Nicolas Poppe

I would not reccommend this course. Poppe is very passionate about his subject matter and has a lot of interest in teaching pedagogy but his classes are confusing, disconnected and hard to follow. The readings were simply too hard, the content was very abstract and the course of our classes seemed deeply disconnected from where students were at in their language skills. Participation was very low in this class because the questions he posed to the class were difficult to answer just because most people did not understand what was happening in class and his response to struggling students was "you are meant to suffer, that is the point". Class morale was very low just cause we all felt lost and unsupported even though he heard our struggles. The student lead discussion classes saw far higher engagement and overall understanding of the course material than the classes he taught. Poppe has a ton of energy but it is misplaces and out of touch with where students are at. This class was just difficult in ways that did not push us and hurt my confidence and nearly everyone else in the class. I feel like I did not get very much out of this course and felt very frsutrated with how Poppe responded to extensive student concerns throughout the semester.

I would not reccommend this course. Poppe is very passionate about his subject matter and has a lot of interest in teaching pedagogy but his classes are confusing, disconnected and hard to follow. The readings were simply too hard, the content was very abstract and the course of our classes seemed deeply disconnected from where stude …Read more

Prof Poppe is a very passionate professor, however, every single lecture in this class is about something niche and slightly confusing. The readings were so dense, it was hard to understand his goal in assigning them. Classes are mostly lecture based with small group discussions about the readings here and there. The essays and exams are extremely difficult and he will take off what I think is an unfair number of points if you interpret the instructions different than what he wants - even though his instructions are incredibly vague and open-ended. He is very open during office hours and willing to work to help you succeed but then also says things like point of the difficult readings is to "suffer" through it to build up tolerance. It would be great if the course content actually helped me learn Spanish, but I have to say this class took away from my Spanish speaking confidence and my confidence about going abroad. I really like Midd 300 Spanish classes and was kind of disappointed about this one.

Prof Poppe is a very passionate professor, however, every single lecture in this class is about something niche and slightly confusing. The readings were so dense, it was hard to understand his goal in assigning them. Classes are mostly lecture based with small group discussions about the readings here and there. The essays and exams …Read more

This class was kind of annoying. I do think it was interesting but we had to do projects, which required us to create films and edit them and I hated that. I am not tech savvy and it just made me so fustrated.