VCU Foreign Language

Picking up language is pretty much my number one skill. Some people are good at math, some at science, some at sports- I'm good at language. I was so excited for my first college language class- I had gotten a 5 on my AP Spanish exam, so I was expecting great things from the higher level classes. So imagine my surprise when I attended my first spanish course and found that I was essentially the only person in my class who could even speak at a passable level of fluency. I was in a 300 level Spanish Conversation class- obviously, we were expected to only speak Spanish in class, no english allowed, and in order to reach the 300 level, you'd have to have experience with the language. At least, I assumed most people would understand that upon enrolling. Literally only three other people in the class could communicate efficiently in Spanish- and the teacher was really just awful. She's a native speaker, but a terrible teacher, completely unable to communicate the essentials of grammar, syntax, or cultural reference needed to achieve fluency in the language. Not only that, she commonly misunderstood student's questions, misinforming them and neglecting to correct their linguistic flaws. I thought, "maybe it's just this teacher, or just this language. Maybe if I try another tongue I'll see better results." Not so. I'm taking an elementary French class this semester and am seeing the same problems. The teacher, a French native, has a better handle on grammar then my former Spanish teacher (in fact, he's extraordinarily knowledgeable about French grammar) but is also a pretty rotten teacher. Not only is it almost impossible to understand him when he speaks so I miss almost all of the assignments he give us, he relies on the use of an online textbook that doesn't sync up with our lesson plan at all. He speaks French well, but he can barely teach it. I feel bad, because I was really excited to expand my knowledge of other languages at this diverse school, but that just isn't the case.
Have you had a similar experience here at VCU? If not, what made your experience more positive? Is there hope for students hoping to master a foreign language here at VCU?