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Day 1 of the committee for developing the new certification test for Texas. We have a great crew of people on the committee--teachers and esp the group leader from ETS.
I had no idea that there were corresponding standards developed for teachers to go alone with the standards developed for students in the state. And I think this is a good thing, I think it's getting people to reconsider the importance of some items that were left out in the past as being something that would discourage people from becoming certified to teach in Latin--like ORAL LATIN.
Suddenly there's recognition that a beginning teacher would DEFINITELY need to be able to pronounce Latin well on the first day.
Amazingly, there are still some teachers who balk at the idea that they should need to be able to "listen" to Latin. And yet, we ask this of our certamen students.
Perhaps if we had to do this ourselves, we would learn how to teach this skill. Micrologues, which I've done a few times each year (but not too often), develop listening skills, I think, plus they do tie in dictation to a story line.
But here's the question that keeps coming up: WHY do we think certain things are important? I have no problem with dictation because I think it causes one to focus on sounds and syllables. But then I was brought up on phonics and dictation and diagramming. It's just ONE of MANY tools to help train the brain.
The brain is an interesting organ. My two sons are so different in their learning styles. My husband and I are different in our learning styles. And yet, you can find teachers who are very rigid in their learning and teaching styles, and feel threatened by anything they aren't sure of. HOW can we possibly expect our students get beyond language learning anxieties if we ourselves are afraid to take risks to learn something new?
SO WHAT if you choke on dictation at first? Or perhaps, not so what.... After all, we're not like our students; it's not like we are unfamiliar with Latin. No EXPERIENCED teacher should bomb something like this because THE WORDS SHOULD BE FAMILIAR. And, frankly, the macrons should NOT be an issue if the words are fixed in your head....
I guess...I guess because of the way I was taught when young (English, not Latin) I learned to HEAR what I wrote and to WRITE what I heard. But perhaps we've all gotten to that point that we're so afraid to be JUDGED and thus possibly considered STUPID, we are afraid to risk failure.
You know what I say? Take up a sport. Learn how to play and enjoy but still lose. Learn how to be a participant and take risks. Learn how to find the FUN in anything. Stop thinking about the grade, stop thinking about whether you might seem stupid and just enjoy--enjoy it like a game that challenges the brain.
But then, I don't understand people who don't strive to become better at what they do. I didn't start playing soccer until I was 26 and I'm 42 now. I'm not great, but I wouldn't be anyone's last pick either. Each year my playing improves because I want to be able to enjoy the game more. Winning would be nice, but I don't care. I want to ENJOY THE GAME MORE.
And all the things I strive for in Latin, especially pronunciation, is all about ENJOYING Latin more and helping others to ENJOY Latin. I thoroughly enjoy reading Latin outloud. It's richer, more interesting, more alive that way. We can leave Latin dead. We can leave it on the page and insult it with parsing and declining and conjugating without consideration to pronunciation. We can continue to just pick apart sentences, decoding them, torturing them, and reinforcing the erroneous idea that Latin cannot be read like any other language. Or we can use all of our senses, like we use with English, to acquire Latin.
I guarantee you, my own children would have NO INTEREST in reading if I didn't make reading fun. I still read to them, read with them, and read around them. They broaden their vocabulary because they hear me reading new words to them. But we're not willing to do such things with our Latin students?
There's so much more we could do if we would ALL get over our paranoia about seeming foolish. If we all focused on being LIFE LONG learners.... well, I just think there'd be a lot more we could do.
Enough rambling.
I had no idea that there were corresponding standards developed for teachers to go alone with the standards developed for students in the state. And I think this is a good thing, I think it's getting people to reconsider the importance of some items that were left out in the past as being something that would discourage people from becoming certified to teach in Latin--like ORAL LATIN.
Suddenly there's recognition that a beginning teacher would DEFINITELY need to be able to pronounce Latin well on the first day.
Amazingly, there are still some teachers who balk at the idea that they should need to be able to "listen" to Latin. And yet, we ask this of our certamen students.
Perhaps if we had to do this ourselves, we would learn how to teach this skill. Micrologues, which I've done a few times each year (but not too often), develop listening skills, I think, plus they do tie in dictation to a story line.
But here's the question that keeps coming up: WHY do we think certain things are important? I have no problem with dictation because I think it causes one to focus on sounds and syllables. But then I was brought up on phonics and dictation and diagramming. It's just ONE of MANY tools to help train the brain.
The brain is an interesting organ. My two sons are so different in their learning styles. My husband and I are different in our learning styles. And yet, you can find teachers who are very rigid in their learning and teaching styles, and feel threatened by anything they aren't sure of. HOW can we possibly expect our students get beyond language learning anxieties if we ourselves are afraid to take risks to learn something new?
SO WHAT if you choke on dictation at first? Or perhaps, not so what.... After all, we're not like our students; it's not like we are unfamiliar with Latin. No EXPERIENCED teacher should bomb something like this because THE WORDS SHOULD BE FAMILIAR. And, frankly, the macrons should NOT be an issue if the words are fixed in your head....
I guess...I guess because of the way I was taught when young (English, not Latin) I learned to HEAR what I wrote and to WRITE what I heard. But perhaps we've all gotten to that point that we're so afraid to be JUDGED and thus possibly considered STUPID, we are afraid to risk failure.
You know what I say? Take up a sport. Learn how to play and enjoy but still lose. Learn how to be a participant and take risks. Learn how to find the FUN in anything. Stop thinking about the grade, stop thinking about whether you might seem stupid and just enjoy--enjoy it like a game that challenges the brain.
But then, I don't understand people who don't strive to become better at what they do. I didn't start playing soccer until I was 26 and I'm 42 now. I'm not great, but I wouldn't be anyone's last pick either. Each year my playing improves because I want to be able to enjoy the game more. Winning would be nice, but I don't care. I want to ENJOY THE GAME MORE.
And all the things I strive for in Latin, especially pronunciation, is all about ENJOYING Latin more and helping others to ENJOY Latin. I thoroughly enjoy reading Latin outloud. It's richer, more interesting, more alive that way. We can leave Latin dead. We can leave it on the page and insult it with parsing and declining and conjugating without consideration to pronunciation. We can continue to just pick apart sentences, decoding them, torturing them, and reinforcing the erroneous idea that Latin cannot be read like any other language. Or we can use all of our senses, like we use with English, to acquire Latin.
I guarantee you, my own children would have NO INTEREST in reading if I didn't make reading fun. I still read to them, read with them, and read around them. They broaden their vocabulary because they hear me reading new words to them. But we're not willing to do such things with our Latin students?
There's so much more we could do if we would ALL get over our paranoia about seeming foolish. If we all focused on being LIFE LONG learners.... well, I just think there'd be a lot more we could do.
Enough rambling.
