So after trying to sign up for his class twice because i needed Span 25 as a prerequiste.. On every accent test i took Salvadores would write "you should really consider dropping my class" The first time he dropped me from the waiting list and the second time i begged him to let me stay because i needed it. Note to the wise: Never wear low cut shirts to class because all he does is stare and second... remember to put accent marks on every word that needs them and dont mess up on your articulos.. like la,lo,las,los, el, blah blah blah.. He marks down your essays based on the number of mistakes you make.. more than 10 is an F... every paper i got back was an F and everytime i went to his office to ask for help/understanding he told me i had no future in spanish and that i should really consider changing my major because i would never make it in the spanish department. He always dismissed and belittled me in front of the class due to my Fs and how my heritage speaking spanish abilities were incorrect compared to his Castilian Spanish.

Class on the other hand was a different story, Everytime it was time to review a certain section in the book (the one that helped no one) he would ask for examples, but not just regular examples but raunchy, personal life examples about boyfriends, girlfriends, drunk nights, and what not. He liked to tell his students that he had vodka in his water bottle.. We never really knew if it was true because no one really wanted to get too close to the guy to smell his breath. Most times class was always about either his yachts, scuba diving or stories of his wife and random daily bruin things...

After everything we had to endure, the crazy random man gave me a B when i thought i was failing.. That's the lowest grade i think he gives. SO if you want a random creepy teacher who speaks about everything other than Spanish.. take Salvadores, he'll count your mistakes and give you all A's at the end. Only God knows what's on his mind.

Spanish 25 with Cruz-Salvadores can be an easy A, but you won't learn a thing about spanish. He grades your compositions based on how many basic mistakes you make (accent marks, masculine/feminine, subject-verb agreement), not on how well you actually write. At first I tried to write something to be proud of, then I realized all I had to do was write the shortest, simplest spanish ever. I just used accents and wrote "el perro" instead of "la perro" and got an A+. His lectures bored me to tears and consisted of the most pointless exercises I have experienced, including him telling the class what he read in the paper that morning, who Kevin Love is (like we didn't know), naming spanish verbs, inventing the most basic sentences, and him going over about 4 problems from the book in the time you should be able to do 50. There is no homework outside of the compositions, which is good, but also doesn't make you learn the language. Overall, even though the class is easy, If I could take it again with Cruz-Salvadores, I definitely would not.

This was probably the most ineffective professor I've ever experienced. I have had old professors before, even older than his 70-something years, and they were leagues better than him. He spends the majority of the time blathering about irrelevant nonsense (often inappropriate nonsense at that), but justifies it as us practicing Spanish...except that it's not an oral comprehension class!! Trust me, listening to stories about his grandkids, or tea cups, or seagulls are NOT going to help you improve your writing AT ALL. The little time that he does spend on lessons are on obvious grammar details that you should already know and even those lessons are ineffective. His grading is unfair (he marked off 5 points for 1 repeated error which was caused by a bad dictionary, giving me a C on an A paper). But if you need an hour 3 times a week to catch up on your sudoku and reading to the soundtrack of an ancient useless prof, he's your man. It's an easy A if you get your papers checked by a tutor for menial errors beforehand. Good luck...

EASY A!!!

no doubt this is the EASIEST spanish class I've taken (wayyyy easier than Spanish 5/6 here).

if you learned grammar & accents & overall concordancia already (usually not as easy for native speakers) this class is a freaken BREEZE.

You barely have to attend class & he's also really nice & easy to talk to.

take him!

Cruz-Salvadores is awesome. He doesnt grade hard at all. He looks for things like "la mesa" and not "el mesa" (DUH) and accents. Thats it! Learn your freaking accents and you'll get an A+. He doesnt care if you write sentencest that a 5 year old could write - just dont make stupid mistakes. Yes - if you do make those mistakes - he hits you hard for them. But at this level you should know where freaking accents go.

CS was by far one of the most intimidating professors I have had so far\326 but I learned so much from him. It\355s his tactic to scare you with an \354F\356 on your first paper\326. And it works. In order to do good in his class you have to learn your accents, that\355s the key to an A. Before I went in there I had no clue where to put the accents, now I\355m a pro. So yeah, he can come off as mean, but really he is a pretty good professor.

Enough with the Cruz-Salvadores bashing here. Let me set some things straight. Cruz-Salvadores is pretty much a 62 yr. old professor who is still going through puberty. Therefore, he is a total goofball who is always cracking jokes about getting drunk, what is in his water bottle, boyfriends and girlfriends, and parties. He does get sidetracked often but thanks to his sense of humor, you feel like you are watching a program on Comedy Central. Some of his jokes can be so corny that you can't help but laugh out loud. There is not much interaction between the students, but you better you Spanish skill as you listen to his advice in life and his many experiences he had(like when his car ran out of gasoline in the most isolated part of Spain). Another note is that this down to earth guy really cares about the students. He has office hours before his classes. The students who moan and whine obviosly never went to his office. You can have him correct your whole essay before you even turn it in to him. You can't get much better than that! He will also allow you to turn in assignments a bit later in the day, or maybe even the next day. His class will be a piece of cake if you see him during his hours and have him help you with your assignments. You do learn a lot but he and the class get sidetracked as he makes his jokes and as he makes students say jokes. If you take this professor, you will get an easy A with some effort, learn some Spanish, and a live comedy show. By the way, I got an easy A and I believe anyone can who just tries to work with the wacky but awesome Cruz-Salvadores.

write simple spanish, don't make stupid, careless mistakes (like forgetting accent marks or spelling words wrong).... and you'll be fine. other than that, you just have to bear with him through the quarter. in class, he likes to talk about himself a lot... the whole hour was him talking about ..himself. it's live entertainment, people! he'll make you laugh--not because what he's saying is funny, but because he's so corny and weird. but these random tangents he goes off on are more exciting than him lecturing from the workbook. boring. good luck!

The spot-on comments here are, for the most part, the negative ones. I walked away with an -A in Cruz-Salvadores' class, but the realist in me has to question what that grade represents. My ability to place accent marks? My success at reaching EXACTLY fourth-grade writing level? (Because Jose lowers essays a full letter grade for even the tiniest spelling or grammatical errors, trying to express your thoughts in an ambitious, complicated way is a risk that never rewards.)

To succeed in this class, you really need to curtail any silly dreams you might have had about communicating fluently. The trick is to churn out simple, flawless papers. He had us write once about a rock, or something, so this sort of dumbing-down is more or less encouraged. But whenever possible, stick to the present tense and SPAN 1 verbs. Telling him a couple dirty jokes probably wouldn't hurt either.

Cruz-Salvadores devotes most of the fifty-minute class to rambling on about sailing, or the pitfalls of academia, or his libido, or some other topic that often has only a tenuous relation to the class. This in itself isn't such a problem; participating in the conversation is a good way for students to get noticed, and if you're a non-native speaker (as I am), it's nice to practice Spanish that deviates from textbook "Juan esta en la casa"-isms. But I learned little from this course, and I was shocked to find myself a quarter later in the upper div Spanish, where I was ill-prepared to discuss foreign language literature in a meaningful way. Shouldn't 25, as the last lower division grammar course, ready you for the challenge?

On the positive side, he did recognize me when I ran into him in the Rolfe elevator a full year later. Cruz-Salvadores isn't a difficult instructor once you've figured him out, but he's hardly worth your rising student fees.

Don't do it! Do not be suckered into taking his class because of his easiness rating. The stress the class will give you (because of the scary way he grades) is not worth it.