Dee Dee Goldpaugh
1.0
2022-07-04
This course fell far below my expectations. Honestly, I'm surprised you even sent an eval form given when I discontinued coming to the course I sent a detailed email as to why, requested a conversation about continuing with private lessons instead, and never received any response from the school or instructor.
First, the pedagogical methods used, from my understanding, are outdated in terms of approaches for adult language learners. My class, and I'm not kidding, consisted of a full hour of laboriously going over sentences assigned for homework, which few of the participants did, so we had to sit there and wait for the students to figure out the homework on the spot. Then maybe 30 minutes of actual instruction of new material. Moreover, we are ADULT LEARNERS. Calling on students without their consent, just calling out someone's name to give an answer, is insulting and does not take into account different learning styles or anxiety someone may feel speaking in front of others. It also means the entire class has to sit there while another *adult* who does not know the answer has to sit and sweat it out in front of the group. Not acceptable.
I attended this class with my husband who is already fluent in three languages. We couldn't believe how not engaging it was. I can't believe we paid to primarily review homework sentences every week. One day we were sitting doing our homework together and my husband started yelling, "I'm not going to write a paragraph in the present tense using this vocabulary. I'm not doing it!" And we just decided to never go back.
At that point, I looked for the instructors contact info but couldn't find it. So I wrote a very nice email to the school stating the class wasn't a good fit for us, but were potentially interested in private instruction with the teacher and never heard back. So that was that.
Mayte G.
5.0
2022-08-23
The class was awesome! The method of teaching used was better than all my years of Spanish I took in middle school and high school, and made me feel so much more confident in my ability to continue relearning the language.
Mohamed Zaman
3.0
2022-06-03
it was not that helpful as a beginner.
Christian
5.0
2019-08-14
Though very fast paced, the book was extremely instructional and my teacher was very patient. I found if i didn’t study or do my homework it was a struggle to keep up though! Great class.
Bibi Alli
5.0
2023-01-12
I enjoyed the beginners course. Before starting with Berges, I had some background in Spanish but forgot a lot of the grammar and didn't have any confidence speaking. The textbook, homework, and exercises in class were well structured and I felt like I learned a lot within the 10 weeks. I also feel more confident speaking.
Mary
5.0
2019-08-14
I feel very comfortable with the learning environment. The teacher was very helpful with answering all questions and giving a basic understanding of the language. I will continue on to the next level.