Evelyn Canabal-Torres

This professor has taught: SPAN103, SPAN203, SPAN204, SPAN206, SPAN306, SPAN307, SPAN371

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Evelyn Canabal-Torres SPAN371 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/01/2025	Extremely engaging speaker. I feel like I learned a ton from this class (both about the specific content and about Spanish as a whole). She is disorganized with grading, but if you regularly come to class and complete most of the assignments you'll be fine. She's very direct and will often have one-on-one conversations with you in front of the class. It ever feels mean spirited or like she's trying to pick on you, but if you're socially anxious be aware. She has a ton of personality and specific quirks but they never get in the way of the class and she's overall a really fun lecturer.
Evelyn Canabal-Torres SPAN371 Anonymous 12/13/2024	I'm not sure what the people writing "my pookie" went through, but this is easily the least helpful class possible for a variety of reasons, some are her fault some not as much. The plus side is that it is not graded super duper harshly. If you are going to med school (like myself) expect to learn nothing, and if you are not, do not take this class do something more interesting. To address the "not her fault" issues: 1. She is not a doctor, nor does she have any scientific background, as such her knowledge about the topics she is teaching is not always the most extensive. We were discussing stroke in her class, and it was just blatantly wrong. It is a little unfair to expect a Spanish PhD to have a working knowledge of physiology, so it is basically a really cursory overview. 2. The department benchmarks are a little wild, there are a lot of different things expected of a SPAN300 level class that she just cannot do in a reasonable amount of time while trying to help everyone practice their Spanish. To address the "definitely her fault" issues: 1. This is the most disorganized professor I have ever met. She refuses to grade basically anything. I sit here and write this review 3 days before my final, and we have had about 20 assignments and a midterm as well as a participation grade so far. Only 5 of the assignments are graded and the midterm. No participation grade, none of the major projects we presented or the little hw assignments she assigned in September. When she was asked about grading she responded with "I know your grade is important for medical school but I don't like to grade" and just shrugged. Can't go to the advisor because if you get on her bad side you are screwed with how much subjective material there is left to grade. 2. She is extremely condescending when she tries to be funny. We gave group presentations and we all wrote "anonymous comments" and she proceeded to read them word for word in front of the whole class about only 2 of the 5 groups. Why not just hand the comments back? Why only 2? Why was that necessary. 3. Refuses to be flexible. She always asks for "questions, comments, or concerns" at the end of class and on the last day of class I gave some feedback on one of the assignments and she felt the need to defend what she was doing and questioned my opinion as I was "not an educator of 20+ years." I was like dude you asked me. 4. She is all over the place in general. We bounced around from topic to topic without any rhyme or reason at times, splitting time between cultural competency, physiology, health afflictions of latino populations, but it was all so cursory with no explanations. No notes, just appended about 1000 pdfs and random websites to her modules page. It was a headache to look at and to gather materials to study for the exams. 5. Rubrics are not super useful for assignments, they are very vague and are missing instructions and she says it is because she does not like to grade. Pro: 1. midterm was graded relatively fairly 2. gives a study guide for the exams All in all, do not high expectations for this professor. It was disappointing that this was my last Spanish class at UMD because this was easily the least educational.
Evelyn Canabal-Torres SPAN206 Expecting a W Anonymous 11/07/2024	If I could give her a one star I would. I had to withdraw from this class, even though I was so excited to expand knowledge in my first language. SO DISORGANIZED. you never know what's due and leaves the whole class confused. never grades or answers emails until you go to the spanish advisor. this class made me drop my spanish minor because I hated it so much. DONT TAKE HER CLASSES.
Evelyn Canabal-Torres SPAN307 Anonymous 05/21/2024	First and foremost, she's a great person! HOWEVER, as a professor, I'm very conflicted. She has made the class interesting and catered to what the class needed but when it came to grading you don't even know what your grade is until literally it's posted on Testudo at the END of the semester. It's pretty scary especially if you want to keep up with your GPA. She's done this not only for SPAN306 but for also 307. You'll learn a lot with this professor, but, you won't know your grade for like 16 weeks. It's pretty ridiculous.
