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There was a query on Latinteach the other day from a new/student teacher about reading/translating and some games and such that could be done. While my students will tell you that I'm a lot of fun, I won't do a game unless there's real merit in it and it doesn't take up time that could be spent better.
And I think you CAN do reading activities that seem fun but are not fluff. Anyway, I'm sure I've posted about all of these things here before, if not repeatedly, but I was feeling more my old self when I wrote this post so I thought I'd include it here:
***
There are a variety of ways to approach readings, especially if you are using a book like CLC with a lot of stories and good plots.
Using a reading card occasionally or metaphrasing helps students to see/focus on the morphology.
For instance, take Marcus Sullae murum ostendit (state 11). If you read it one word at a time, covering up the rest of the sentence and only revealing one word at a time, you can metaphrase it:
MARCUS verbed something to someone.
Marcus verbed something TO SULLA.
Marcus verbed THE WALL to Sulla. (Then have them guess the verb!)
Marcus SHOWED the wall to Sulla.
Of course, to do this all the time is slow and tedious.
But what about when in stage 13 you meet in the model sentences: villam et servos curat?
Students start making the house do things, etc. Then I get them to stop and think and metaphrase:
Someone verbed THE HOUSE.
Someone verbed the house AND something.
Someone verbed the house AND the slaves. (What do you think Varica the overseer did?)
He takes care of the house and the slaves.
You can, of course, do this with very long sentences, helping students to see phrasing and even the logic of the Roman sentence.
ANOTHER FUN thing to do with readings, and I've done this with the beast hunt/venatio in stage 8, is to have students act out the reading. I handed out pictures from the internet (laminated) of wolves, fierce dogs, deer, lions, etc. Then I read the story and they needed to follow along and act things out. If they were not acting appropriately, I would ask them in Latin (currisne per portam? NOLI AMBULARE! etc)
ALSO GOOD is questioning in Latin. Focus on only one or two words at a time at first, or two words in contrast. If you have a story with a lot of prepositional phrases, you can use QUO, UBI, and UNDE to emphasize the different types of prepositional phrases. Once we got datives, I was varying between quis and cui. (They are still shaky on that, and we'll do it again next week.)
BTW, I almost always do questioning in a choral response to lower the stress level and raise participation for the group as a whole. After I ask a given question, and if only a few respond, I will ask the same question again so EVERYONE can respond.
***
What I do find--and it's difficult to address in a split level class--is that Latin 2 seems to get bogged down and "less" fun. Why that is, I'm not sure. Part is most definitely that the students who have been slacking all this time are beginning to suffer for it, but part of it--at least I think--is just being in a split level class and not being able to truly build upon things ever day. When we do have a day together, I feel like we are busy trying to answer all the questions and review what they weren't "getting" that I can't do the things I'd like to. For instance, if I had Latin 2 every day, I could read a story with them one day & translate, I could spend the next day with the new story or the old story just doing oral questioning. I feel like so many things have dropped this year; so many I had to compromise on.
I spent yesterday at our Area F JCL convention. Friday night I read certamen questions and just had so much fun. Yesterday I judged dramtic interp and the play competition. ALL I could think about was how much I ENJOYED it. My schedule--the split levels, the English classes, the zero hour class--has kept me from even feeling human this year.
And then these last couple of days, we've talked about things on Latinteach that I actually contributed to. I haven't contributed much these last couple of years and these recent topics reminded me that I do know what I'm doing OR at least know where I'd like to be. I'm not just showing videos in Latin and requiring vocabulary. We're actually READING Latin. I took four students to competition. Of the Latin 1 students, the two that took the reading comprehension test and sight recitation BOTH placed in BOTH events. In the grand scheme of things, *that's* what we are teaching. What a shame that so many students (and teachers?) shy away from these two events--the two events that require no studying, really, if you are taught Latin well in school. Maybe I am doing something right this year after all....
And I think you CAN do reading activities that seem fun but are not fluff. Anyway, I'm sure I've posted about all of these things here before, if not repeatedly, but I was feeling more my old self when I wrote this post so I thought I'd include it here:
***
There are a variety of ways to approach readings, especially if you are using a book like CLC with a lot of stories and good plots.
Using a reading card occasionally or metaphrasing helps students to see/focus on the morphology.
For instance, take Marcus Sullae murum ostendit (state 11). If you read it one word at a time, covering up the rest of the sentence and only revealing one word at a time, you can metaphrase it:
MARCUS verbed something to someone.
Marcus verbed something TO SULLA.
Marcus verbed THE WALL to Sulla. (Then have them guess the verb!)
Marcus SHOWED the wall to Sulla.
Of course, to do this all the time is slow and tedious.
But what about when in stage 13 you meet in the model sentences: villam et servos curat?
Students start making the house do things, etc. Then I get them to stop and think and metaphrase:
Someone verbed THE HOUSE.
Someone verbed the house AND something.
Someone verbed the house AND the slaves. (What do you think Varica the overseer did?)
He takes care of the house and the slaves.
You can, of course, do this with very long sentences, helping students to see phrasing and even the logic of the Roman sentence.
ANOTHER FUN thing to do with readings, and I've done this with the beast hunt/venatio in stage 8, is to have students act out the reading. I handed out pictures from the internet (laminated) of wolves, fierce dogs, deer, lions, etc. Then I read the story and they needed to follow along and act things out. If they were not acting appropriately, I would ask them in Latin (currisne per portam? NOLI AMBULARE! etc)
ALSO GOOD is questioning in Latin. Focus on only one or two words at a time at first, or two words in contrast. If you have a story with a lot of prepositional phrases, you can use QUO, UBI, and UNDE to emphasize the different types of prepositional phrases. Once we got datives, I was varying between quis and cui. (They are still shaky on that, and we'll do it again next week.)
BTW, I almost always do questioning in a choral response to lower the stress level and raise participation for the group as a whole. After I ask a given question, and if only a few respond, I will ask the same question again so EVERYONE can respond.
***
What I do find--and it's difficult to address in a split level class--is that Latin 2 seems to get bogged down and "less" fun. Why that is, I'm not sure. Part is most definitely that the students who have been slacking all this time are beginning to suffer for it, but part of it--at least I think--is just being in a split level class and not being able to truly build upon things ever day. When we do have a day together, I feel like we are busy trying to answer all the questions and review what they weren't "getting" that I can't do the things I'd like to. For instance, if I had Latin 2 every day, I could read a story with them one day & translate, I could spend the next day with the new story or the old story just doing oral questioning. I feel like so many things have dropped this year; so many I had to compromise on.
I spent yesterday at our Area F JCL convention. Friday night I read certamen questions and just had so much fun. Yesterday I judged dramtic interp and the play competition. ALL I could think about was how much I ENJOYED it. My schedule--the split levels, the English classes, the zero hour class--has kept me from even feeling human this year.
And then these last couple of days, we've talked about things on Latinteach that I actually contributed to. I haven't contributed much these last couple of years and these recent topics reminded me that I do know what I'm doing OR at least know where I'd like to be. I'm not just showing videos in Latin and requiring vocabulary. We're actually READING Latin. I took four students to competition. Of the Latin 1 students, the two that took the reading comprehension test and sight recitation BOTH placed in BOTH events. In the grand scheme of things, *that's* what we are teaching. What a shame that so many students (and teachers?) shy away from these two events--the two events that require no studying, really, if you are taught Latin well in school. Maybe I am doing something right this year after all....
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