B.U.+Language+Courses

Ancient Greek French German Russian Spanish



Ancient Greek
Professor Stephen Esposito
 * CAS CL 261** Plato and Paul (3rd Semester Greek)

This was an absolutely FANTASTIC course!!! Classes are run as an out-loud translating seminar with Esposito asking periodic questions on forms or going on tangents about the content. There are bi-weekly-ish quizzes on forms and/or principal parts with are weighty but not actually difficult. If you are willing to put in a pretty extensive effort, you will come to understand and love Greek.

I highly recommend reviewing forms over whatever vacation you have before taking this course, as he has pretty high expectations. Reviewer: PRP

Professor Stephen Esposito
 * CAS CL 262** Homeric Epic (4th Semester Greek)

A wonderful class! The professor was amazing and extremely helpful and the material was interesting (Homer’s poetry). The homework wasn’t too time-consuming or hard but Esposito would give a fairly difficult quiz every Friday. The tests were also pretty difficult but not impossible and there were only two: the midterm and final. I would not recommend this class to people who do not enjoy Greek because it is difficult and pretty intensive. The average class grade was about a C or lower. And, again, if you want to do well in this course: participate!! Reviewer: Terra Hittson

Professor Mark Alonge
 * CAS CL 391** Greek Seminar (5th Semester Greek)

This course was not very difficult, and with Alonge it was very boring. The reading assignments were time-consuming but the Greek itself wasn’t difficult to translate. The class wasn’t difficult because there was no focus on grammar, instead we only did translation. The only caution I think I should add is that the homework takes forever. For me, it took about 2 to 3 hours to complete the homework assigned daily. The tests were easy, as was the final exam; there was also an 8 page paper (in English) so be warned! If you want to do well in this course participate a lot! Reviewer: Terra Hittson



French
Professor Leslie Yoder
 * CAS LF 212** 4th semester French

Books: Camus, Albert. The Stranger.

Before coming to the Academy in tenth grade, I’d taken French through middle school and took French II at my high school my freshman year. My sophomore year I’d taken Latin, and I placed into 4th semester at BU having had no French the year before and having only taken French II. This rather set the tone of the course: it was really pretty simple and straightforward. Since this is a required course for many students, not many students are terribly enthusiastic or participatory; don’t worry too much about feeling behind if you haven’t taken other BU French classes. Basic concepts include general grammatical concepts – nothing too confounding or advanced – and almost no vocabulary, at least in my section. All LF 212 classes read Albert Camus’s The Stranger, in its original French. Class discussions are bare-bones basic, so no need to worry about picking up every nuance. Reviewer: Curt Ganeles
 * Hint**: buy the book in English and read along there. Homework was generally no more than 1hr between class meetings. You’ll write three 1-page papers, graded on grammatical accuracy, so mistakes add up fast. You can revise them all; your drafts’ grades are averaged. Four quizzes, midterm and final exam. There are also irritating skits that are filmed in the Language Lab filming room. You can get an A pretty easily in this course.

Professor Liliane Dusewoir I took French II and III at BU, and while my teachers were lackluster and I didn’t learn much, I don’t think my experience in French IV was as much a cakewalk as Curt suggests. The number and type of assignments varies slightly from teacher to teacher. E.g. I did not have any quizzes but had 4 compositions. My teacher actually made us learn the material and do the homework, and while she did not test us on vocab, she asked many vocab questions in class. Looking at the differences between Curt’s and my experience, I would say that your experience in the class will largely depend on the instructor/how much s/he expects you to know. Reviewer: Kirin Kachroo-Levine

