<p>I was placed into Span2010 but I never really liked Spanish so I decided to start over and take Latin1010. It says the class is for beginners but it irritates me and half of the class that the other half is filled with students that have taken 3-4 and even AP Latin in their high schools. Because of those students, the class is taught at a very fast pace as the teacher assumes that since half the class knows it, the other half is just slacking or something. I've heard this happen to some other intro level language classes, especially the Asian ones.</p>
<p>Obviously I don’t know the specifics of the students who are in your class, however Latin 1010 is described as follows:
</p>
<p>[Foreign</a> Language Placement Index — Undergraduate, College of Arts & Sciences, U.Va.](<a href=“http://artsandsciences.virginia.edu/college/requirements/competency/language_placement_index.html]Foreign”>http://artsandsciences.virginia.edu/college/requirements/competency/language_placement_index.html)</p>
<p>With students having absolutely no knowledge to two years you are naturally going to start out with a students at different levels.</p>
<p>College classes are going to move faster then high school, that’s just how it is. When you have subjects to compare it to, such as foreign language (which generally moves at half the pace), and AP classes, the pace can seem much faster than high school. The same can be said for science and math classes where students have AP credit from high school but waive the credit and choose to take the class in a college environment where they either feel they will get a better grasp of the material then they did in high school, or a deeper understanding. Some high schools simply are not that good at AP in some areas so it’s not uncommon for a student with credit to retake chem, physics, or calc for example, in college depending on their intended major.</p>
<p>This may not help your present situation, but it may help explain why you have more advanced students in what is a beginning class. I guess my point would be, the class was going to move quickly no matter who your peer classmates were.</p>
<p>Edit: One additional thing to note is that some high schools combine higher classes of foreign language when enrollment isn’t high enough. At many schools Latin would fit the bill for this. When this happens often the more advanced students are short changed that year. So, your classmates may have had 3 and 4 years of latin, however if their last year was a combined class they may not have been very challenged. Again, this isn’t giving you practical advice, but perhaps perspective.</p>
<p>I remember taking Spanish 101 in college and having a similar experience (I took French and Latin in high school). As the semester progressed, those people who seemed fluent to me early on didn’t know so much anymore. By Spanish 102, we were pretty even.</p>
<p>There was a stark difference between that Spanish course and what I was used to. English was never spoken. That wasn’t the case when I was in elementary levels of French in middle school.</p>
<p>Hang in there!</p>
<p>I had interesting experiences in foreign language at UVA, on the other side of your boat. I attended Hebrew school for many years, including a year at night in high school. However, like Dean J says, there was way more English than Hebrew. So, I came into Hebrew about a month ahead of everyone else - I knew basic phrases and most of the vocabulary, along with the entire print and cursive alphabet. Within a month the only advantage I had was being used to the language (why I couldn’t and wouldn’t place out – one month is not the same as a semester, if I knew 1 month I did not know 2 months so placing out was not an option), but I still worked hard to maintain my high grade. And since other students liked studying with me earlier on, that gave me an advantage to keeping my study groups going.</p>
<p>My 4th year I took one semester of Yiddish. I took through half a year of AP German in high school (also, I got placed into 201 level German even with 7th-half of 12th grade so years of high school mean nothing regarding placement) along with Hebrew so I knew 95% of the vocabulary orally (only the Russian words were hard), again along with the alphabet cursive and print. That class was hard for me in ways different from other students, because I had two languages similar enough to help me but different enough to get me points off on quizzes when I spelled something in the way of one of the other languages engrained in my brain. Of course the advantages seriously outweighed the disadvantages, and I learned from my first quiz or two how to study to avoid losing trivial points in the future.</p>
<p>I know a girl who took 3-4 years of Latin and got placed into 101. Like I said, I took many years of German in high school, making great grades, and was placed into 201 at UVA. I hated German and knew I would not be continuing it (when I dropped German, I was even taking a community college Spanish class at night), I was planning to take Spanish but UVA offering Hebrew make me change to that language. 
