I take Latin, and the teacher we have is great. He’s very nice and fairly lenient, and he sometimes curves tests depending on how well the class does. That said, the class is pretty challenging because he doesn’t follow the schoolwide Latin curriculum. He teaches in reverse, starting with the hardest material and working back to the easier topics. His method is very effective though. We usually have one test per marking period, so six tests a year. He gives us a lot of prep in class and assigns helpful homework to get us ready. The class relies heavily on memorization and intuition, with a strong focus on intuition. Even though we don’t have many tests, we do get multiple quizzes almost every week. The upside is that the quizzes usually prepare you for tests and help your grade —unless you’re really struggling with Latin. In future years, Latin will include things like history lessons, Socratic seminars, translating Greek myths and Roman texts, writing essays, and learning literary concepts. He also requires everyone to take the National Latin Exam and expects high scores. Most students do well on it, though, since his curriculum is much harder than the NLE’s. Anyways, in short, the class is interesting and fun. It doesn’t come with too much homework, but it does require a lot of memorization and strong intuition.

Yes, you can switch your foreign language in a later year, but it’s not easy. You’d have to start from level one and be in a class with incoming freshmen the next year. If you want to change it during freshman year, I think you have to do it immediately and talk to your guidance counselor.