<p>So can anyone shed some light on the foreign language department at tech? I’m taking ap Spanish language this year and it’s my 5th year in Spanish but the teachers at my school are really bad and everyone in my class is pretty much prepared to do terribly on the exam. So like if I wanted to double major/minor I just Spanish and I somehow got credit from this exam, would I get placed in a class where they work on fluency of the language? Basically what I’m asking is are the language classes at tech more about just learning some of a language or could I go after 5that years and graduate speaking fluently?</p>
<p>Just noticed I spelled ‘at’ wrong in the title…whoops. but also, how hard is the foreign language at tech?</p>
<p>@jspeed12 This GT link should answer your questions</p>
<p>[Spanish</a> - School of Modern Languages](<a href=“http://www.modlangs.gatech.edu/student-resources/entry-levels/spanish]Spanish”>http://www.modlangs.gatech.edu/student-resources/entry-levels/spanish)</p>
<p>I’m also interested in the language department at Tech too =)</p>
<p>Can any current Tech students let me know are the language courses (such as Spanish, French, Japanese) good? Are most students able to speak the language fairly fluently after taking the courses?</p>
<p>I will be a freshman at Tech this fall, but I think I can shed some light on this situation.
I will be majoring in Applied Language and Intercultural Studies for French, so I’ve had a lot of interaction with the language department already, and I got to sit in on some French classes.
As far as AP goes, getting a 4 or a 5 on the exam will get you placed into a 2000-level (or 2nd year) class. You can however, also take a placement exam which may or may not place you higher if you have enough fluency in the language. I’m not sure exactly how they do their placement exams, so that would be a question you’d have to ask the department directly. PM me and I can give you some contacts.
As far as the classes go, I sat in on a 4000-level (4th year), and a 2000-level. I speak French pretty fluently, and the 4000-level class was easy to understand IMO because of my level of fluency. I loved that class because everyone in there was really engaged and spoke very well. So I would say that if you end up in that level and stay in it, you will definitely graduate fluent. I would call everyone in that class fluent, and everyone spoke French the entire time, which was awesome because that NEVER happens in high school. College is different because no one takes that level of a language unless he or she is actually interested in it. I can’t say quite the same for the 2000-level class. It reminded me a lot more of a high school class in the sense that a lot of the people in it were taking it because they had to (to fill a core requirement) and didn’t care all that much about it, therefore they didn’t try or contribute very much. That is not to be said for everyone though, because there were some who were in there because they’re pushing towards that 4000-level, which sounds like it would be the case with you. Once you’ve been placed in the correct level, you’ve just got to do the bet with your skills and work on developing them regardless of the other people in the class. The 2nd year class was more about the structure of the language and grammar, while the 4th year class was like a normal literature class, but conducted entirely in French, so the focus was more on language usage. What is done with the language progresses through each level.
I hope this helped, and if you have any more questions feel free to ask and I’ll try to answer them :)</p>