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I had an offlist discussion last night with a friend regarding a post to a list. The post was innocuous and I'm not trying to be critical, but for a couple of days it bothered me that so many people thought it was great. It was nothing more than something like this: When learning the genitive case, students were to thump the desk every time the teacher read a word with the genitive.
Doesn't sound so bad, does it?
But think about that for a moment. The ONLY thing you are reinforcing is that the student recognizes -ae,-arum,-i,-orum,-is,-um. Does it teach function?? And when you consider that in CLC when the genitives are introduced they are piggy backing on prepositional phrases so there's another visual cue. I actually like this/don't mind this because when I teach genitives (and ablatives) I do it with these phrases:
in villA fEminae
in villIs fEminArum
in hortO amIcI
in hortIs amIcOrum
in nave senis
in nave senum
(but I digress)
Just RECOGNIZING the endings is low down on Blooms Taxonomy of cognitive development. UNDERSTANDING MEANING is higher--synthesis/analysis.
We make a big mistake, I think, as teachers when we emphasize learning endings SEPARATE from meaning when we put such a big emphasis on ending recognition without tying it DIRECTLY to meaning.
Lurk on the various lists. I noticed on the Ecce list (I think) the other day there was this missive of despair--students weren't connecting function to endings.
Big surprise? NO, it's not a big surprise. We are so totally unaware of how we teach and where the pitfalls are, aren't we?
I had a teacher take me to task because my graduating 7th graders can't decline a noun. I use, as I've said before, model sentences that just use Nom Dat Acc, which is all they learn. I'm not saying these sentences are the best thing nor necessarily advocating that everyone use them, but my students learn endings IN THE CONTEXT OF A SENTENCE and thus MEANING is constantly tied to the learning of the endings. Constantly.
Yes, I use gimmicks too, but am keenly aware that that's what they are, and that they are low level on Blooms Taxonomy. And I keep bringing up Blooms because I think it is a clear way for us to examine why things go wrong with our programs--why Johnny can't read Latin. If we are forcing Johnny to go from rote memory to synthesis on his own in one leap, we are asking for Johnny to fail. We are creating our own class enrollment problems.
Complain all you want about how hard it is to teach Latin 3 or Latin 4 in a split level class. But have you ever considered that the way we teach is WHY we can't keep enrollment up?
Are we really getting students to USE THE LANGUAGE/INTERNALIZE THE LANGUAGE when we ask them to thump the desk when they "see" a certain set of endings??
It's like teaching numbers. Can you count higher than 20? When you taught numbers, what did you do? I often count up students so that they are at least competent at counting to 20 (and a bit higher). But do we really require students to USE the numbers??
I have this idea about an exercise I want to do next year. I want to teach numbers and then have students go home and measure things in digits, palms and paces--using their own finger widths, palms and paces. The requirement will be that the items have to be measured outloud, perhaps with a partner. Oh, heck, maybe I'll try it out with this last group of exploratory students... After all, all the test prep we're doing for mandated testing is cutting into what I usually do. Why not change it all up, even if I'm not sure that these students are up to the challenge. Might be fun.
Right, digressing again.
The point, though, like with playing cards in Latin, is that at some point you get PAST thinking about what word to use in Latin and are just USING the Latin. I see a slugbug now (VW beetle) and immediately think cochinella and often the color without having to translate through English. That is, if I see a bright blue slugbug I immediately sing out (if my kids are in the car) cochinella caerulea nulla cochinella retrO! Some small part of my brain has internalized this and doesn't need to analyze or synthesize, it just goes straight to Latin. And I'm getting that way with cards too. I want to get to a point where I don't have to force myself to think in Latin but that I just automatically do it.
And what we do with exercises like these will transfer to reading Latin. But unfortunately, as long as we're still obsessed about STUDENTS MUST BE ABLE TO DECLINE AND REGURGITATE ALL ENDINGS OF EVERYTHING, we won't get to internalizing meaning and developing true langauge skills.
In fact, we ought to be able to work more on developing language skills in class with activities such as the measuring activity I described above, etc, and have the readings be half homework that reinforce the activities.
For genitives, wouldn't it be better to develop some sort of activity of having an item that belongs to a kid, passing it around like until, well, I don't know, the music stops, and then have everyone say something like "ego librum Marci (non) habeo"? Yeah, why not? The teacher could say, "habesne librum Marci?" so the student was hearing what they were supposed to reply in the genitive, and it becomes an automatic response. Then it could be changed to be librum Iuliae, librum Caesaris, libros puellarum, libros puerorum, libros senum (or something).
Maybe there can be some reward to the game for having the book when the music ends or something. I dunno. Maybe this is lame.
But it is NOT thumping a desk just because you see an -ae after a prepositional phrase, which is the only indication in CLC in Stage 17 & 18 that this is not a dative. That's too simple, that's too low level, and worst of all, it doesn't help internalize the endings in any way.
But in a final confession: I didn't do anything this creative with my own 8th graders, I admit. Sometimes it takes sitting back and hearing what others are doing that you feel in your gut is wrong that makes you realize what you really should be doing too. I used my model phrase (above) and hammered that, which wasn't very creative, perhaps, but got the job done adequately with meaning tied to the endings. And perhaps too as this year has unfolded with all of the serious problems at my school I've lost my inspiration while at school.