Professor Lylian Bourgois
 * CAS LF 303** Conversational French I

The logical progression from LF 212, this class was much more difficult but ultimately rewarding and enjoyable. Bourgois was at first daunting, intimidating, and unhelpful, but I just needed to adjust to his class dynamic; once I did, things became clearer and more straightforward. It helps to have thick skin and not become discouraged. Lots of reading, all written in original French with no available translations. To succeed in this class, you must do all readings carefully and participate in class. Many movies, most with subtitles, are required for this course; these take many hours to watch out of class. Grammatical concepts are much more sophisticated than in previous French classes; since 300 level classes are not required for BU students, the course is structured to be a much more in-depth look at the various nuances of spoken and written French. It’ll take time to get the concepts down, and the teacher doesn’t hold your hand like in 200 level French. That said, Bourgois was reasonably flexible and was pretty thorough; a nice guy, despite his fondness for leather pants. Four quizzes (lowest grade is dropped), four 1-1.25 page essays (only the first can be revised, one is in-class), Two Part Midterm (takes two class periods), one skit (write script, memorize lines), occasional oral presentations (graded fairly hard), final exam. If you pull long hours studying and really try, you can get away with an A.



German
Professor: Kelly Polychroniou
 * CAS LG 111/112/211** 1st/2nd /3rd Semester German

I liked Prof. Polychroniou a lot; thus, I didn’t mind having her for 3 semesters in a row. The class was not too hard, but I feel like I got a thorough understanding of German. There are no presentations. In the 1st two semesters the graded homework was exercises from a workbook (easy), in 3rd semester the graded homework was, usually, short (100 words) writing assignments on a reading or a movie from class. Plus, there was homework from the textbook which she rarely collected; instead, we went over it in class. Do this homework, because she’ll call on you and expect you to know the answer! In class, expect to do a lot of group-work, with groups of 2-5 students, every day. I enjoyed the group-work, but others might not, depending on your learning style. Reviewer: Anne Goncharov



Russian
Professor Irene Katz
 * CAS LR 111/112** 1st/2nd Semester Russian

Take this class for the language, not for the experience. I didn’t find Russian to be that hard, and while learning it wasn’t much fun, it was bearable. Professor Katz is intimidating—she assigns 1-2 hours of homework a night and requires that you pass in the written portion (for corrections but not grades). She’ll definitely call on you at least once every class, usually in turn. It means you get to talk a lot, but that also you have to be prepared. There are no projects, only short oral presentations, and second semester we read an abridged version of a Pushkin story. The material moved at a reasonable pace—it seems fast at first, but I think you get used to it. Grades for written work are based on the quizzes we had on every chapter (about seven), as well as a midterm and final. In the end, I think Professor Katz seems like she expects a lot more than she actually does—do well on the quizzes and exams, don’t be the class delinquent, and you can get a good grade in this class. Reviewer: Shishi Chen

"Irene Katz' voice will ring through your ears like a culmination of all of your worst fears and memories perpetually throughout your lifetime if you dare take this nauseating, hellish class. You have been warned." -Andrew Feinberg



Spanish
Professor: Nicole Adamowicz
 * CAS LS 211** 3rd Semester Spanish

If you’ve taken two semesters of Spanish already, you can expect the difficulty level to remain at about the same level. No dictionaries are allowed during her in-class compositions, but as long as you have good spelling and grammar, you can ace them easily, especially after getting 5 extra points from corrections. Adamowicz is a great teacher—instead of pointlessly going over homework that we’ve already done, we have conversations and such during class. She speaks no English during class, but makes her Spanish very understandable, and can explain grammatical concepts very well. I would say that I did a fair bit less studying in her class than in previous semesters, not because the course was easier, but because I actually was learning the material in class. She does assign and collect homework, but it is really easy and insignificant. I recommend Adamowicz over Parra, whom I have this semester and doesn’t seem quite as good. Reviewer: Adam K

Professor: Sue Griffin As Adam mentioned, 3rd semester Spanish is not very much more difficult than 2nd semester Spanish. You cover many of the same topics again, building conversation skills and general familiarity with the language. Sue Griffin is an excellent teacher and, while not overly generous, fair in her grading. She does not grade homework based on completion, but rather collects it and assigns it a percentage. She allows you to re-do homework and some other assignments to earn back credit. Unlike some other Spanish teachers, she actually speaks only in Spanish, which forces students to understand and become accustom to the language. She is very good at explaining new concepts in Spanish even when the students do not understand exactly what she means. Reviewer: Toby Waite

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