Iziar De Miguel Arabaolaza

I learned to read, write, understand and speak elementary French. I also learned about French and Francophone culture, which was interesting. I feel much more confident about traveling to France and being able to function much better than before taking this course.

I made a lot of progress in terms of french grammar.

French I taught me the basics of foundational French, primarily from a grammatical lens. It was not an immersive class, and therefore I was left feeling somewhat disjointed in my knowledge -- I can read and write leaps and bounds above that which I can speak, and my listening comprehension feels almost null. However I would say that French I gave me so much insight into the process of learning a language. Columbia takes a very traditional approach to language learning, and it's unfortunately an approach that has been largely proven outdated. For a school that claims to base their pedagogy off of the latest in academic research, the language department feels markedly behind. For example, we hardly focus on pronunciation -- though sure, it is in the book -- and again, almost never hear words. However, if learning to speak a language is your ultimate aim (as it is mine), learning pronunciation first and foremost will lead to you being able to hear a word and spell it. If anything, you should be surprised by how a word is *spelled,* but by how a word sounds. It will help your comprehension in the long run, make learning vocabulary easier, etc. This class does not take that approach, and as such, I've found it my responsibility to go back and stitch together a better academic approach that fits my real goal of being able to truly speak and understand the language. Again, I'm pretty…

We learned reading, listening, speaking and writing. We basically learned grammar and vocabulary.

Basic principles of speaking, writing, and comprehending the french language. What you would expect from a the first two years of a language class in high school.

Vocabulary, most tenses (past, conditional, imperfect, future), and grammar/expressions in french.

I learned the basics of French language and culture.

I am not sure I will recommend with the same instructor.

J'adore tous les choses françaises - je ne sais pas pourquoi 1 Columbia University: Arts & Sciences Spring 2022 Course: FRENUN1102_001_2022_1-ELEMENTARYFRENCHII : FRENUN1102_001_2022_1 - ELEMENTARY FRENCH II Instructor: Iziar De Miguel Arabaolaza

basic french vocabulary, a few verb tenses