. I took this class in a hybrid fashion where 2 lectures were in person while 1 was online. I definitely recommend opting for the more IRL option if given the choice because the class is definitely difficult when it is online. Kyle likes to pick on people to speak and practice with (which sounds intimidating but is most definitely not) and over zoom this was very difficult. Honestly, the in-person class appears as more of a discussion rather than a straight-up lecture where he always checks in to answer questions and check for understanding. He always has slides too and posts them to ccle before class so that we can follow along with him if needed and prep ahead of time (not required though). Overall, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND KYLE ROSEN FOR ANY GERMAN CLASS. He also studies philosophy if you are interested in that and he is always open to talking about it with people outside of class.
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Most Helpful Review
Winter 2024 - Doctor Tarnawska Senel is an amazing professor! She really cares about her students and is open to communication and feedback. Despite it being an asynchronous course, she communicated frequently and responded to emails quickly. When I asked about potential improvements to the course, she made them right away. The only problem that I had with this course was the the website used, BlinkLearning was very hard to use and had many bugs, making it difficult to use. Other than that, I really liked the class and the asynchronous format works pretty much as good as it can for a language learning class. The class was structured into three units per week, each unit consists of watching a mini lecture from the professor and then doing two large chunks of BlinkLearning assignments. On top of that each week you also have a discussion post and have to schedule a time to meet with a partner and record yourselves doing German activities. This class is easy in the sense that as long as you do the work, you should get an A. The exams are even allowed to be taken as many times as you want until you get a grade you are happy with. However it is a LOT of work. You have to actually be committed to learning the language, and understand that it takes a lot of time. The upside is that its asynchronous so despite being a lot of work, its flexible on when you have to do it, which is nice if your trying to fit this class into a specific spot in your schedule. Overall, I really enjoyed learning German and if you want to learn German this is a great class to do so! I would definitely recommend taking it!
Winter 2024 - Doctor Tarnawska Senel is an amazing professor! She really cares about her students and is open to communication and feedback. Despite it being an asynchronous course, she communicated frequently and responded to emails quickly. When I asked about potential improvements to the course, she made them right away. The only problem that I had with this course was the the website used, BlinkLearning was very hard to use and had many bugs, making it difficult to use. Other than that, I really liked the class and the asynchronous format works pretty much as good as it can for a language learning class. The class was structured into three units per week, each unit consists of watching a mini lecture from the professor and then doing two large chunks of BlinkLearning assignments. On top of that each week you also have a discussion post and have to schedule a time to meet with a partner and record yourselves doing German activities. This class is easy in the sense that as long as you do the work, you should get an A. The exams are even allowed to be taken as many times as you want until you get a grade you are happy with. However it is a LOT of work. You have to actually be committed to learning the language, and understand that it takes a lot of time. The upside is that its asynchronous so despite being a lot of work, its flexible on when you have to do it, which is nice if your trying to fit this class into a specific spot in your schedule. Overall, I really enjoyed learning German and if you want to learn German this is a great class to do so! I would definitely recommend taking it!
Most Helpful Review
Spring 2024 - Overall a great class! Somewhat immersion based, Dr. Tovey just kind of talks a lot in German and expects you to try to use context clues to understand or ask questions, but it's pretty effective in helping you learn. There's a solid amount of homework but its pretty useful and doable once you get the hang of it. The textbook was kind of expensive and alternate providers didn't work out for me, but you need it to do homework and classwork. Everyone participates pretty much every class because the classes are small, but it's pretty natural and you'll get randomly called on or can volunteer. I thought this class was super fun, it's pretty social because for a good amount of it you're just learning intro questions in German so you get to chat with whoever's sitting with you. I really enjoyed class time and would recommend!
Spring 2024 - Overall a great class! Somewhat immersion based, Dr. Tovey just kind of talks a lot in German and expects you to try to use context clues to understand or ask questions, but it's pretty effective in helping you learn. There's a solid amount of homework but its pretty useful and doable once you get the hang of it. The textbook was kind of expensive and alternate providers didn't work out for me, but you need it to do homework and classwork. Everyone participates pretty much every class because the classes are small, but it's pretty natural and you'll get randomly called on or can volunteer. I thought this class was super fun, it's pretty social because for a good amount of it you're just learning intro questions in German so you get to chat with whoever's sitting with you. I really enjoyed class time and would recommend!
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