![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
I was replying to a comment but my reply got so long I thought I'd move it up to a real entry.... (see http://ginlindzey.livejournal.com/38894.html?nc=2)
****
Well, all I can say is that over the last few years I've realized that our biggest problem with Latin in this country is NOT ignorant administrators, NOT the ignorant public, but rather the teachers. Not all of course. Truly, not all. Perhaps not most? But too many. Too many use morphology to weed out kids so they teach just the select top kids in the school. What a luxury! This also means they often weed out the kids who do NOT learn like the teacher and thus never stretches the teacher to understand more about TEACHING.
The art of teaching/pedagogy is not taught extensively before certification, as one would like, because most professors really aren't into it themselves. Like so many teachers, they just want the students who have already mastered forms and are willing to do whatever it takes to puzzle together meaning, never once checking to see if students are hunting/pecking meaning or reading in word order.
Teachers are not trained to teach AP and unless one takes the time to go to an AP workshop they are left to figure it out on their own. Often it is seen as just too much work or the teacher really has no desire to push the pace or whatever. Or their students aren't up to the task, or so they say.
So, how do you get students that are up to the task? What was done in the past? Well, in the past it was memorize forms your first two years and do tons of stupid, mind-numbing exercises and then in third year you would meet with PASSAGES. Now we have readings up front and teachers who don't know how to use such books well or don't know how to reinforce morphology without going back to old drill and kill.
When I teach I always have in my mind's eye that these students might one day be in AP (however unlikely it was for my previous students--but then, half did end up in an AP class that was really not AP at all). I've vowed to teach pronunciation at the beginning of EACH YEAR so that by the time they are actually IN an AP class dividing words into syllables and figuring out accents before one scans will nto be any big challenge whatsoever. That's simple. BUT I have to be doing that EACH YEAR until they are in AP.
Combined classes are common. That isn't really anyone's fault, just how scheduling goes. But why not have different goals for each group? Extra work for one, research or whatever? Essays? Something.
Oh, and speaking of essays... why not start training them to write essays where the supports are found in the Latin sooner than AP? I have a writing exercise that admittedly I haven't used in a couple of years because of the students I had (bad excuse) and running out of time/shorter class periods. (When you go from a 50 minute hour to a 45 minute hour you lose 18 days worth of class...it does add up.) But I had this writing exercise about why the student liked a particular character in the book. I had the FUNNIEST answers one year.
My point is that there is so much about AP that you could work into your earlier Latin courses so it doesn't all come as shock and overload once you are actually teaching AP.
If you want to build up more confidence in reading passages at home, for instance, then teach different ways to tackle reading passages on one's own. What would you tell your AP kids? Do you want them to keep a running vocab list? Make a note of problem lines? Only write out an English translation for a line that gave them particular problems? Never to write out a translation? To write a summary? To write a summary in Latin??!!! Then you should be training students to do this when the Latin is EASY in book 1 of the course.
Having problems with students doing the assignment early on? Then figure out WHY. Are they scared to make a mistake? Do they get stuck on one word and give up? Are you demanding perfection? Are they demanding perfection of themselves? WHAT?
I keep thinking that if we train our level 1 students well enough, understanding ALL of their disconnects, everywhere they go off the track while the natural A students move on smoothly, we can bring more students up the the advanced levels, and if we do that, we won't have a problem with filling AP classes or having split level classes.
We need to teach intensive and extensive reading skills. I firmly believe that. I truly, truly do. We need to teach disambiguation skills. We need to teach better ways of expanding vocabulary, and I don't know what those are yet, but I've been working on ideas. I do know one thing for sure: all the review games in the world, all the quia.com drills we can write, etc, will not improve the way kids learn and retain vocabulary. I think there are more answers in Rassias and TPR for vocab.
And I'm reminded that I've been relaxing "too much" (haha) this summer when I've never even taught out of Ecce before and should be thinking up where I'll be taking the level 2 kids (and level 3?). Level 1 I'm going to use CLC. But.... the Ecce kids.... heck, I don't even have a file of materials. I know there are vocabulary issues with Ecce because there are no master lists... so which words? Heh! All of them...
Just food for thought....
