Gyula Zsombok

Zsombok is hands down one of the best professors at Middlebury. He is kind and a great educator. There are weekly tests, which require rote memorization. As long as you make flashcards and memorize everything you learn -- you'll be fine. There is no final, which also helps. There are a few projects, and then a final group skit. Homework is daily and extremely tedious in my opinion. It's a lot of work each night. But, the class is fun and extremely rewarding. To a complete beginner though, I think this class would be really difficult. Having a couple of years of passive experience with French made this class feel very doable (dare I say "easy"), but I can't imagine how I'd fare without that background. Very fast-paced.

Zsombok is hands down one of the best professors at Middlebury. He is kind and a great educator. There are weekly tests, which require rote memorization. As long as you make flashcards and memorize everything you learn -- you'll be fine. There is no final, which also helps. There are a few projects, and then a final group skit. Homew …Read more

I can't highlight enough how good this course is. Zsombok does an amazing job cultivating an atmosphere of participation that improves your French whether you like it or not. Essentially all classes are structured so that there's an equal amount of lecture and discussion, where students talk in small groups or with the whole class. The entire class is in French. The class meets five times a week, plus one 30-minute phonetic session and one 45-minute attendance to the language tables each week. The amount of time dedicated to the class each week substantially reduced the amount of time I had to dedicate to other courses. There are homework assignments every night, but usually they take between 20-30 minutes. There's one exam each week and one mini project each week that culminates with a presentation toward the end of the semester. Zsombok is passionate, engaging, and enthusiastic about learning French. He encourages learning and makes the process so much fun.

I can't highlight enough how good this course is. Zsombok does an amazing job cultivating an atmosphere of participation that improves your French whether you like it or not. Essentially all classes are structured so that there's an equal amount of lecture and discussion, where students talk in small groups or with the whole class. T …Read more

I believe this course gave strong footing to pursue more work int eh French department. the topics which were presented were interesting and Zsombok did a good job of reviewing homework and encouraging lots of class discussion and egagement for students to get the most out of their experience