Evelyn Canabal-Torres SPAN371 Anonymous 05/02/2024	BEST PROFESSOR EVER I LOVE HER SO MUCH MY POOKIE she is so passionate and knowledgeable
Evelyn Canabal-Torres SPAN306 Expecting an A- Anonymous 01/26/2024	Profesora Canabal is a great professor who really cares about her students' well being and success in her class. I took SPAN306 with her for Fall 2023 and we did not have any midterms or final. I do warn though that the course can get disorganized at times. I felt that the class became really stressful during finals because we had a final essay, final group project (+ an oral presentation), and portafolio all due within the same time frame. Due to this I took off a star. Other than that, the class was okay and relatively manageable. I enjoyed a lot of the things we learned about. She not only incorporates lessons on grammar, writing, accents, etc. But she also teaches the class about issues that have happened in the history of many Latin American countries which I found to be very interesting and it evoked me to start being attentive to what's going on in my native country and other parts of Latin America. To succeed in this class, I'd definitely build a relationship with her as she is understanding of any extenuating circumstances that can happen. Even lenient at times. She may grant extensions, but generally she tries to do so for the benefit of the entire class rather than just yourself. Attending class is also key because most of class time is used to peer review essay drafts.
Evelyn Canabal-Torres Anonymous 12/05/2023	Really judgmental and plays favorites. If you get off on the wrong foot with her, she will make your experience miserable for the rest of the semester. The group project is also too much work. The only good thing about her is that she grades leniently (if you're on her good side, that is).
Evelyn Canabal-Torres SPAN306 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/05/2023	She seems nice, grading isn't too harsh but she has this policy of no "BS" and she can embarrass you by putting what you wrote in front of the whole class, so if you easily embarrassed take someone else. She had trouble assigning due dates and would forget about assignments she assigned us leaving us to guess when something is due sometimes. Not my favorite teacher but she does seem like she cares about students.
Evelyn Canabal-Torres SPAN371 Expecting an A Anonymous 02/07/2023	She is funny, intelligent, and so very caring for every one of her students. One of the best professors I’ve ever had and my favorite class I’ve taken.
Evelyn Canabal-Torres SPAN203 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/01/2016	She's awesome. To this day, she's probably one of my favorite professors I've had at UMD. She really cares for her students and I learned a lot in her class. I really hope I can take another class with her in my remaining time at UMD. She's fantastic!
Evelyn Canabal-Torres SPAN307 Expecting an A Anonymous 02/01/2014	I have to say Canabal is probably one of the best professors you will ever come across on this campus. She really cares for her students and does the best she can to help out her students. She is very understanding of students situations and does whatever she can to make sure you learn the material. She grades very fairly on all the work as long as you put effort into it. Ridiculously amazing professor.
Evelyn Canabal-Torres SPAN307 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 08/18/2012	I absolutely loved her! She is hilarious. She is quite unorganized though. She really wants to help you out if you ask for help. Very open-minded. She even dropped the midterm for our class because she didn't want to jeopardize our grades.
Evelyn Canabal-Torres SPAN203 Expecting a B Anonymous 04/23/2012	Spanish has always been hard for me but she doesn't make a big deal if you aren't fluent or too willing to participate. She makes funny sound effects and is generally entertaining to be around. I just wish the material was reviewed more after we had moved on from the previous section. We went through the info pretty quickly and that didn't help me on the tests
Evelyn Canabal-Torres SPAN203 Expecting an A Jessica Lee Archer 12/13/2011	Canabal is great, I would recommend her. If you put in the effort to participate and speak spanish in class you should do well. Its not easy for everyone, but if you have taken spanish before you should be able to survive.
Evelyn Canabal-Torres SPAN203 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/03/2011	Really great teacher overall. She gives you the opportunity to learn through experience rather than memorizing charts and vocabulary from the book. Best Spanish teacher I've had so far.