Hey guys,

So I was reading course reviews on Ling 1A03, and I've heard good things about it. I need an elective, so if anyone has taken this course, can you give me any info about how it is, what the testing is like, is it memorization heavy, if I complete the homework should I be good, tips, etc?

Do I have to take my own lecture notes? Will the textbook suffice instead of lecture notes?

I have Dr. Moro.

It's not really memorization-heavy, although you will need to become familiar with the parts of your body that produce sound, as well as the phonetic alphabet. I had Moro as a prof, and she was a great lecturer. Her powerpoint notes had slides on one side, and space on the side for you to jot down extra bits of information. Her notes were usually enough for me, but you should definitely buy the workbook/textbook for practice. Although linguistics isn't a difficult course, it's still important to do enough practice. Other than that, it's a great choice as an elective.

Yea, as Angoose said, Ling 1A03 is not memorization heavy. I had Dr.Anderson as a prof and only took notes on the examples that she did in class with transcribing words into IPA. I found the textbook really helpful as the textbook organizes IPA symbols into neat charts that are really easy to memorize and see a general pattern. I had friends who didn't get enough practice in this course and as a result, their grade was affected. However, if you do the study guide questions (should be included with the textbook) you should be good to go in this course.

I had Dr. Moro as well and as mentioned, she is a great prof. She's very helpful and quite clear on her lecture notes. Her slides are usually skeleton slides and you just have to fill in as she goes on in the lecture. As also mentioned, it is not memorize heavy but you have to really focus on the class in order to understand what is going on. For some reason I found this class a bit harder than 1AA3. Well, that's only because I am not a fan of Phonetics and Phonology.

Testing wise, I believe she does MC and some application questions (I don't remember...). The textbook is really helpful in learning the concept and you do use the study guide a lot in tutorials and you take up questions in there. It is essential to buy the workbook/textbook. There is no essays and such in this course, just weekly exercises so you have to try to good on those since a big part will be on those exercises not just on the tests and quizzes.

Therefore, I totally recommend you to take this course. It is the most interesting one. One of the reasons why I went for a Linguistics degree.