"class of 1400" just means a given course has an enrollment of 1400 in a given semester, not necessarily that they packed 1400 students into one lecture hall and taught them all at the same time.
1400 is huge. It's common at large state universities for the introductory classes to have somewhere between 200 and 300 students. The professor lectures in a large auditorium, and grading (and questions!) are delegated to a staff of TAs.
If you get a good TA and have some good classmates, it's totally fine. Unfortunately, it's common for your TA to be crap, at which point grading becomes a nightmare.
I avoided all of this by taking introductory classes at the community college, where they teach the same material to classes of 25 students.
Is it a normal thing in the west?
The largest class I’ve been part of in India had 105 students and I thought that was nuts. 1400 is like crazy to me.