Oh, Ginny, keep pressing what you are doing that makes you feel like you are not doing the right thing. This work with Latin 4 sounds very rich, varied, compelling and wonderful. Of course it leaves you a little disoriented. Latin teachers have not typically (that's your point, right) taught this way, with this freedom. Teaching like this invites students into a depth and into places where they forget that they are in a second language at the same time. Doesn't get any better than that.
My only other offering to you would be to constantly check your speed. What you've reviewed above is a LOT of Latin even for 4th years (if they are really entering into it and not just "covering" it). Constantly give yourself, and them, permission to slow down, go back, re-do, re-visit and go deeper.
BTW, it's not just Latin teachers, as you say. I was recently in a large district meeting where a modern language teacher insisted that "we all must be on the same page of the book, giving the same tests, doing the same units because we have to cover X and cover Y and cover Z and cover A and cover B . . . "
Blew my mind. "Covering" never results in language acquisition, but it does allow the high flyers to get their A. Everyone else be damned.
no subject
My only other offering to you would be to constantly check your speed. What you've reviewed above is a LOT of Latin even for 4th years (if they are really entering into it and not just "covering" it). Constantly give yourself, and them, permission to slow down, go back, re-do, re-visit and go deeper.
BTW, it's not just Latin teachers, as you say. I was recently in a large district meeting where a modern language teacher insisted that "we all must be on the same page of the book, giving the same tests, doing the same units because we have to cover X and cover Y and cover Z and cover A and cover B . . . "
Blew my mind. "Covering" never results in language acquisition, but it does allow the high flyers to get their A. Everyone else be damned.