Perla Rozencvaig

Perla is absolutely fantastic. If you are looking to take Spanish with someone who not only really cares about her students, but is also an expert in her field, you'll be in luck with Perla. It is so obvious that she loves teaching, and she makes an effort to make sure that all of her students stay on track with the course. If you need extra help, she's extremely accommodating. She's also super understanding if you need an extension. She grades fairly in my opinion. Participation is a large part of your grade, and she calls on people so essentially everyone participates which helps when final grades come out. If you get a chance to talk with her about Cuban politics or any politics really, definitely do so! She's a wealth of knowledge. If you're enthusiastic and put effort into the class, she won't over look it. Pretty much, she's great. I definitely recommend any of her classes. (I've taken three with her.)

I had a really easy and nice Spanish professor last semester, but didn't learn much so I thought I'd challenge myself by taking Perla's class. Boy was I WRONG. Not only am I still not learning anything, my grade is suffering as well. Whatever you do, do not take this class. She is worse than any professor I even had in public high school in Los Angeles, and that's saying A LOT. You will not learn Spanish because she goes so quickly, never speaks English (even when teaching a grammatical concept) and only goes over exercises and never actually teaches anything. She assigns an unreasonable amount of work. She plays total favorites and expects us to know Spanish without actually teaching it. She is a ridiculously hard grader, she will give you a B on a paper and after you make the corrections she suggests, only gives you a B+.

Perla is a great professor. She really helped me improve my Spanish (both speaking and writing). She is very patient and always takes time to make sure students understand the grammatical points. She is very pleasant as a professor and my only complaint is that she often interrupts her students as they speak. I understand that this is important when trying to learn a language, but I feel that she does it a bit too often. But the interrupting is something that should be overlooked because she is an amazing professor. If you want to truly learn Spanish and have fun while doing it take her class.

I took this class my first semester at Columbia, with AP credits, and loved it. We worked through various genres, poetry, short story, essay etc., receving a sample of each type of writing, reading and then discussing it, and then writing a piece in that style. We did grammatical exercises as necessary, but the exposure to various extremely interesting works in Spanish, and the chance to practice writing was wonderful. Class discussions were intimate and helpful to those (like me) who needed to practice their language skills. (Prof. Rozencvaig has the gift of waiting patiently while someone struggles for a word without making them feel stupid. If you still have trouble, she will gently offer a suggestion, but she'll wait while you finish your thought.) I have nothing against wanting to take a Spanish Lit course, but don't skip Perla Rozencvaig's class either. - You get to read the likes of Jorge Luis Borges, and Ana Lydia Vega, and you get practice writing and speaking as well. Generally, an excellent course.

Perla's certainly very nice, but I must say this class turned me off to Spanish and Hispanic studies greatly. Classes were repetitive, which is typical with languages, but she rarely clearly explained the grammar we were studying. Had I not known most of the grammar beforehand I probably would have gone crazy. She definitely had favorites and didn't try to hide that, calling on the same few people over and over again. Her policy on compositions (she averages the grade between original and revised versions) was unnecessary since she rarely bumped the grade any more than from a B to a B+ even if all corrections were made. I also found it frustrating that she never responded to emails or made an effort to use Courseworks (or any technology) in this class. Overall, she's a sweet woman but did not create an environment or class that I enjoyed or found to inspire interest in the language. p.s. Don't get all of the books listed on courseworks (and DON'T buy the $80 online component), because we never used an expensive textbook or the online version. $115 wasted, $80 of which I can't get back.

Perla was absolutely terrible--our whole class complained about her every single day. She ran out of time and we ended up doing the last chapter in 2 days. She is extremely disorganized, and she picks favorites (those who speak Spanish fluently already) and least-favorites. She picked really hard on her least-favorites. The kids just looked so sad after each class. I know she has a decent review, but if you are taking this class just to satisfy a requirement (as almost all of my entirely unhappy class was) find someone FUN!

Perla is an absolutely wonderful professor. She is warm, caring, and she always was willing to meet anytime to discuss anything whether or not it had anything to do with class. She was a really easy grader, and we were allowed to do two versions of every paper that then were combined for a final grade. She was really flexible about homework assignments, and she really understood that the way to fluency is through allowing everybody the chance to speak and discuss, and so she would gently guide our conversations by allowing each person a chance to talk and express herself. My Spanish improved immensely with Perla, and I have enjoyed continuing our conversations past the class itself into the new semester. She is also really involved in the Cuban-American community in New York and in the film community, and so always is promoting some events or film showing and always invites her students. She is a lot of fun, and I would definitely take her class again if given the chance!

If you enter Columbia with lots of AP Spanish credits they may try to steer you into her 4900 class. This is a bad idea -- it's basically L&R in Spanish. Doesn't cover much beyind basic grammar and not much attention given to developing writing style. Even worse: because of the high course number, many beginning Spanish Grad. students sign up for the course, which makes the grading that much tougher. Sign up for a Spanish Lit. class instead.

I loved Perla! She is an absolutely sweet and caring woman. She is very understanding when it comes to work as well. I enjoyed her class because she made us participate - this makes the class go by quicker and helps me learn Spanish. Our class was a lot of fun -- she usually let us work in partners or groups on assignments or we just discussed and chatted about life... in spanish. She rarely gave actual lessons (that stuff is all in the book) and I'm thankful, because that would have been so boring. Some people in my class thought she was a bit intimidating or even mean? for calling on them, but I say, suck it up. She also throws her classes parties at the end of the semester...our conversation with her at the party = our final oral. AWESOME.

Perla was ok, she is certainly understanding and willing to work with the students. I found some of the exercises and readings in the class to be simply pointless. I mean, what El Coronel? That was the worst piece of crap ever.