And that happens to all of us, does it not? But we can't stop thinking about teaching or there will be no point in teaching next year.
Doesn't sound so bad, does it?
But think about that for a moment. The ONLY thing you are reinforcing is that the student recognizes -ae,-arum,-i,-orum,-is,-um. Does it teach function?? And when you consider that in CLC when the genitives are introduced they are piggy backing on prepositional phrases so there's another visual cue. I actually like this/don't mind this because when I teach genitives (and ablatives) I do it with these phrases:
in villA fEminae
in villIs fEminArum
in hortO amIcI
in hortIs amIcOrum
in nave senis
in nave senum
(but I digress)
Just RECOGNIZING the endings is low down on Blooms Taxonomy of cognitive development. UNDERSTANDING MEANING is higher--synthesis/analysis.
We make a big mistake, I think, as teachers when we emphasize learning endings SEPARATE from meaning when we put such a big emphasis on ending recognition without tying it DIRECTLY to meaning.
Lurk on the various lists. I noticed on the Ecce list (I think) the other day there was this missive of despair--students weren't connecting function to endings.
Big surprise? NO, it's not a big surprise. We are so totally unaware of how we teach and where the pitfalls are, aren't we?
I had a teacher take me to task because my graduating 7th graders can't decline a noun. I use, as I've said before, model sentences that just use Nom Dat Acc, which is all they learn. I'm not saying these sentences are the best thing nor necessarily advocating that everyone use them, but my students learn endings IN THE CONTEXT OF A SENTENCE and thus MEANING is constantly tied to the learning of the endings. Constantly.
Yes, I use gimmicks too, but am keenly aware that that's what they are, and that they are low level on Blooms Taxonomy. And I keep bringing up Blooms because I think it is a clear way for us to examine why things go wrong with our programs--why Johnny can't read Latin. If we are forcing Johnny to go from rote memory to synthesis on his own in one leap, we are asking for Johnny to fail. We are creating our own class enrollment problems.
Complain all you want about how hard it is to teach Latin 3 or Latin 4 in a split level class. But have you ever considered that the way we teach is WHY we can't keep enrollment up?
Are we really getting students to USE THE LANGUAGE/INTERNALIZE THE LANGUAGE when we ask them to thump the desk when they "see" a certain set of endings??
It's like teaching numbers. Can you count higher than 20? When you taught numbers, what did you do? I often count up students so that they are at least competent at counting to 20 (and a bit higher). But do we really require students to USE the numbers??
I have this idea about an exercise I want to do next year. I want to teach numbers and then have students go home and measure things in digits, palms and paces--using their own finger widths, palms and paces. The requirement will be that the items have to be measured outloud, perhaps with a partner. Oh, heck, maybe I'll try it out with this last group of exploratory students... After all, all the test prep we're doing for mandated testing is cutting into what I usually do. Why not change it all up, even if I'm not sure that these students are up to the challenge. Might be fun.
Right, digressing again.
The point, though, like with playing cards in Latin, is that at some point you get PAST thinking about what word to use in Latin and are just USING the Latin. I see a slugbug now (VW beetle) and immediately think cochinella and often the color without having to translate through English. That is, if I see a bright blue slugbug I immediately sing out (if my kids are in the car) cochinella caerulea nulla cochinella retrO! Some small part of my brain has internalized this and doesn't need to analyze or synthesize, it just goes straight to Latin. And I'm getting that way with cards too. I want to get to a point where I don't have to force myself to think in Latin but that I just automatically do it.
And what we do with exercises like these will transfer to reading Latin. But unfortunately, as long as we're still obsessed about STUDENTS MUST BE ABLE TO DECLINE AND REGURGITATE ALL ENDINGS OF EVERYTHING, we won't get to internalizing meaning and developing true langauge skills.
In fact, we ought to be able to work more on developing language skills in class with activities such as the measuring activity I described above, etc, and have the readings be half homework that reinforce the activities.
For genitives, wouldn't it be better to develop some sort of activity of having an item that belongs to a kid, passing it around like until, well, I don't know, the music stops, and then have everyone say something like "ego librum Marci (non) habeo"? Yeah, why not? The teacher could say, "habesne librum Marci?" so the student was hearing what they were supposed to reply in the genitive, and it becomes an automatic response. Then it could be changed to be librum Iuliae, librum Caesaris, libros puellarum, libros puerorum, libros senum (or something).
Maybe there can be some reward to the game for having the book when the music ends or something. I dunno. Maybe this is lame.
But it is NOT thumping a desk just because you see an -ae after a prepositional phrase, which is the only indication in CLC in Stage 17 & 18 that this is not a dative. That's too simple, that's too low level, and worst of all, it doesn't help internalize the endings in any way.
But in a final confession: I didn't do anything this creative with my own 8th graders, I admit. Sometimes it takes sitting back and hearing what others are doing that you feel in your gut is wrong that makes you realize what you really should be doing too. I used my model phrase (above) and hammered that, which wasn't very creative, perhaps, but got the job done adequately with meaning tied to the endings. And perhaps too as this year has unfolded with all of the serious problems at my school I've lost my inspiration while at school.
And that happens to all of us, does it not? But we can't stop thinking about teaching or there will be no point in teaching next year.
