I hope this isn’t a dumb question but what’s the difference in terms of difficulty when it comes to a foreign language class between high school and community college (with experience of taking that language in high school before).
I understand that sometimes it depends on professor or even school, but I was just wondering if there’s any difference in rigor between them at all?
College foreign language courses typically move at a faster pace, so that a semester of college foreign language will often cover what would take a year (or even more) of high school foreign language. However, the equivalence is not exact and varies between different high schools and colleges, so whatever school you will now attend will probably have some sort of placement procedure or testing to recommend the appropriate level course for you based on what you learned previously.
In high school, day1 of the lesson you come with your book, the teacher explains a point, you have tons of exercises making you repeat the concept, you have similar HW, repeat the next day, add new vocabulary the following day, and after a week move to the next point in the chapter. A lot of time is spent on vocabulary and grammar, although you hear snippets about the culture and have to do things with your language skills (presentation, dialoguing, reading, speaking, writing). The type of assignments will be consistent with high school.
In college, you got your syllabus the first day and you arrive for lesson 1 having read the lesson and completed a dozen exercises. The professor checks you understand the basics (5mn) and moves to applications (20mn), then adds a text or video that includes the concept and new vocabulary you infer from context and better write it down to memorize, then you go home with 2 1/2 hours of homework, reviewing the concept through further exercises (often online) and moving on to another part of the chapter in preparation for the follow lesson. The college class will include cultural concepts, excepts from the news (you may be assigned to watch TV5Monde if your college gets it) and offers lots of authentic language through texts, films, etc. Grammar is always in service of what you can do and you’re expected to perform.
So, you go very fast. If you don’t like busywork and memorize easily you’ll like it better but be aware the pace for levels 1-3 is brutal. On the other hand, you’ll be doing AP level work after only 3 or 4 semesters depending on your college.