3-4 years every day gives you the experience I talked about in Hebrew - general familiarity with things not on the placement test and knowing how to learn best. But speaking in English every day and only doing non-tracked (for the most part) high school pace classes will not get you very far at UVA. Even my community college class of Spanish for one semester was further than the entire Spanish 1 course at my high school. Put UVA into perspective there!</p>
<p>I hope you can balance your frustration with the amazing opportunity to be challenged at college. You’re certainly capable of earning an A, and it’s not that someone who comes in with background knowledge should earn an A over you, but 1) many students want an easy A their first semester and 2) everyone got A’s before UVA and not everyone can continue to get them.</p>
<p>I’m still waiting to somehow get into Span1010… I don’t even think I’ll be able to apply to the Comm School because I won’t have the language requirement. I’m actually shocked that UVA wouldn’t implement more professors to solve the crisis over Spanish classes.</p>
<p>Hiring freeze, they can’t, no money. Unless you want your tuition even higher. You can do a summer language institute or take a different language.</p>
<p>I knew of some students years ago who purposefully did bad on the placement test so they could take a basic language class and get an A.</p>
<p>It is unfair that UVa does not offer enough language classes to meet the demand but has a rule that the language classes must be taken at UVa. If UVa let students take a class or two at home during the summer, it would take some of the stress off the system.</p>
<p>The language requirement should be eliminated altogether.</p>
<p>^ Strongly Agree.</p>
<p>UVA is a liberal arts school. The language requirement will never be eliminated. Also, you need a foreign language to get into Phi Beta Kappa.</p>
<p>Language requirement rocks my socks. Came in with it filled by French, but I’m still taking French because I love it. Also probably going to take Hebrew 1010 next year - Hazel, any particular teacher you recommend?? Although they’ve probably changed by now, if it’s grad students…</p>
<p>It’s actually a contracted lecturer. The one I had was Hedda who has moved to Boston (I think) this semester actually. I also had Dalia who was subbing for Hedda while she was on maternity leave, she lives locally with kids so she is around if you ever want private tutoring (I did that with her, too). There is generally only 1 teacher but Hebrew is fantastic. You get a great class dynamic since there is only 1 section, you meet every day for a year and then almost every day for another year if you go that long, etc. If you are sure you are going to take it, then over the summer do yourself a favor and learn the alphabet (print and cursive). If you need any resources for that message me, I taught Hebrew (just basic alphabet and decoding/reading) to 3rd graders for 4 years and private tutor as well.</p>
<p>Awesome, thanks. My boyfriend is Israeli and his whole family speaks Hebrew (in fact his mom is a teacher) so I’m thinking of taking 1010 pass/fail just so I can actually take part in their family a little more. Plus if I want to visit his extended family in Israel, a lot of them don’t actually speak English!</p>
<p>Make sure the teacher will let you do that. The semester I private tutored, I wanted to pass/fail and they would not let me (also I tried for Yiddish also, language depts are not big fans of it). I would have even done audit but they were having none of that.</p>
<p>Oh, really? Thanks a lot. I wonder why they weren’t fans…</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Space is pretty limited in the language classes, and students who want to take a class as pass/fail or audit maybe be perceived as unwilling to expend the effort to really learn the material. This isn’t always true, but it is true that it’s easier to simply pass a class than acing it.</p>
<p>I also think the language requirement should be eliminated. It makes things harder for premed/comm students having to fit that into their already busy schedules. Especially science majors.</p>
<p>Even W&M lets you be exempt from foreign language by taking 4 years of the language in high school. And W&M is an actual liberal arts college.</p>
<p>^ It’s no harder for a science major to fit 4 language classes in than it is for an arts major to fit 4 science/math classes in. I am struggling with that. And you CAN test out of the language requirement, so I’m not quite sure what your argument is with that…I didn’t HAVE to take a single language class at UVA.</p>
<p>Well UVA is clearly more rigorous than W&M then ( 
). I honestly think it is a little silly to complain about being at the best university ever. Lots of people would switch with you. In addition, most colleges have a pre-set freshman year schedule (many of my friends did not get to choose any of their classes their first semester). I know the eschool does do that here, but the college does not. So be glad about that! In addition, because UVA is so big, we have a HUGE selection of classes. I was also surprised at how far my AP credit went here in exempting me from many of the requirements. I know some of the score cut offs are more stringent today than 5 years ago but by far UVA was the most generous in exemptions. From a quick glance at W&M’s AP credit regulations, that still holds true (they exempt on 4s and give credit on 5s for many subjects, while UVA still gives many 4’s credit). So really in the end you are still winning here. That is my 2cents.</p>
<p>I have to agree that giving credit for a language requirement for a standard test, as UVa does to measure actual mastery, vs simply giving exemption for number of years taken in high school, the standard test makes far more sense. Four years of instruction in one high school can be vastly different from another. You can earn exemption from the standardized UVa language test, SAT2, or AP test. It’s actually pretty flexible for those that have studied a language in hs. </p>
<p>Admission guidelines to UVa requires four years of FL, and recommends five. With a holistic admissions review, and students with schedule conflicts, certainly not all admitted students have four years. However I would guess very few have to start at year one unless you are starting a new language.</p>