LING 102
Introduction to Applied Phonetics
Description: Lecture, four hours; discussion, one hour (when scheduled). Enforced requisite: course 20. Not open for credit to students with credit for course 103. Basics of articulation and acoustics of phonetic categories used in world's languages, including English in comparison with other languages. Practice in speech-sound perception and transcription using International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). Applications to language learning/teaching and other fields. P/NP or letter grading.
Units: 5.0
Units: 5.0
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Most Helpful Review
Winter 2020 - The class is much easier than what I expected going in, having friends who took the more difficult 103 instead. There are only 6–7 weeks worth of actual material, and the rest were guest lectures. (The guest lectures still get tested on the final, but they are unsurprisingly quite easy.) The more difficult aspects of the class are memorizing IPA symbols (useful even though you get cheat-sheets on exams) and reading spectrograms. Transcription of unfamiliar sounds could be difficult but the professor makes it easy by offering binary choices as the question format (choose the right one out of two). Overall, it's possible to make the class much harder while teaching the same material, and it's easy to get scared the night before an exam when you look at the amount of information covered. But trust me when I say that it won't be as hard as you fear. The professor is okay, not too remarkable in either good or bad things. She's clear and helpful in lectures in the usual good ways, but not exceptionally/memorably so. There are no papers, two homeworks (20%), six open-book online quizzes (40%), a midterm 45-minute in-class quiz for which you get two hours (10%), and a final (25%). Attendance in sections counts for 5%.
Winter 2020 - The class is much easier than what I expected going in, having friends who took the more difficult 103 instead. There are only 6–7 weeks worth of actual material, and the rest were guest lectures. (The guest lectures still get tested on the final, but they are unsurprisingly quite easy.) The more difficult aspects of the class are memorizing IPA symbols (useful even though you get cheat-sheets on exams) and reading spectrograms. Transcription of unfamiliar sounds could be difficult but the professor makes it easy by offering binary choices as the question format (choose the right one out of two). Overall, it's possible to make the class much harder while teaching the same material, and it's easy to get scared the night before an exam when you look at the amount of information covered. But trust me when I say that it won't be as hard as you fear. The professor is okay, not too remarkable in either good or bad things. She's clear and helpful in lectures in the usual good ways, but not exceptionally/memorably so. There are no papers, two homeworks (20%), six open-book online quizzes (40%), a midterm 45-minute in-class quiz for which you get two hours (10%), and a final (25%). Attendance in sections counts for 5%.
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Most Helpful Review
Winter 2022 - This class was okay. However, I really appreciated the grading scheme. 60% of your grade is based on "skills mastery," where you essentially get several opportunities in weekly quizzes (and other assignments) to earn points toward a certain skill. Then once you've earned enough points in a certain skill, you no longer have to take the quizzes for that specific skill. This class does have a textbook but I honestly stopped reading it after the first week because I just didn't find it helpful. So, you could probably do well without it and you'd save a couple of bucks. The two homework assignments are fairly easy, graded for completion, and they can also help you earn some points toward skill mastery. There are also two transcription tasks, and they aren't graded necessarily, but all the points you earn go toward skill mastery. I really recommend spending a lot of time on Homework #2, because it's an easy way to earn points toward your transcription skill (one of the hardest skills to earn points for). I FLOPPED on the first transcription task, but through the quizzes and Homework #2, I was able to get the points I needed and ultimately didn't even have to do Transcription Task #2. The final was super similar to the quizzes. Each skill had a section in the exam with a few questions, for full credit in a particular section you had to earn a certain number of points and the rest would go toward skills mastery. As you can see, you have a ton of opportunities to max out your skills and earn a really good grade in the class. Good luck and don't stress!
Winter 2022 - This class was okay. However, I really appreciated the grading scheme. 60% of your grade is based on "skills mastery," where you essentially get several opportunities in weekly quizzes (and other assignments) to earn points toward a certain skill. Then once you've earned enough points in a certain skill, you no longer have to take the quizzes for that specific skill. This class does have a textbook but I honestly stopped reading it after the first week because I just didn't find it helpful. So, you could probably do well without it and you'd save a couple of bucks. The two homework assignments are fairly easy, graded for completion, and they can also help you earn some points toward skill mastery. There are also two transcription tasks, and they aren't graded necessarily, but all the points you earn go toward skill mastery. I really recommend spending a lot of time on Homework #2, because it's an easy way to earn points toward your transcription skill (one of the hardest skills to earn points for). I FLOPPED on the first transcription task, but through the quizzes and Homework #2, I was able to get the points I needed and ultimately didn't even have to do Transcription Task #2. The final was super similar to the quizzes. Each skill had a section in the exam with a few questions, for full credit in a particular section you had to earn a certain number of points and the rest would go toward skills mastery. As you can see, you have a ton of opportunities to max out your skills and earn a really good grade in the class. Good luck and don't stress!
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