Spring 2027

First Semester French

First Semester French covers oral practice, conversation, grammar, reading, vocabulary, and Francophone culture.

offering recorded4 credits
Recorded instructors · Spring 2027 No instructors listed

Summary

1 / 6

Past student reviews · Melissa Henderson

One student described Melissa Henderson as very lenient when grading tests and homework.

What you’ll be able to do

  • Communicate orally and in writing to share ideas, ask questions, and answer questions about personal identity, daily life, and likes and dislikes.

  • Explain the main idea and some details of texts in French including short articles, surveys, interviews, and video texts related to personal identity, daily life, and likes and dislikes.

  • Compose brief written texts in French (both informal and formal).

  • Describe and narrate ideas in French about course topics listed above in an interview and a short digital recording.

  • Use lexico-grammatical structures in French for communicating in the present about information relevant to course topics listed above.

  • Interpret cultural products, practices, and perspectives related to course topics listed above.

  • Reflect on differences between one's own culture and the cultural products, practices, and perspectives of the French-speaking world.

Source: UW Guide

Grade history

↗
average GPA
letter grades
A
AB
B
BC
C
D
F

All recorded terms · compare terms & instructors

Prerequisites

Course map

None

  • None
FRENCH 101 used by

“Used by” includes alternatives; linked courses may have other requirements. This is a best-effort interpretation; check the catalog requirements above.

Prerequisite text tree
  • None

Professors

Spring 2027

No instructors recorded for this selection.

Historical instructors & teaching patterns

CARA TORRES is recorded teaching in Fall 2012, Spring 2013, Fall 2016, Fall 2017, Spring 2022. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

JACQUELINE EBELABENA is recorded teaching in Fall 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

MAGGIE HUGHES is recorded teaching in Fall 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Fall 2019, Spring 2020. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

MAILYS KRIER is recorded teaching in Fall 2014, Spring 2015. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

MELISSA HENDERSON is recorded teaching in Fall 2014, Spring 2015. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

PETER RUSSELLA is recorded teaching in Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Fall 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2020. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

STEPHANIE RAGAN is recorded teaching in Fall 2019, Spring 2020. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Calendar & sections

Spring 2027

Schedule loads here as you scroll.

SectionModeEnrolled / capacityWaitlist
LEC 001Classroom Instruction0 / 260
LEC 002Classroom Instruction0 / 260
LEC 003Classroom Instruction0 / 260
LEC 004Classroom Instruction0 / 260

Times are Central. Select a meeting for details; export includes recorded dates for the selected sections. Enrollment reflects scan time.

Meeting source records
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Student experience

the class

Past student reviews · Melissa Henderson

Past students found Melissa Henderson's lectures clear and informative, noting that class interactions helped improve oral communication skills.

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2025: 3.71 GPA, 83.0% A/AB (n=53 letter grades); Fall 2025: 3.71 GPA, 86.4% A/AB (n=132 letter grades); Spring 2026: 3.57 GPA, 82.8% A/AB (n=58 letter grades).

difficulty & workload

Past student reviews · Melissa Henderson

One student described Melissa Henderson as very lenient when grading tests and homework.

Past student reviews · Melissa Henderson

A student noted that Melissa Henderson made French culture fun during class and was friendly and kind.

Topics

  • Oral practice, conversation, grammar, reading, and vocabulary
  • French and Francophone cultures
  • Cultural reflection and comparison

Skills

  • Oral and written communication in French for personal topics
  • Reading comprehension of short French texts
  • Application of present-tense lexico-grammatical structures
  • Interpretation of French-speaking cultural products and practices

Grades

Historical instructor

Spring 2027 · Projected

Before grades are released

– average GPA

Approximate 80% prediction interval

About this estimate

The course’s semester-average GPA, not an individual student’s grade. The center uses 5 same-season terms, weighted toward recent results.

The range uses the finite-sample 80th-percentile rank of absolute errors from earlier same-season forecasts. Each forecast uses only records from earlier terms. At least four forecasts are required; bounds are rounded outward and limited to 0–4. This is an empirical estimate: changing instructors or grading policies can reduce its coverage.

8 earlier forecasts · 0.08 GPA average error.

Grades over time

Through Spring 2027

More grade details Grade mix, volume & source data

Where this course fits relative to

Latest available grades · Spring 2026 · all course levels

GPA

Higher than % of other courses in this group.

Course GPAs · red marks this course’s range

letter grades

More recorded grades than % of other courses in this group.

Typical course in this group: letter grades.

About this comparison

1280 courses over the same term, each with at least 30 recorded letter grades. Cross-listed courses count once. GPA is not a measure of difficulty or teaching quality. The typical course is the median by recorded grade count; tied values are not counted as lower. Grade counts describe course scale, not unique students or typical section size.

Descriptions compare GPA with this group’s average: at least 0.20 higher or lower; otherwise close to average. Section size uses median recorded enrollment: small up to 30, mid-sized 31–99, large 100+. Lectures and discussion/lab sections are described separately.

Sources & history

UW–Madison

Catalog & offerings

Descriptions, prerequisites, and recorded course offerings.

Catalog observation history

Observations at scan time; dates do not imply when a catalog change took effect.

Download part 1
Selected offering source records
FRENCH 101 · Spring 2027

First Semester French

Recorded 2026-10-14
Raw records 
[
  {
    "run_id": "20261014T203208-0851c9a1",
    "semester": "1274",
    "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00",
    "offering_id": "1274:400:007729",
    "course_id": "FRENCH 101",
    "course_uid": "course_b746261d47b9e1943fd016d7",
    "term_id": "1274",
    "source_course_id": "007729",
    "source_subject_id": "400",
    "title": "First Semester French",
    "credits_min": 4,
    "credits_max": 4,
    "typically_offered": "Fall, Spring, Summer"
  }
]
Rate My Professors

Student reviews

Original comments behind the course and instructor summaries.

Read original reviews
Download part 1
Madgrades

Grade history

Recorded grade distributions by term, section, and instructor.

Explore recorded grades
Dataset & model

Recorded 2026-10-14

View the dataset on Hugging Face
Model outputs & technical records
Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B
LLM outputs across runs
Download part 1
Full model traces

Recorded model configuration, reasoning, and tool conversations.

Download part 1Download part 2
Model & dataset provenance 
{
  "model": "Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B",
  "model_revision": "1d4bf0f2ff6012fd82039f2fa52739d0dd7c60c0",
  "task_version": "17",
  "output_id": "65e5bf9231ca9d968becac05c19dc2a172c1b4002d35797b23c0b3c50b4c326b",
  "requirements_status": "valid",
  "dataset_revision": "fc1811fa52e581ea57a35c0cf3343f8740a8ffbf",
  "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00"
}