Français!!

I went to the orientation meeting for my French class I'm taking this Spring Semester. I'm taking French 1A, a basic beginning French class and Astronomy 17, the Solar System. Both are online classes. I would rather take them in person but I need to leave space open for the ever elusive child internship.

The Astronomy course, although online, meets for orientation, the midterm and final exams. Three times on campus, all required. The class is merely for interest because I always have been interested in space, especially Mars. So, even though the course requires some knowledge in high school algebra, I'm just taking it to learn. Unfortunately, I have to take it for credit because none of the science courses can be taken for audit or non-credit. I say unfortunately because even though I have a Masters Degree, I can't do math to save my life. So I could end up getting a rather poor grade. And I am so very attached to grades. But in any case, it should still be fun to learn about our cool solar system. Mars, Mars, Mars!!

The French class had one optional orientation on campus, everything else is online even major tests. I prefer that, personally. I decided to attend the orientation on campus. I've taken online courses before and so have used CCSF's online system, called WebCT. But the French class has more to it than just reading some articles and taking some quizzes, like most online classes. I had wondered how a class that needs an audio component would be run online and when I examined all the components, it seemed a good idea to attend the orientation. I'm glad I did because it made sense of everything and we got to speak a little bit of French as well.

It's a pretty cool system, with voice chat and voice discussion boards, along with videos, articles, links to many resources. There's the online quizzes and exams and an online workbook as well.

Since from the beginning of deciding to take the course (I had five years of French in high school but that was 16 years ago!), I have been remembering more and more, little words in French popping up at random times, such as calling my husband a "pamplemousse" when I was thinking about grapefruit (which is the proper word, not that he is a grapefruit...). It's good to know that's it's all in there somewhere...

Viva la Francais!!