****
Well, all I can say is that over the last few years I've realized that our biggest problem with Latin in this country is NOT ignorant administrators, NOT the ignorant public, but rather the teachers. Not all of course. Truly, not all. Perhaps not most? But too many. Too many use morphology to weed out kids so they teach just the select top kids in the school. What a luxury! This also means they often weed out the kids who do NOT learn like the teacher and thus never stretches the teacher to understand more about TEACHING.
The art of teaching/pedagogy is not taught extensively before certification, as one would like, because most professors really aren't into it themselves. Like so many teachers, they just want the students who have already mastered forms and are willing to do whatever it takes to puzzle together meaning, never once checking to see if students are hunting/pecking meaning or reading in word order.
Teachers are not trained to teach AP and unless one takes the time to go to an AP workshop they are left to figure it out on their own. Often it is seen as just too much work or the teacher really has no desire to push the pace or whatever. Or their students aren't up to the task, or so they say.
So, how do you get students that are up to the task? What was done in the past? Well, in the past it was memorize forms your first two years and do tons of stupid, mind-numbing exercises and then in third year you would meet with PASSAGES. Now we have readings up front and teachers who don't know how to use such books well or don't know how to reinforce morphology without going back to old drill and kill.
When I teach I always have in my mind's eye that these students might one day be in AP (however unlikely it was for my previous students--but then, half did end up in an AP class that was really not AP at all). I've vowed to teach pronunciation at the beginning of EACH YEAR so that by the time they are actually IN an AP class dividing words into syllables and figuring out accents before one scans will nto be any big challenge whatsoever. That's simple. BUT I have to be doing that EACH YEAR until they are in AP.
Combined classes are common. That isn't really anyone's fault, just how scheduling goes. But why not have different goals for each group? Extra work for one, research or whatever? Essays? Something.
Oh, and speaking of essays... why not start training them to write essays where the supports are found in the Latin sooner than AP? I have a writing exercise that admittedly I haven't used in a couple of years because of the students I had (bad excuse) and running out of time/shorter class periods. (When you go from a 50 minute hour to a 45 minute hour you lose 18 days worth of class...it does add up.) But I had this writing exercise about why the student liked a particular character in the book. I had the FUNNIEST answers one year.
My point is that there is so much about AP that you could work into your earlier Latin courses so it doesn't all come as shock and overload once you are actually teaching AP.
If you want to build up more confidence in reading passages at home, for instance, then teach different ways to tackle reading passages on one's own. What would you tell your AP kids? Do you want them to keep a running vocab list? Make a note of problem lines? Only write out an English translation for a line that gave them particular problems? Never to write out a translation? To write a summary? To write a summary in Latin??!!! Then you should be training students to do this when the Latin is EASY in book 1 of the course.
Having problems with students doing the assignment early on? Then figure out WHY. Are they scared to make a mistake? Do they get stuck on one word and give up? Are you demanding perfection? Are they demanding perfection of themselves? WHAT?
I keep thinking that if we train our level 1 students well enough, understanding ALL of their disconnects, everywhere they go off the track while the natural A students move on smoothly, we can bring more students up the the advanced levels, and if we do that, we won't have a problem with filling AP classes or having split level classes.
We need to teach intensive and extensive reading skills. I firmly believe that. I truly, truly do. We need to teach disambiguation skills. We need to teach better ways of expanding vocabulary, and I don't know what those are yet, but I've been working on ideas. I do know one thing for sure: all the review games in the world, all the quia.com drills we can write, etc, will not improve the way kids learn and retain vocabulary. I think there are more answers in Rassias and TPR for vocab.
And I'm reminded that I've been relaxing "too much" (haha) this summer when I've never even taught out of Ecce before and should be thinking up where I'll be taking the level 2 kids (and level 3?). Level 1 I'm going to use CLC. But.... the Ecce kids.... heck, I don't even have a file of materials. I know there are vocabulary issues with Ecce because there are no master lists... so which words? Heh! All of them...
Just food for thought....
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Ecce!
