<p>I have checked into this course on Grade Distribution. The grades are horrible considering the non-major nature of most students. Would anyone have the the insight? Is this due to the gap between placement test results and teachers' expectation?</p>
<p>What is your background in French? I am currently studying French and doing upper 300 and low 400 level courses and did take F200 a ways back. I found it pretty easy. Theres just a good amount of work and a bit of studying for each test. I liked my professor and ended up with an A in the class because I did what was required, like going to class and participating. It’s really not a bad class at all. I think that a lot of the grades were for students who are just doing French because of the language requirement. I’m working on my major so I was more interested in it. There are several instructors teaching F200 so it can be influenced on who is your teacher.</p>
<p>Vihzel,</p>
<p>Thanks for the note. My son will be a freshman in Fall. He probably will be facing F-200. Did you take French before coming to IU? I am just wondering if the placement test is an accurate indication of students’ level. Do instructors expect that students in F-200 had only one year of college French w/o previous exposure?</p>
<p>I did take French before coming to IU and decided to start from the beginning when I entered IU. It really isn’t that difficult if your son had previous years experience. I think he’ll do just fine in F200 as it’s very easy to pick things up again. The instructors do expect a year’s experience but it’s really easy to catch up. I really don’t remember the practice exam because I took it like 3 years ago and don’t know if things have changed since then. I do know that there are a lot of freshman that started at the 300-level, but the 300-level is much harder than the 200-level since instructors expect the students to have a decently strong background in French. If your son has never taken French before then starting at the 200 level will be difficult since the instructors speak only in French (which they do also in the 100 class) but they expect the students to know certain aspects of French.</p>
<p>Ace, the Spanish department at IU uses a test devised at the University of Wisconsin for the orientation placement test. I would not be surprised if the French and Italian Department at IU also uses a French test from the University of Wisconsin, since the max score you can get on IU’s French and Spanish placement tests is 850 points each, which is the max for both U of Wisconsin tests. You could probably contact Professor Eric MacPhail (macphai @indiana.edu) and ask him which test they use.</p>
<p>Here are some links on the Wisconsin test, including a link to a practice French test, and IU FRIT info on placement.</p>
<p>[French</a> Placement Test](<a href=“http://testing.wisc.edu/french%20test.html]French”>http://testing.wisc.edu/french%20test.html)</p>
<p><a href=“http://testing.wisc.edu/French%20Practice%20Exam.pdf[/url]”>http://testing.wisc.edu/French%20Practice%20Exam.pdf</a></p>
<p>[Placement</a> Exam Information](<a href=“http://www.indiana.edu/~frithome/undergrads/placement.shtml]Placement”>http://www.indiana.edu/~frithome/undergrads/placement.shtml)</p>
<p>bthomp1 and Vihzel,</p>
<p>He has taken four years of French in HS so far. The class lecture and discussion were in French probably with a slow pace. He has not practiced speaking much outside the class room. I doubt that he can test out F200. </p>
<p>Thanks for the info. I will ask S1 to look into it.</p>
<p>My son took two trimesters of Spanish each of his four years of high school, and did not think he would place very high in the test at orientation. We found a few weeks before the test that IU would be using the U of Wisconsin test, which concentrates heavily on grammar and has no listening or speaking components, not to mention that it was only a one hour test. His last Spanish class was in February, he took the test in mid June after reviewing Spanish grammar a few weeks before the test, and tested into the fifth semester class, which gave him ten free Spanish credits after passing the fifth semester class. He absolutely never spoke Spanish outside of class. You might be surprised how well your son can do with four years of HS French. The ten free credits my son got come in really handy every semester for registering relatively early for classes.</p>
<p>You can get a good idea from the course enrollment statistics how many freshmen tested into the 200- and 300- level French classes last summer, as most students take their first foreign language class in the first Fall, before they have had time to forget what they learned in hs.</p>
<p>[Course</a> and Section Enrollment Statistics](<a href=“http://registrar.indiana.edu/~registra/coursesectn/cs_4108.html#BL-FRIT]Course”>http://registrar.indiana.edu/~registra/coursesectn/cs_4108.html#BL-FRIT)</p>
<p>I just got your private message, and answered you there about my child’s experience. Bottom line was that the TEACHER has made all the difference in 200 (hard, worse grade) and 250 (easy, good grade). My child said it’s been an amazing difference in this and other classes. So it’s hard to judge by others’ experience because they may have had a hard or easy teacher in any given class. One class my daughter took had 2 teachers in 2 sections of the same class. I don’t remember the exact grade distribution but it was along the lines of 40 kids, 1 teacher giving 9 As, mostly Bs, the rest lower. The other teacher gave EVERY STUDENT in the class an A.</p>
<p>R124687 and bthomp1,</p>
<p>Thank you very much for the insight. It does sound like the expectations between F200 and 250 are quite different. He may be in for a big shock if he can’t test out F200.</p>
<p>@R124687</p>
<p>How did your daughter take the same class twice? That doesn’t make sense to me. I don’t know how your daughter would be able to know what kind of grades the other students would have received because I know that French teachers don’t release the grades of other students. They only tell you your score.</p>
<p>vihzel: Perhaps I misquoted class numbers, I don’t have access to her transcript.
She has taken 2 semesters now, and I THOUGHT they were 200 and 250. Apologies if I’m mistaken. As for your question about grades…the class where I’m quoting grades was not French, it was an Honors course of some type. It was included with all the other grade distribution reports. Though I’d assume French teachers were in this report as well, it’s been months since I looked at it. Her comparison of her two French teachers was a generality. One was hard, she got a B. This semester is a MUCH easier teacher, she’s getting an A. Don’t know if that clears up anything I said, or makes it worse.</p>
<p>Here are French grade distributions for Fall 2010. Pretty hard to shop around for a good grader in lower level foreign language classes, as they are usually taught by grad students with little or no track record.</p>
<p>[Bloomington</a> Campus Grade Distribution Report](<a href=“http://registrar.indiana.edu/gradedist/4108_report1a.html#BL-FRIT]Bloomington”>http://registrar.indiana.edu/gradedist/4108_report1a.html#BL-FRIT)</p>
<p>It isn’t unusual for everybody in a Hutton Honors College class to get an A.
<a href=“http://registrar.indiana.edu/gradedist/4108_report1a.html#BL-HONR[/url]”>http://registrar.indiana.edu/gradedist/4108_report1a.html#BL-HONR</a></p>
<p>In F-200, quite a few instructors gave a few A- with rest of the grades =< B+. I wish that they would have Hutton F-200. :(</p>