Horrible teacher for beginner to elementary french students. Expects students to already be fluent; speaks way to fast for non-fluent french students and gives way too much homework.

I took French 2 and French 3 with Marlene, and to be honest I have never hated any class more in my life.

I did take this class P/NP, because I was only taking it to fulfill my foreign language requirement- I think this was the only thing that kept me from losing it.

Not only is this class everyday, but is filled with tons of busy work. Marlene doesn't care that her students have other classes, activities, or work. She rarely updates the CCLE webpage on time- so the homework assignments will change late at night. I don't have time to wait around all day, constantly checking the website to see if our homework is still the same. I want to be able to get my French homework done and move on with my life.

Additionally, she has no respect for our time. Class never ends on time, and then she gets upset when you get up to leave. A lot of us have less than 10 minutes to get across campus to other classes, and she does not care to recognize this fact.

She treats her students like children. Most of the class is her speaking in French and writing things on the board. She expects a lot of student participation, and is overly critical about everything you say. Everyday, students do activities from the textbook. She does not seem to believe that college students are capable of getting into pairs to do these activities.

So, for every single activity, on every day, she walks around pointing to students who are sitting next to each other saying "comme ca, comme ca"- to pair us up, as if we cannot do it ourselves. It wastes a lot of time, and clearly shows that she has no respect for us.

Finally, her grading on compositions is ridiculous. She tells us on day one that this class is about making mistakes and learning. However, on all graded assignments she expects perfection. Not to mention the class moves so fast, and she is not good and effectively teaching, so most people just leave in frustration.

Overall, if you can take French with another TA, do it. A friend of mine wanted me to continue on through French 6 to do the French minor, however, my experience this year made me hate French so much, that the thought of having to take more French makes me want to vomit.

If you like busy work, wasting your time, sitting in frustration, and being treated like a child, then take French with Marlene. If not, run away, and take French with somebody else.

I took French 3 this fall quarter with Marlene and I found her very helpful. I had taken up to French 4 in high school but ended up placing into 3 because I hadn't spent time reviewing and didn't take the placement test very seriously. Therefore, I was definitely felt I was at an advantage in the class. She did go very quickly sometimes but was always open to meeting for office hours which I found very helpful. She expects her students to speak in class and while this is intimidating for a lot of the students who struggle with the accent, she only ever gave positive feedback to those who contributed.
We did a lot of group activities which she allotted more time than I thought was necessary. Homework involved the textbook and online resource iLrn. There were 3 compositions, one of which was actually a group powerpoint. She gives feedback for the other two and then you correct and resubmit for a final grade averaged between the first and final draft. There were several exams with listening comprehension parts.
The final consists of an oral part, where you are expected to be able to carry on a conversation with predetermined topics (e.g. family, friends, studies, where you live, etc.) for at least 8 minutes with another student in the class. Then you read a paragraph in french aloud for pronunciation. The written part of the final was focused on a movie we watched in class, L'auberge espagnol, it had several parts on grammar (subjonctif, imparfait, ce que/ce qui/que/qui, etc.) as well as vocabulary.
Overall as long as you go to class, attempt to participate, and if you struggle go to office hours you should do well. The class reminded me a lot of my high school class, which I liked. If you prefer classes where not a lot of effort is required on your part (e.g. no homework everyday) then this is not the class for you.