Date: 2006-07-02 05:37 pm (UTC)Oh, how I loved Ecce! The adventures of Cornelia and Flavia! Cornelia whined too much, Aurelia was too much of a canicula (I made up the word but I'm sure you'll get the meaning), Sextus was an imp, Marcus was just plain mean, but I wouldn't have enjoyed myself so much using CLC or Oxford or LFA or Jenney's.
::Fondly recalls the days of Latin I, and her first Latin teacher ever, who, while not teaching her all that much Latin, did not hate her...::
I hope it's fun. From what I've heard, the Ecce tapes (CDs?) have decent pronunciation- I learned mine from them, so I guess they can't be all that bad. You have spoken highly of Wheelock, whose recordings I have never encountered, but I believe the Ecce ones serve the purpose well enough.
Re: Ecce!
Date: 2006-07-02 06:22 pm (UTC)I like the Eutropius in book 3. I'm guissing Ecce does book 1 for level 1, book 2 for level 2, book 3 for three. CLC is a little confusing in that you need to do two books in one year unless you're doing middle school. It was perfect for middle school, IMHO, because of the easy way the books can be separated for 7th and 8th grade.
And I'm familiar with the Ecce storyline. I know I've read it before. But this will be my first time teaching from it. I'm trying to decide right now about whether I should take the level 1 book with me on the trip I'm going on in order to read the story and contemplate what grammar my level 2's should know. And I may well have some 3's in a split level.
I've been thinking about the 3's... Think I'll spend some time up front in developing their reading skills, which I'm sure the previous teacher did not. Anyway.
As for Wheelock... you can go to the wheelock website at http://www.wheelockslatin.com and listen to the audio files there....
Re: Ecce!
Date: 2006-07-02 10:06 pm (UTC)And yes, the CLC format had me scratching my head a little. When I subbed for a teacher at a Catholic high school in Champaign, I noticed that she does 1 book a year- if that- focussing on "drill and kill", as you so beautifully put it. Her reward? She has very small classes, only 2 level IV students, and they're all practically asleep.
Re: Ecce!
Date: 2006-07-04 08:38 pm (UTC)But most people don't know how to teach reading theory, or how to help their students through the intermediate stage.... they figure the students either know their stuff and can handle the big authors or they don't, because it's all decoding no matter what the length of sentence is. But it's NOT that at all.... If you develop true reading skills from left to right, and you are developing these skills from the very beginning, then book 3 is a natural.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-03 01:01 am (UTC)These challenges make me LOVE teaching (as I believe they do for you as well). As you seem to indicate, we have to get over the fact that AP is for the "best and brightest" and realize that nearly every student can benefit from a true AP Latin class.
If your experience with an AP workshop has been different, please direct me to it. I would love to grapple with these issues with an expert who cares about them too.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-04 08:46 pm (UTC)Frankly, I have never been to an AP workshop, but I have attended AP sessions at conferences which delt with a variety of issues, like teaching meter or I don't remember what. Maybe how to deal with the essays, and such.
NOTHING ever about why the kids struggle with the readings and what could have made a difference at any point along the way. That's the problem. That is SUCH a problem.
I'm reading a little book right now by Rose Williams called Cicero the Patriot. To know Rose is to love Rose, and to read Rose is to feel like she's right there telling you her take on what happened with her Abilene, Texas drawl. Great little book. And I was thinking if I ever taught AP Cicero I'd want to use it. And this made me ponder HOW.... and I was thinking I would use it at the beginning and have half the class about background materials (this book) and the other half some grammar/sentence structure building/vocabulary building *IN CONTEXT* sort of exercises to mentally strengthen their brains to ready them for the real passages yet to come.
Teaching hunt and peck. God help us all. Some days (and I know this is TOTALLY ARROGANT to say) I feel like I'm the only one that sees what's truly wrong with Latin in this country, that our program closures are not really about teacher shortages but are about too many teachers not being trained well TO TEACH LATIN PROPERLY AS A LANGUAGE to begin with. How many programs have wimpy numbers? How many of those teachers complain about the students instead of looking at themselves? Mind you, I did feel last year that I couldn't adapt what I did any further without losing the rigor I was still maintaining (and even that wasn't too rigorous), but most teachers would never have given the students I had 5 years ago the time of day.
Ah well.