Spanish or French?

mamalin
Fri, 12 Jul 2013 10:28:41 +0000

maidenMom–Has she thought about taking the course pass/fail, at least the first semester? My D took the equivalent of 5 years of HS French (IB French) and took the Wellesley placement exam which allowed her to start with French 201, (although she was somewhat borderline, as I understand). She has never been comfortable in foreign language classes (she had Spanish all though grade school and middle school) because she is terrified of speaking the language, so she decided to take it pass/fail, which took a lot of the pressure off of her, at least for that class. She was still terrified, but no longer had the added stress of worrying about how the grade would affect her GPA!

She found the classes challenging, but doable. She has liked her professors very much–except for that whole speaking-in-another-language thing!

One thing your D should also consider is the fact that she took the placement exam over a year ago, which means she is one year further removed from her last formal study of French. Does she think she would get a 2 on the AP exam if she took it now? At the very least, maybe she should look into doing an online refresher course during the time she has left this summer to help from being completely overwhelmed this fall.